NYCR Delicious Cake at Yahoo Open Hack Day NYC 2009

 Arduino, Hacks, Hardware, NYCResistor  3 Responses »
Oct 262009
 
Bill, Alicia, Hilary, Diana and the Cake

Bill, Alicia, Hilary, Diana and the Cake

NYC Resistor made a huge showing at Yahoo Open Hack Day NYC this year.  Team Makerbot showed up with the New York Toast, featuring their latest “Frostruder” prototype, an amazing attachment which turns the Makerbot 3D printer into a confectioner’s dream.  And in the spirit of edible technology, Alicia, Bill, Diana and Hilary gathered to create the “Delicious Cake.” The cake was, in fact, NOT a lie.

The Cake represents the sentiment – positive, neutral or negative – of a keyword as represented on Delicious.com, Yahoo’s social bookmarking service. The cake was made to look like the Delicious.com logo, and LED “faces” were used to indicate the sentiment. Hilary wrote the code for the sentiment analysis, Bill wrote the code that drove the Arduino controller, Diana soldered the LED faces, and Alicia assembled the electronics and decorated the cake itself.

You can see more of the cake at Alicia’s Flickr Stream or at Bill’s. We were also featured on CNN: http://bit.ly/ddNm3

Find out more at Diana and Hilary’s blogs:

Diana’s blog: http://fashionnerd.com/2009/10/yahoo-open-hackday-nyc/

Hilary’s blog: http://www.hilarymason.com/blog/yahoo-openhacknyc-the-del-icio-us-cake/

Rework Apple In-Ear Headphones for Nokia n97 (And other weird devices)

 Hacks, Hardware  11 Responses »
Sep 282009
 

Tweaked Apple In-Ear Headphone

I bought these fantastic Apple In-Ear headphones for my iPod 80GB several months back for $79, and found that they worked well with my Macbook.  I’ve since moved on from both the iPod and the Macbook, settling on a Nokia n97 mobile phone.  I found that the Apple headphones don’t work with these devices naturally and distort the sound. Continue reading »

269 Electronics

 electronics, Hardware, NYCResistor, Shopping  15 Responses »
Sep 162009
 

IMG_0120

On the way home from work today I stopped by 269 Electronics in Chinatown. From the outside this looks like a typical Canal Street junk store, with a big spread of knockoff watches, perfume, mp3 players, etc. on display. However in the back they have a special counter area devoted to electronic components. One wall was covered with electrolytic capacitors and diodes in blister packs. The clerk I spoke to said they had other discrete components, like transistors and resistors, in an array of drawers in the back. He pulled out an NTE catalog for me to look through when I asked them what they stocked. They also had bins of various loose connectors, copper-plated PCBs, perf board, battery holders, multimeters, Velleman kits, and lots of other odds and ends on display. Bottom line: it’s not exactly Fry’s, but for hardware hackers in New York City, it’s definitely on the short list of places to get parts when you can’t wait for an overnight delivery from DigiKey or Mouser. Check it out yourself sometime:

269 Electronics Inc.
269 Canal St.
New York, NY 10013
(212) 625-0405
Open Monday-Saturday 10:00 am – 6:30 pm

More photos after the break: Continue reading »

Last weekend’s Interactive Party round-up!

 Awesome Awegust!!!, electronics, Event, Events, Hardware, NYCResistor, Party, Projects, Video  3 Responses »
Aug 282009
 

Last weekend we had a party to celebrate Awesome August. I am sure some folks missed it. That really sucks for them, because it was probably the best party we’ve ever thrown. A great deal of awesome was experienced by all. Awesome beer, awesome projects, and awesome events… all with awesome people. I’ve tossed up a time lapse of the event. Sorry about the flag getting in the way near the end, that’s just bad planning on my part. I promise to do better next time, in fact next time pretty much everything will be better. So look forward to the the next event, it’s going to be epic.

Adam Cyborg

Justin had a really fun project setup using the Spooky Box from last Halloween. Check out the twitter feed from the party here. Source code for this project is coming!

The Lite Bright also built by Justin, ( and a team of dedicated individuals ) was there and enjoyed by all. Here is a shot of it early in the evening before people went crazy with it.

Foam Stuff

Charles had a station set up with approximately one kilogram of Crayola Model Magic. Guests were encouraged to grab a hunk and make something of their own.

Charles also brought a Wimshurst machine he picked up at a school physics lab and repaired. In this shot we study the effects of electricity on George Washington’s head.

Also making an appearance was Ranjit’s automated piano working together with Eric Skiff’s Monome to produce a really awesome interactive piece.

Jared posted his Photos : Here

We also had a live DJ, and a few other projects I failed to mention. I know I missed a lot. Send me a note and I’ll add it.

 Posted by at 12:27 pm

#AwesomeAugust: Arduino Fire Alarm v1.0 w/Flame Sensor

 Arduino, Awesome Awegust!!!, electronics, Hardware, NYCResistor, Projects  2 Responses »
Aug 202009
 

When it comes to hacking, I tend to enjoy practical projects the most.  The Arduino is like physical computing “duct tape” that gives one the ability to “duct tape” things that need constant attention or action. If you need a plant watered, or your fish tank pump monitored, or your bikini-clad friends to set off a musical instrument with just their bodies then the Arduino is just the tool you need. So what about fire?

UV TRON

Close-up of the UV TRON Sensor Tube

Continue reading »

Time Lapse Video How-To

 Arduino, craft night, electronics, Events, Hardware, NYCResistor, photography, robotics, Video, wearable  4 Responses »
Jun 072009
 

So during the Thursday craft night we received a request from one of the hackerspace folks for some time lapse videos of the space over a 24 hour period. They are working on a project that will no doubt be stupendous and magnificent. However this spawned a quick project.

Continue reading »

Noah Zerkin’s DIY Augmented Reality

 Arduino, Augmented Reality, electronics, Games, Hardware, Processing Study Group, wearable  5 Responses »
Apr 072009
 

Noah Zerkin, is a regular at NYC Resistor events and craft nights. Also pretty well known in the local community for his DIY augmented reality work. In fact he gave a quick talk ( his first ever =P ) at IgniteNYC 3. He just posted this video ( saw it via twitter ). I am reposting it so people can get super excited by the work he is doing. It’s amazing stuff. And it can best be described as…. Nintendo eat your heart out.

Or for fans of the wizard… “It’s soooo baaaad…”

 Posted by at 2:00 pm

Rube Goldburg watch winder

 Hardware, Projects, robotics  No Responses »
Feb 202009
 

My parents recently visited my aunt and uncle in china, and while there they picked up some rather nice high end watches direct from the factories. Most of the time, my father prefers his digital, and only wants to wear the watch he picked up in china when he’s in more formal dress. Thing is, the watch he bought is autowinding, so it’s always either dead, or at the very least really wrong every time he puts it on. So he asked me to come up with a crazy contraption to wind his watch. This is what I came up with:

watch_winder_1

Check out the pipetastic mad whack watch winder.

 Posted by at 1:25 pm
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