There’s nothing like a big party to force some cleaning… would you look at our toilet? I mean… I’m not even sure it was this clean when we moved in.  Someone will think some magic cleaning elves descended upon it in the dead of night.

This is just so you’ve been alerted… that the facilities will be clean for our 4th Annual Interactive Party this coming Saturday June 15.  We’ll have great projects, wine, a DJ and dancing under a great big LED illuminated arch.

Go get tickets now, as they are moving and we’re not sure we’ll have any left to sell at the door… http://interactiveshow2013-eorg.eventbrite.com/#

Ever wanted to trick your nails out with a paint-job worthy of notice?  This is how… and no need to pay a salon $50 for the glory.  We’ll teach you how on Saturday (5:30-8:30pm) after our Laser Class, using templates stamps and other techniques.  We’ll have a small selection of polishes, so if you’re after a specific color combo you may want to bring your own. Tickets still available here— be prepared to come with a base-coat or to add one while you’re there.  GUYS WELCOME! (Remember you can also paint your toes).

Happy Year of the Snake! We’re celebrating the first full moon of the new lunar year with a lantern festival! We’ll meet in Prospect Park on Sunday, February 24, to share our homemade lanterns. And to get ready, we’re holding a lantern-building workshop on Saturday the 23rd at NYC Resistor!

lantern photo by jnthnhys

Lantern-Building Workshop
Saturday, February 23, 5-8PM
$10, for adults (though you’re welcome to make laterns for your kids, and kids can attend on Sunday)
Please RSVP through eventbrite.

Build colorful, safe glowing lanterns with LEDs!

We’ll supply: construction materials and tools, bottomless box of light-emitting diodes, soldering help.
You bring: ideas, 9 volt batteries, colorful tissue papers or plastics, transparent jars/jugs/boxes, portable objects you’d like to decorate with lights, colorful blinky toys, etc.

Lantern Festival
Sunday, February 24, 5:15pm-sunset
$FREE, open to all ages
No RSVP necessary

Prospect Park, Brooklyn
Picnic area just north of Picnic House (enter at Prospect Park West and 5th Street)
[park map, google map]
The closest subways are 2/3 at Grand Army Plaza, and F at 7th Av.
If you have trouble finding us, call Ranjit at 646-270-2694.

Bring your handmade lanterns to show off, whether you made them at the workshop or at home! We’ll have hot cider and s’mores ; bring some snacks to share if you like. As it gets dark we’ll parade our lanterns north to Grand Army Plaza.

Please: NO FIRE! Don’t bring any lanterns that use candles, flames, or heat. Electric lamps, LEDs, flashlights, and glow sticks are all good ways to make fire-free lanterns.

Do you want to add computer vision to your project? Do you want to make your own 3D images, vision-based musical instrument using a kinect, or teach your robot how to follow a ball? In this class Ingenuitas, the maker’s of SimpleCV, will give you an introduction to performing computer vision with python. We will cover the basics of computer vision and provide a brief introduction to python. This 2.5 hour class will start with a 90 minute tutorial, followed by an hour of demos where we will show you how a number of awesome projects that were made in just an afternoon. We will conclude with an hour or more of open instruction where we work on projects and the instructor will provide discussion relevant to student interest and one on one feedback. Students should bring a laptop with SimpleCV installed and a web cam or Microsoft Kinect. Students should install SimpleCV and python before attending and bring either a web cam or Microsoft Kinect.

The Resistor JelTone is an edible and playable toy piano created by NYC Resistor members Ranjit Bhatnagar, Astrida Valigorsky, Mimi Hui and Catarina Mota for the annual Gowanus Studio Jello Mold Competition.

As part of our investigation into the properties of Jello– we realized that both jello and fruit, are conductive. To create the Jeltone, we fabricated several flavors (tangerine, coconut, greentea, etc.) of Jello in key-shaped slabs. Each key was then perched atop a food safe sterling silver pin connected to an Arduino microcontroller (hidden conveniently underneath the piano’s lasercut acrylic base).  To complete the circuit, and play a noise, a metal utensil can be connected to the Arduino, or it can be played with gloves enhanced with conductive thread. Bare hands can also play the jeltone by touching both a key and the piano’s case at the same time. Alternately you can also make the Jeltone using slabs of  fruit.

If you’d like to make your own, you can get the project files, code and instructions from Thingiverse.

JelTones were exhibited on June 25th at the 2011 Solid Sound Festival, Mass MoCA and at the Jello Mold Competition (where it was awarded the creativity prize and was both played with and devoured by the exhibit visitors).