News

NEES/QCN Open House for Future Teachers
NEES@UCSB personnel hosted an open house for future science teachers in the Givertz Graduate School of Education at UC Santa Barbara in April 2013. Sandra Seale and Francesco Civilini, NEES project specialists, gave a training session in “Make Your Own Earthquake” using the QCN sensor. The teachers downloaded the QCN software and practiced making their own quakes and printing their graphs.

Find out more information about NEES and Make-Your-Own-Earthquake here. 24 Apr 2013, 21:40:23 UTC · Comment

BBC (UK) TV - Looking for videos of participants - what do you think of QCN?
Dear all,

We are working on a piece for British television for a science programme called the Dara O’Briain Science Club that will be broadcast in the UK to several million and many more around the world. We are working with the project leader Elizabeth Cochran to make a short insert for a prime time science show explaining the QCN. Elizabeth has kindly given me permission to contact the community via this forum. We are trying to demonstrate the success of the network so far – show how this is really just at the beginning but already people from all over the world are taking part.

We are looking for participants to film themselves to tell us why they got involved with the network and what it means to them. It could be you, your partner, your children – anybody taking part! It could be filmed on an iPhone, webcam or similar – the quality isn’t important. We’d hope you’d be able to upload the video to a private YouTube channel on use drop box – a free upload service: https://www.dropbox.com/home

Ideally what we are looking for is:

• Your first name – and why you joined the quake Cather network – (about 30 seconds)
• What are your hopes for the network? - (20 seconds roughly)
• Wave at camera with name on card or similar (licence to be creative here!) - (about 20 seconds).

Please contact me directly on duncan.singh@bbc.co.uk if you have any questions and to submit short videos. We aim to make a montage with the footage for use in the programme – to demonstrate the scale and success of the network.

Thank you for your help!

Duncan 25 Mar 2013, 12:13:41 UTC · Comment

QCN Featured in TEDx Talk
Project collaborator Debi Kilb gave a TEDx talk on ‘Using Videogames to Cultivate Future Scientists’ which includes a videogame created around the QCN project. Check out the video of her talk here. 5 Mar 2013, 19:18:34 UTC · Comment

Windows 8 Compatibility and QCN
We are seeing some trouble with the JoyWarrior USB sensors (particularly the 24F14) and Windows 8. It appears to be a Microsoft issue, ie somehow they are showing the sensor correctly but the values are all "0" for x/y/z. If you are using Windows 8 or thinking of moving to it, you may want to look into an alternative sensor such as the ONavi or Phidget.com models, which run fun in Windows 8. 17 Jan 2013, 23:02:51 UTC · Comment

New Versions of QCN for All Platforms (v 7.29)
I've just put up new versions of QCN/BOINC and QCNLive for all platforms, due to upgrades in the BOINC libraries as well as the development tools on Mac (Xcode4) and Windows (VS2010). There is no longer support for the MotionNode accelerometer, nor for the Mac PowerPC (PPC) platform (PPC Macs will still receive work but end at version 7.17). Support has been added for all Phidgets accelerometers (1042, 1044, 1056). These new versions will be downloaded to your host computer via BOINC at the end of your current workunit (usually within one day). If you wish to get them now, press the "Reset Project" button on your BOINC Manager. This may also be a good time to make sure that your computer location is set via the "Computer Location Info" button. 13 Jan 2013, 21:41:02 UTC · Comment

QCN in Mexico in the News
QCN has "sister projects in Taiwan (qcn.twgrid.org) and Mexico (www.ras.unam.mx). The project in Mexico recently attracted media attention there for their new deployment of our software. If you are in Mexico, you may want to attach to the project there rather than via QCN-Stanford, so as to be part of a denser group of sensors in Mexico.

National Newspaper
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/883074.html

National TV - Channel 4
http://tvolucion.esmas.com/foro-tv/fratal/198899/google-quiere-defender-internet-onu/#
Starts 11:02

National TV - Channel 7
http://www.aztecanoticias.com.mx/capitulos/tecnologia/129767/punto-mx-21-de-noviembre-de-2012
Starts 9:37

UNAM News
http://www.dgcs.unam.mx/boletin/bdboletin/2012_695.html 1 Dec 2012, 6:14:28 UTC · Comment

New version 7.11 - bug fixes, better trigger detection
I've just put up new versions for all platforms to fix some minor bugs and it should hopefully provide better trigger / event detection, particularly for the ONavi sensors. 5 Sep 2012, 0:25:51 UTC · Comment

QCN & BOINC for Dreamplug micro-Linux Box
Similar to the recent work on the Raspberry Pi - QCN & BOINC now work on the tiny Dreamplug ARM computer. The Phidgets 1056 and ONavi USB sensors work on them (I'm looking into the JoyWarrior problem). The Dreamplug seems to run much better than the Raspberry Pi - probably due to a better/faster USB implementation (although it costs US $159 versus US $ 35 for the Rasp Pi).

Here are the instructions:

http://qcn.stanford.edu/sensor/forum_thread.php?id=881 17 Aug 2012, 18:24:30 UTC · Comment

QCN (& BOINC) for Raspberry Pi Debian "Wheezy" Linux
If you have a Raspberry Pi ($35 ARM GNU Linux computer) and a QCN-approved USB sensor, you may be interested in trying out BOINC and QCN on it. Please refer to this thread on the QCN Sensor Linux Message Board: http://qcn.stanford.edu/sensor/forum_thread.php?id=880 11 Aug 2012, 4:15:40 UTC · Comment

Using the Nintendo Wii Nunchuk on QCN
Here is something of interest to electronics hobbyists: QCN Participant Jonathan Thomson has hacked together a way to use the Nintendo Wii Nunchuk controller as a QCN accelerometer. His work is documented at his blog: http://jethomson.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/using-a-wii-nunchuk-as-an-earthquake-sensor/ 22 May 2012, 12:26:13 UTC · Comment

News is available as an RSS feed