NYC Resistor

This is an image of actual Cray Super Computer Memory… each of those little rings, is one bit of visible read once memory.  Man has electrical engineering come a long way since then…  The opportunity to photograph this epic piece of electronic history was brought to me by my friend phar, who bought this on I think ebay.  Just thought I’d share the history.

Bill (KD4ISF), Diana (KC2UHB), and I (W2VV) spent a couple of hours at the shop this afternoon building a dual-band Yagi antenna for working ham satellites. Yes, believe it or not, there are multiple satellites orbiting the earth right now that are dedicated to amateur radio. All you need is a license, an inexpensive portable radio, and a weird looking antenna to use them. As of 3:00 pm today, we only had two out of the three, but by 7:00 we were on the roof listening to two different “birds”, SO-50 and AO-51.

We’re just getting our feet wet with this, so stay tuned for future updates as we improve our equipment and skills. In the meantime, why not get your license so you can join in on the fun? All you have to do is read this book (or visit one of the free online study guides) and then take a test given by your local club.

We’ve fleshed out our class schedule through the end of the year, check out some of our awesome upcoming classes!

Software Programming
PHP 001: Getting Started - Nov 8
PHP 101: Variables, Functions, & More - Nov 15
Processing 101: Hello Pixel - Nov 22

Hardware Programming
Arduino Programming 102: If Funky, Get Loopy - Nov 9
Arduino Programming 103: Sensory Overload - Nov 16

Arduino and Processing - Nov 12
Processing + Arduino - Dec 13

Wireless Wearables - Dec 14

General Electronics
Joule Thievery - Nov 15
Electricity .01 - Nov 16

Ever wanted to grow grass in your cubicle? I did. But the grass kept dying. So I made a custom grow light out of LEDs, and now I have the nicest lawn on my block. Build photos, schematic, sourcecode, etc. are on the project page.

Here at Resistor, other people’s technology cast-offs show up on our shelves.  Occasionally we take one down and give it a good thrashing to see whether or not it’s useful.  This time, we have an animation controller manufactured by the strange little company “Gilderfluke” that specializes in robotics controls for the sort of thing you might see at a kid-themed pizza restaurant.  Given that they have an Orlando office, they probably also do business with the big D.

The Gilderfluke device is a heavy I/O, heavy serial process logic controller.  It has facilities for time synchronization between devices, and the company sells add ons to facilitate passing audio over long distances without losing sync as well as driving DMX-equipped theatrical devices.  It’s clearly overkill for Resistor, but only in the sense that we aren’t planning to build a theme park, because otherwise we *love* overkill.  Why use a class 2 laser when you have a perfectly good class 4 available?

This PLC is interesting both because it is a new rabbit hole of neatness, but more importantly because it has lots of LEDs.  Although we are in the age of the organic LED display, where rich text and video can be placed on near about anything - the romance of the LED, the sheer eye-candy of monochromatic lighting will continue to delight us for years to come.

Will keep you updated as we dig out the RS422 adapters and start talking to the world inside these things.

Several of the Resistors made it out to Bug Labs for Alicia’s Open Haus.

Zach (and Jen,) Max, Bill (and Melody,) and Alicia, of course (she’s a Resistor) made it over to Bug Labs for their open haus.  Alicia has arranged a delightful little space with excellent hardware (oh, the joy of corporate sponsorship and a Sparkfun account!)  If you want to go hack there, just contact them and set up some time.  They have all sorts of goodies, like Zigbee boards, Bluetooth transceivers, motion sensors, distance sensors, wire, breadboards, Arduinos, Gumstix, Beagles…  Lots of toys!

We had a good time hanging with the Bug Labs kids!  It’s a fun group and if you’re in New York City it would be worth stopping by.

Now if we can just convince Alicia that Bug Labs really wants Resistor to do a “review” of the stuff.  You know.  That would be real cool… you know…  Alicia?  Hellooooo???

SLED in Cyan color with diffuser

The “SLED” or, Second Life LED (just one L for clarity) is available as an open source, CC’ed design. It is a USB-attached, Arduino-based RGB “lamp” which can be used to indicate various information from the PC, or simply used to brighten a room with a little color.

My goal in building this device, in conjunction with my friend and colleague Andy Fundinger, was to provide a visual indication of activities within the popular 3D online world of Second Life. Many of our friends and peers had business activities within Second Life and wanted a convenient way of keeping an eye on trends or specific events without remaining logged in or while they were away from their desk. While SMS and e-mail notifications are easy to do, none were so reassuring as simply having a blinky light to tell them when something needed attending - such as a vendor or a shop proximity sensor.

The code for the Second Life component is under construction, but you can build this device today! Either grab the Arduino sketch below and load in your own Arduino developer board, or for a smaller design, run off a few of these customized PCBs and enjoy a little SMD soldering. In the future, I intend to build a batch of these for my less technically-inclined Second Life friends, but for now, I’d like to share it with the community. I’ll flesh out the information as time progresses, but the files provided should allow anyone familiar with Eagle, Atmega and Arduino to get their own done for whatever purpose.

SLED circuit boards in the nude

The design is released under a Creative Commons license.
The schematic, board, and bill of materials are here.

The Arduino sketch is here.

(This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Arduino team, but they’re awesome!)

Andrew Schneider is a performance artist, body hacker, and inventor of Experimental Devices for Performance. His inventions are sublime while his performances are spellbinding. He recently lit up IgniteNYC  and the above video comes from the Wall Street Journal’s “Tech Dairy.” More information can be found on Andrew’s website.

Canuck Hackers Hacking Aboot

You may remember Canadia as the red terror of the north. Whose imperialistic aspirations once lead them to invade the United States without any evidence or accusation of wrong doing. But today, I’m going to write not about the unbridled threat to our freedoms that these loyalists bring to the table… but about the awesome hack space that’s starting to really get rolling in Toronto. hacklab.to is housed in the kensington area of toronto above a bar. Seth Hardy and Leigh Honeywell have been working tirelessly for months to see this place get off the ground and from the looks of it they are very nearly close to success. I’m looking forward to seeing and hearing more from these guys. Especially if they start stock piling on siege weapons and molson ice for an impending invasion of the colonies.

Read more about them at their site: http://hacklab.to/

Make:NYC was once again hosted at NYC Resistor. This event is a free event open to all… with one requirement. People who show up are expected to get their hands dirty and make things. At the last meeting we had a windmill energy challenge. 4 teams created windmills in an attempt to generate the most energy. We had some exceptional results. You can find out more about Make:NYC at www.makenyc.org.