Some of you may have seen my presentation on evolving virtual machines using genetic algorithms at BarCampNYC3. For those who didn’t, Cobosoda is an open-source 2D rigid physics simulator with a set of genetic algorithm tools. The idea is these little creatures evolve into walking machines. Talking with a close friend and Csound expert Jake Joaquin the next step has become clear, add sound and turn Cobosoda into an art project for the resistor space.
I had to do it… couldn’t resist(or). Now I have an iPhone with a pseudo game of Space Invaders on the back… Special thanks to Phil Torrone and Ladyada for letting me use the laser etcher 3000.
UPDATE: Don’t forget to DIGG this article here. Thanks!
Now that we’re settled in our new space, it’s time to start some classes! We’ll be focusing on beginner classes this month, so if you ever wanted an intro to soldering, electronics, gameboy programming, and more, this is your chance. You’ll also need a few of these skills under your belt to move on to the more advanced stuff in the coming months. I have a feeling that many of us already in NYCResistor will be signing up for these classes as well, so if you want in, sign up soon!
We’ll be offering classes for $25 an hour (with the occasional lab/parts fee) which is quite cheap, and a good portion of that goes to help keep NYC Resistor up and running.
Here’s the list of classes on eventbrite, or you can subscribe to the iCal format in google calendar, etc.
See you there!
It’s been a while since the last Microcontroller Study Group so it’s time to get together again… bring projects to show, and come and see the our new fancy space.
When: Wednesday, March 19th., 7:00 p.m.
Where: 397 Bridge Street, Brooklyn 11201 – 5th floor – Look for the pack of resistors on the door.
Who: You! Bring your project, meet the group, or just see what others are up to!
See you then! If you have any questions please contact the group.
Since we don’t seem to have any copper phone lines in the space, we haven’t got phone server there yet…
I decided to use some trickery and get a sip phone up, and the number is 1-212-931-0593.
My good friend Chris McDonald made this extra-great, 2-axis drawing machine for doing time-lapse photography.
Here’s the info from his personal website vanita phone company:
Gertrude uses two stepper motors to move an LED in a very high resolution x/y plane. The movement of the LED is photographed using exposures usually between 30 and 90 seconds. Gertrude can either be programmed to “print” a design automatically (“Christopher & Daniil”, the Hell Yup!: Scanlines shots) or controlled live via a joystick (Open&Close portrait series).
II: Christopher & Daniil not talking (pt. 2 in a series of 2) 
Hell Yup!: Scanlines 3 (Self-Portrait)
I’ve been working a lot on the RepRap code lately and I recently got it to the point where segment pausing is drastically reduced. This RepRap is driven with Arduino based electronics running a GCode interpreter firmware. Woot!
Segment Pausing Fix from Zach ‘Iowa’ Hoeken on Vimeo.
Modulate/Demodulate from Zach ‘Iowa’ Hoeken on Vimeo.
We’ve been having meetings getting the internal infrastructure and community up. Also, we’ve been having a pretty good time. – Link
We’re going to have a microcontroller study group meeting, open to anyone interested in microcontrollers and willing to come to a show and tell on Wednesday March 19th at 8pm on the 5th floor at 397 Bridge St. in downtown Brooklyn. We don’t have a lot of chairs, so if you have a spare chair around that you can give to the NYCResistor space, we’d love it! (and you’ll have something to sit on) Join the Microcontroller Study Group mailing list to keep up to date with all the microcontroller study group news. – Link
Great, simple, idea. An etch-a-sketch hooked up to an old mouse with a couple of stepper motors, wired through RS232 connectors, a couple of couplers (I love saying that), and a nothing-fancy Atmel Mega 32.
Imagine the possibilities this could hold? Actually being able to draw a circle on an etch-a-sketch! We should build this and marry it up with Bre’s code for printing images of of people and we can have an etch-a-sketch Portrait Maker 3000! Here’s the link to the schematic, the code and the instructions.
