Caspar Menkman

Ubi de Feo

Dev Camp Day 5

It feels like introducing Ubi is not necessary. He has been all over the place, but as he is yet to feature in one of our blog posts I will shortly present an insight into our Italian mastermind. Ubi is the person with the biggest ikTag (RFID-tag) around. It also says pornstar. Last year he was a participant and this year he has been a trainer/assistant for the hackers.

What was the hardest thing you were confronted with during the camp?
Making a circuitboard to control the drill that operated the tapisserie de bayeux knitting machine.

Why was this hard?
I had to twiddle with the magnetic sensors. This went wrong twice. The movement of the cord should trigger the sensors to measure the distance it has until it reaches the end of the machine. When it reaches this point it should stop. I had to implement the possibility of bilateral movement, with the drill turning its movements the other way around when it reaches the end of the fabric.

What installations would you have liked to work on?
Well of course all of them are interesting and I participated in the conceptualizing phase of many of the projects. But I would have loved to work more extensively on both the bayeux machine and the ikBijt installation.

What do you feel has been your role this camp?
I tried to solve problems. Reverse engineer the concepts. You ask me what my role is? I am the Mr. Wolf of Dev Camp '10.