NYC Resistor

Join us for Dan Steingart’s class on batteries. He’s a battery researcher at City College and is giving a free class about batteries at NYC Resistor this Wednesday, 8/18 7-9pm. Here’s how he describes it:

You’d like to sever that USB cable and let your device into the wild, but how will it survive? On batteries, of course! But before you let your little one go, spend a little time at Resistor and learn exactly what is going on inside the battery and how to make the best of it.

You’ll learn:
- What voltage really represents
- Why batteries are not getting much lighter
- How to maximize cycle life
- When to use primary vs. secondary cells
- Why batteries heat up
- Why batteries stop retaining charge
- How to mate batteries with energy harvesting devices
- What a battery looks like on the inside

Please bring questions!

Dan

–
Dan Steingart, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering
City College of New York

If you’ve been playing with the Arduino and want to figure out how to go to the next level, this Sunday’s Beyond Arduino class is for you.  Jarek Lupinski is going to be talking about how to breakboard your own designs using bare microcontrollers, how to program this chips using ICSPs, and how to downsize from the Arduino’s ATMega 328/168 to the less expensive ATtiny 45.

Details and registration at http://beyondarduino.eventbrite.com/

Want to learn to create 3D models, but find the user interface for most 3D modeling programs too infuriating? OpenSCAD may be for you! And we're teaching a class on how to use it on Sunday, June 27!

OpenSCAD is "The Programmers Solid 3D CAD Modeler." Rather than learn tricky user interfaces and navigate seemingly endless obscure menus, OpenSCAD uses a simple scripting language to generate 3D models from either existing or new 2D drawings. We'll start in 2D (great for creating designs for the laser cutter) and move into 3D modeling (perfect for MakerBot!).

A basic understanding of computer programming is helpful but not required. Sign up at EventBrite today!

(if you saw this before, don’t worry — I’ve revived it to the front page to encourage more people to come out!)

Us Resistors love electronics and we love music. Often, we find ways to make music using electronics. That’s why we’re really happy to be hosting several workshops with the 2010 International Computer Music Conference that’s here in the New York City area in early June.

Unlike normal Resistor classes, you’ll need to go the Workshops page on the ICMC site to register. Here’s a list of what’s being offered at our space.

• Sunday, May 30th | 4:30pm-7:30pm | Creativity in the Computer Music Curriculum
• Sunday, June 6th | 12pm – 8pm | SuperCollider + Processing (Part 1)
• Monday, June 7th | 9:30am-1:30pm | SuperCollider + Processing (Part 2)

They’re going to be a lot of fun, and they should attract participants from all over the computer music world.

We’ve got the first batch of classes at the new NYC Resistor space online.  Come learn a few things and check out our new digs on stylish 3rd Avenue near downtown Brooklyn.

On Saturday, March 20th, Raphael Abrams does a double header.  At 2PM is the fun and practical Introduction to Electronics, a 3 hour lesson on hooking up batteries to components to make things happen.  Then, starting at 6PM, we’ve got our PCB Design using Eagle class where you learn how to draw out a schematic and PC board that you can either etch yourself or send out for production.

The next day, Sunday the 21st, we’ve got our Arduino & Soldering 101 class where you solder together a Freeduino board then write some simple programs to control it.  This one’s taught by Ryan and Liz and it usually sells out.

Finally for now, Pop-Up Shelby is repeating her Paper Engineering class from the Fall where you’ll learn about how to fold, tape, and cut paper to make all sorts of motion-activated animated designs.

[Graphic courtesy of http://sinbox.org]

The Fun with Coils workshop is coming up – Saturday Feb. 13th from 4-6pm. Mess around with coils to make custom instrument pickups, junkbox loudspeakers, secret transmitters, and more! You can sign up on eventbrite.

htink will be hosting a Linux tutorial, today Tuesday, Jan 26 2010. Both Ben Combee and Myself have volunteered to assist. This will not be at NYC Resistor however, look for it at Bug Labs ( your friendly neighborhood purveyor of fine open source micro-controllers ). I do not work for British Telecom =P.

If you’ve ever wanted some guidance in the Unix world, this is a tremendous opportunity. The folks that will be available to you are all very talented. If you’re interested, more details HERE!

Mitch Altman is in town next, and will be giving one of his famous workshops at NYC Resistor. Mitch has taught thousands of people to solder and make cool things with microcontrollers at his workshops at hacker spaces and hacker conferences and schools almost everywhere. He can teach you, too, if you like.

If you have ever had any curiosity about making something with electronics, then please join us. Anyone and everyone can learn to make cool things. And it’s fun. And easy! You can learn to make something cool with electronics in one workshop, and take your cool project home with you!

*What*: Make Cool Things With Microcontrollers! workshop.
*Where*: NYC Resistor, 397 Bridge Street, 5th Floor.
*When*: 8pm, 29-January, Friday. (It is totally OK to come late.) Stay as little or as long as you like. Most projects take about 1 to 2 hours.
*Who*: It is fun to make things in the friendly community of NYC Resistor. Come join us. All skill levels. 18 years old and up. Everyone is welcome.
*Cost*: Instruction is Free! If you use any kits, reimbursment for kit price is requested ($10 to $20, depending on kit). There will be plenty of cool kits available to build, including:

TV-B-Gone (turn off TVs in public places!)
Brain Machine (Meditate, Hallucinate, and Trip Out!)
LEDcube (cool cube of blinky lights!)
Mignonette Game (play fun games!)
Trippy RGB Waves (interactive colored blinky lights!)
MiniPOV (more cool blinky lights!)
MintyBoost (charge your USB enabled gadgets!)

and for the more advanced:
microcontroller programmers (program all your AVR family chips!), Arduino clones (make just about anything!), and more.

More info on most of most of these projects is available on Mitch’s website: http://www.CornfieldElectronics.com (click on the “maker faire” tab). If you have your own project, please bring it by and make it with us in the friendly community of NYC Resistor.

Mitch is the brains behind Cornfield Electronics, and one of the co-founders of Noisebridge hackerspace in San Francisco. Mitch is best known as the inventor of TV-B-Gone, but his list of great hacks and cool electronics includes a lot of other great projects. When he is not at Noisebridge building awesome and amazing things, he is on the road from hackerspace to Hacker-Con and back again, sharing his love of electronics.

On Saturday, January 9th, we’ve got a great workshop called “CMOS Music : 1-Bit Chiptunes” taught by Phillip Stearns a.k.a Pixel Form. You’ll make a simple music synthesizer using a combination of analog and digital electronics. No programming here, just wiring and learning about musical waveforms.

The next Saturday, the 16th, we have NYC Resistor’s own Ranjit Bhatnagar, a staple of Handmade Music night, helping people make electric guitars out of household items in a class we like to call “Junk Guitar Workshop”.  You bring your own wood for the guitar neck, we supply the rest.

More classes will be posted soon… the Winter is cold, so come down to NYC Resistor for some hot classes!

If you’ve not been closely watching our calendar, you might have missed Shelby’s DIY Paper Engineering class that’s this Saturday, December 5th. Shelby is a new member of the group and a frequent Craft Night attendee. Her day job is designing pop-up books and cards, and this class will be a two-hour introduction to making your own pop-up things.

You can get all of the details and sign up for the class at http://paperengineering.eventbrite.com/.