You can wear your propeller beanie cap with pride—and more than a little functionality—during CapNet at Design West 2013. In fact, sponsor Synapse Wireless expects participants to create the world’s largest 802.15.4 wireless mesh network of propeller beanie hats.
It all starts with Cool Beanies! A Mesh Networked Cranial Cooling System on Tuesday, April 23 from 9:15 to 10:15 a.m. During this lecture, Synapse Wireless chief technology officer David Ewing will explain the hardware components and software code that enable the CapNet beanies to work with each other. The CapNet beanies include motors, temperature sensors, accelerometers, multiple LED lights, and batteries.
Next, participants can build their own beanie at Mesh Yourself! Program Your Very Own Wireless Mesh Networked Propeller Beanie Hat! During the hands-on lab, participants will get their own beanie and learn how to create simple applications in Python and load these applications into their beanies “over the air” to customize their control and communications features. Participants also will receive wireless USB sticks to continue experimenting with their CapNet beanies after Design West. The lab will be available at Booth 2144 on April 23 at noon and at 1, 2, 3, and 4 p.m.
Finally, it’s time to party at the CapNet Contest, also at booth 2144 on April 23 from 6 to 6:15 p.m. Synapse Wireless hopes to see about 250 CapNet training participants gather to create the world’s largest mesh network of propeller beanie hats. Through an application loaded in each hat, CapNet participants will join together to select the winner of a state-of-the-art Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 Quadricopter featuring forward-facing video cameras that can be controlled via an iPod touch, iPhone, iPad, or Android device.
CapNet is based on the Synapse Wireless SNAP wireless operating system. According to the company, small, low-power SNAP-enabled wireless modules can be used to create self-forming, instant-on, or self-healing wireless networks that can control and monitor anything from anywhere. Applications that run on the nodes in the network, Synapse Wireless says, are easy to create or modify efficiently without requiring embedded programming skills.
If you can’t make it to Design West, you can still win your own CapNet beanie at http://m2m.synapse-wireless.com/capnet2013. Everyone who enters will get a sensor library, gerbers/schematics, and script examples from Synapse Wireless.