What’re you doing Sunday evening? Nothing? Come down to NYC Resistor where starting this weekend we’ll be working through the Introduction to Algorithms course available through MIT’s OpenCourseWare project. What’s OpenCourseWare?

MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity.

We’ll start at 5pm and the lectures run about an hour and a half. The time may shift a bit each week due to other classes happening at the space, but we’ll post it on the calendar well in advance. The class uses the text “Introduction to Algorithms” which you may want to pick up or borrow from a friend. We’ll try to scrounge up a couple copies to have on hand.

This event series is totally free to attend, but if you enjoy it please consider donating to the MIT OpenCourseWare project!

This week we’ll be watching Session 1: Introduction – Analysis of Algorithms, Insertion Sort, Mergesort

Take our vacuform machine class Nov. 16th and create your own machine to make custom shapes like the one above, modelled around the Conga 5090 system.

If you’ve ever wanted to create a quick one sided mold, a nice case for your latest electronics project, a handle for that raygun, or a body for that RC robot that’s lurking around the garage you’ve probably wanted to use the magical powers of vacuum forming. In this class we’ll put together our own vacuum forming jigs using laser cut parts (provided with the class) and learn to use them. We’ll use some heat guns and the assistance of a shop vac to get everything working and we’ll all come back with awesome little plastic replicas that will impress even the most discerning IRC channel. Everyone will take back their own vacuum forming jig but will need a vacuum cleaner and a heat gun to operate it at home.

Sunday, November 15, 2009 from 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Class + Material fee is $120 (which is very cheap for a vacuform machine)
Sign up here

MakerBot grew out of the friendships forged at NYCResistor and is going to be in the best art show of the 21st century. It’s called Bits ‘N Pieces and it’ll be at Material Connexion starting on Thursday.

DATES: November 4 – December 4, 2009
HOURS: Monday – Friday, 9am – 6pm
LOCATION: Material ConneXion 60 Madison Avenue, 2nd Floor New York, NY 10010 T. 212-842-2050
NEAREST SUBWAYS: #6 at 28th and Park / NRW at 28th and Broadway.

Bits ‘n Pieces is a traveling exhibition of work by international designers, architects, computer scientists, and material and technology researchers. It will showcase projects still in their development stage, as well as furniture, architecture, jewelry, graphic design and products that anticipate the next phase of the digital revolution, focusing on how society is imbued with, shaped by and shapes technology. This new era will be marked by increased awareness about, and accessibility of, continuously advancing technologies and materials and the changes that we will be making in our lives through them will be not just formal but structural, not merely aesthetic but substantive, changing how we actually think about, design and build our objects and space. What will life look like based on changes that are sometimes visible to the public and sometimes invisible?

Read on for the conceptual essay. (It’s good) Continue reading »

Still Working on your Halloween costume?  Come to “Zombie 101” Wednesday night at 7 PM and learn cool make-up tips and tricks!

Photo by: http://www.flickr.com/photos/doviende/

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/