NYC Resistor

So a month ago or so was my older brother’s wedding. I needed to get him a card, but I always felt that the canned card approach to events like weddings especially for direct family members was a bit… too impersonal. So I decided the night before the wedding to put together a card. That attempt failed… largely due to time constraints… Though I did actually pump out the entire 280 LED matrix that night as well as mount the controller chips.

I showed some pictures of the project to my brother on his wedding day and he’s been getting updates when I am in town with time and inclination to finish the card. Today I finally got around to completing the wiring of the card and took some video of a test pattern. Still some bugs left to work out…. but I like the results to date.

Using 2 MAX6952 LED array driver chips from Maxin, and a Boarduino to control the card. Got 500 or so 3mm LEDs from MPJA.com for the array. The back of the array was hand soldered using the LED leds and lead free solder. The faceplate was cut on our laser… and the DXF for it is available on thingaverse (OMFG DOX DROPPED).

Anyways I think DIY greeting cards should be a big part of the coming holiday season… especially with times as they are.

Anyways enjoy the LEDs.

Not wanting to get Tinysaur to get all the spotlight, I bring you… WOOLLY TINY. Like a Woolly Mammoth. But Tiny.

The pattern comes from the epilog website and the assembly was done with a pair of tweezers and a baby syringe full of Elmer’s glue.

If you’ve always wanted your own mini mammoth, or just want to show off you have the steadiest hands of anyone ever, you can pick up the pre-lased parts on Etsy.

So the ‘Human-Robot Interaction’ project based out of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory in England has created ‘Jules’, an androgynous robot [head] that can copy human facial expressions, including eyes, lips and more. The facial expressions of a ‘real’ human are picked up by video camera and then interpreted and driven to ‘Jules’ servo motors overlayed with something resembling human ’skin’. The team from BRL includes Chris Melhuish, Neill Campbell and Peter Jaeckel. Watch the video below to see the amazing movement of the eyes and lips.

All of the excellent sketches contributed for the Spooky Box Halloween party project are up on the wiki. Go download them and wet your appetite for all the great Processing classes coming up!

Sign up for Processing and Arduino - Tomorrow night!!
Sign up for Processing 101: Hello Pixel - November 22nd

Update! New class added at new time! Sign up here!!! I am also going to be teaching this class in the new year!

Sign Up For The Class!

On Saturday, November 22nd, you can harness the power of an Eplilog 35 Watt Laser! In this class you’ll learn everything you need to know to make the ideas in your head become a reality with a laser.

In this two hour class, we’ll walk through all the steps from idea to pressing the “go” button on the laser. We’ll cover safety and basic design skills in Inkscape, the open source vector editor and you’ll learn how to do a burninate test to find out if something is laserable.

After learning the basics, each student will create their own design and lasercut it on the laser! A $10 lab fee is included in the ticket price and covers 12″ x 12″ of 1/8″ acrylic and time on the laser cutter to cut and etch it. Bring a laptop if you’ve got one and design ideas for your own holiday decorations.

Because this class starts insanely early (10AM) I will also be providing bagels and cream cheese. Give me a heads up if you are a vegan and I’ll make sure to have some jam or tofu cream cheese!

After many months, my Kaypro 2 is finally up and running! Weighing in at around 30 lbs, with a 4 Mhz Z-80 processor, 64kb of RAM,  (upgraded!) dual 360kb floppy drives, and the rock-solid CP/M 2.2 operating system, this box is a lean, mean computing machine. NYCR-BBS, anyone?

A hackerspaces is born in Montreal. http://foulab.org/

Voltage, amperage, current, ohms. It’s enough to make your head spin if you’re just getting started making things with electricity. Electricity .01 will give you a handle on the big three of direct current and how to trade them off. After this class you’ll understand voltage, current and resistance, though not why they’re abbreviated E, I and R. We’ll be making electricity from scratch two ways, messing with multimeters, and rocking out with resistors. We will not, alas, be blowing anything up.

Click here to sign up

Sunday, November 16
1 1/2 hours, taught by Max Whitney

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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

I recently updated my arduino ambient orb to use some boards I got cut at a boardhouse in Colorado, and handed off a few of the finished products off to various friends of mine.  Well, my good friend John Erickson tossed together an awesome script for the election returns tonight. The orb starts off dark, and the script periodically checks the election results. As the results come in, the orb will gradually get brighter and brighter blue or red based on who is pulling in the EVs.

I grabbed his script and a spare board I had with me at the office, and used a plastic cup to whip up a quick electoral ‘orb’:

Obama wins!	McCain wins!

I can’t wait to see the results tonight!

You can get the code for the electoral vote script from here and the full code and eagle schematics for the orb here.