I had a blast today at Diana’s fashion hacking event, and I made these nifty pants that sort-of function as a keyboard. I can play tetris at least! It was fun to make them, and if you’d like to make your own you can download the files from Thingiverse. It was nice to spend the day working on a goofy project with no real value with my friends. Oh, and now I have some super-sexy nerd magnet shorts. Awesome.
Got a lot of perfectly good electronics waiting for a project? Need some obscure doohicky for a project you’re working on? Come to the NYCR Swap Night! Trade doodads for thingamabobs with your fellow hackers.
The fun is going down at 6:30 pm on Wednesday, May 20. Mark your calendars! After the swapstravaganza we’ll have a short show ‘n tell of what you got and what you’re gonna do with it.
The event is free but we do ask that you RSVP. A handy dandy junk registry is in the works for listing/requesting junk (so you don’t have to lug it all in and back), there’ll be another post when that’s ready. But for now just let us know if you’re coming! If it’s popular enough we’ll make it a regular event.
There is one specific rule: anything you bring has to go back out with someone. That someone can be you, or the lucky recipient of new junk, but you can’t dump it on us. Please only bring things that are actually useful – if it really is trash please dispose of it properly rather than foisting it on some unlucky soul.
See you there!
Here’s a few random images from last craft night. Fun!
I will be bringing a bit of Project Runway to NYC Resistor on May 10th when we host Fashion Hacking: Open Working Studio. Come and hack fashion with us. BYOC (bring your own clothes) and we’ll have the tailoring tools, sewing machines, conductive thread, LED’s, soldering irons, and the Laser Cutter to help you hack clothes into fashionable technology. Fashion designers and hardware hackers will be on hand to help you.
This is an open working studio which means that you are free to circulate, work on your own project and look at other projects. Come to session 1, come to session 2, come to both sessions.
Session 1, 1-3 pm, $20
Session 2, 3-5 pm, $20
Buy tickets: http://fashionhacking.eventbrite.com/
Last weekend I threw my ham radio gear into a backpack and carried it to the top of South Beacon Mountain in upstate New York, along with with my friend Tom Tumino, N2YTF, and we spent several hours at the summit making contacts with other hams around the globe. Tom is a SOTA enthusiast who has introduced me to this great new aspect of amateur radio. The SOTA program (short for Summits On The Air) encourages hams to get out of the house and operate “mountaintop portable”. Peaks are ranked and assigned point values according to their prominence, with the idea that you want to collect as many points as possible by operating from as many high peaks as you can. The points aren’t good for anything except bragging rights, but it’s a nice incentive to get you out of bed at 7:00 am and on the road.
SOTA is most popular in Europe where they have thousands of peaks cataloged. Here in the US, the program is just gaining momentum, and the administrators are still building the databases of eligible peaks. However there are many portable operators in the states and several other clubs that are active in mountaintopping independent of SOTA. Steve Galchutt wG0AT has created a great series of videos documenting his hikes on Mount Herman in Colorado with his two mountain goats Rooster and Peanut. HFPack is an active organization that focuses on portable and “pedestrian mobile” operations (i.e. backpack radios). Slightly more eccentric is the Polar Bear Club which encourages portable ops in the winter months.
The photo above is of a 70 foot fire tower at the summit of South Beacon that we used as an operating base (you can see our antennas and a SOTA flag at the top if you squint). More photos after the break.
Photo by knechtruprechtdolls
One more to add to our parade of classes: Object Oriented PHP is now on the calendar for May 31! Join the OOP party full of classes, methods, and properties. We’ll cover all the theory you need to understand object oriented programming as well as some practical applications, turning your rats nest of functions into a well organized object.
You’ll need a basic understanding of PHP, if you’re rusty you may want to take Beginning PHP the day before! Bring a laptop to work on with your code editor of choice installed.
A friend and I had dinner in the little Hudson River town of Beacon NY last night, after a day hike on nearby South Beacon Mountain. As luck would have it, Beacon is home to the Retro Arcade Museum. Despite the enticing name, we almost didn’t bother checking it out since it was fairly late, and from a distance the museum appeared to have closed down for the evening. What a mistake that would have been! Inside was the finest collection of classic arcade games, pinball machines, console and handheld games I have ever seen (not that I’ve seen a lot of these, but it was still *very* impressive). The owner, Fred, gave us the grand tour, which includes a hilarious party room in the back dubbed “grandma’s kitchen”, outfitted with yellow formica everything, just like your nana’s — perfect for hosting hipster birthday parties. We didn’t have time to play the games but for ten bucks you can enter the matrix and play anything you want for a full hour. And these are not a bunch of PacMan machines you could find on eBay. Fred has obviously done a lot of homework, and legwork, and acquired a number of very fine examples of early games, including many electro-mechanical ones and first-of-their kinds. It is truly a museum. Of awesome.
Beacon is a 75 minute train ride from Grand Central, and the museum is a one mile walk from the train station. Aside from the museum, Beacon has a number of other cute shoppes and restaurants so this would make an excellent day trip for the whole family. I shall be back.
Raphael here! I’m the guy who’s always running around helping out at Craft Night. I love running open events, but Craft Night has gotten too big. So we’re going to split it in two neat pieces: Craft Night on Thursdays and Study Group on Wednesdays.
Thursdays are going to be more focused on crafting and things one does with their hands: sewing, knitting, soldering, drawing, painting, fashion hacking, lab-coat enhancements, etc. Bring a project or be prepared to help out on someone else’s! (Cookie donations welcome. Help yourself to the cookies.)
Now, about Study Group. Exciting! This is going to be an informal get together for anyone who wants to share or collaborate on developing skills and making things. It’s not a class, and there will not be an instructor, but there will be someone to guide the group. There will be a topic for a given night. Topics will include electronics, math, SCIENCE, security, programming, and more. The first one, Beginners Programming for Android, will be next Wednesday the 29th, from 6PM to 9PM. Then on May 6th there will be a Blender 3D study group.
So, in summary:
Craft Night RETURNS TONIGHT! More crafty than ever, still cookie donations only.
Study Group BEGINS next Wednesday, and is $5. Cookies included? Yes.
See you there!
gettin' some learnin'
Got a gadget tumbling in your subconcious that needs electrical life? Don’t know where to start? Start here! This class is perfect for the absolute beginner who needs some practical electronics knowledge.
From the description:
“No theory here! Just instantly useful and very simple circuits. Learn about motors, light bulbs, resistors, switches, buttons, solenoids, batteries, power supplies and more. Safety will also be covered. The student will leave the class with a kit of useful parts for experimentation at home.”
Another class on May 2nd: This introduction to Illustrator will give you an overview of the Illustrator features and show you how to skillfully use the vector generating tools.
If you’ve been daydreaming of using the lasercutter, this is a great class to give you a headstart into making your dreams of vector generated forms, shapes and designs come true! This class is the perfect addition to Bre’s Lazzzzor class later the same day.
Please, bring a laptop and your own copy of Adobe Illustrator. Sign up here.
