Catarina helped me build a prototype of a “Nixie” tube illuminated with electroluminescent wire. Unfortunately the wires are too dense and too dim to work well with the ten layers of thickness, so the prototype is a beautiful failure. The number frames are based on Futura and cut on our Epilog laser using my opensource epilog driver. Side view and SVGs follow.
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This week come craft yourself a new liver at Not-NYCResistor!! Craft night is CANCELED this week (Oct. 13th) but we’ll all be at Pacific Standard just around the corner.
Why is craft night canceled?
Because we said so. Also because we are getting the space all painted so it looks shiny and new for NEXT craft night.
So, to recap:
Please DO NOT show up to NYCResistor on Oct. 13th but DO go drink yourself silly at Pacific Standard. It’s a nice bar, once they let us bring our robot over. Please DO come back on Oct. 20th in the newly painted spaced when craft night will resume at NYCResistor with the candlestick and Prof. Plum. Ms. Peacock will also be in attendance.
Very truly yours,
NYCResistor
Let’s get glowing! In this class you’ll learn about the different types of EL materials, drivers, and how to solder, shape and apply EL wire.
Everyone will get 3 ft of angel hair EL wire and 1 battery-powered inverter. No prior knowledge of soldering required.
We’re throwing a Halloween pumpkin-hacking party! We’ll be making pumpkins light up and react to touch sensing or maybe motion. We’re also thinking up pumpkin-y desserts featuring cooking those gourds with lasers and fire. Who’s in?
Bring your own pumpkin, with the seeds already scooped out. (We’ll have an extra or two, but you’ll have much more time to enjoy circuitbending your pumpkin if you come prepared.) Please also bring your own LEDs and any project components you might want to use. We’ve got plenty of soldering equipment.
Join us on Sunday, October 23rd, from 4-8pm. Space is limited, so get your (free) tickets here
Photo by Windell Oskay of Evil Mad Scientist Labs.
Are you interested in book arts? Have you always wanted to bind your own books? Or design pop-up books? Did you know we now have an intaglio printing press at Resistor? Guess what! We’re having a super-mega DIY Book Arts workshop on October 8th from 1pm to 5:30pm where you can learn about ALL those things!
Class cost is $125 – this includes your materials. We’ll teach you some different book binding techniques, cover a bunch of paper engineering mechanisms, and even give you an introduction to printing with the Intaglio press (one of its abilities is letterpress-style embossing!). Not bad for a single afternoon!
This afternoon workshop is taught by NYC Resistor members Shelby Arnold (myself) and Alicia Gibb.
(Pictured above – a version of River Song’s “spoilers” book I made for myself the other night.)
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).
Catarina Mota, Alicia Gibb and Shelby Arnold built a speaker made entirely from copper foil tape on cardstock + a magnet. They’re testing it with the JelTone edible piano. The speaker’s design comes from the High-Low Tech Research Group at MIT.
The tape is applied to the paper in a coil-shaped pattern. When connected to the output lines of the JelTone with alligator clips, then suspended over a magnet, the speaker produces a soft hum. This sound matches the tones that the piano produces when hooked up to a real amplifier, though it’s a lot softer and noisier.
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Today 10/3 Laser Night is cancelled due to a fire two weeks ago in our Laser. Parts were delayed at the supplier, and arrive tomorrow. We should be back up for Craft Night this week, check here for status after tomorrow.
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I’ve been inspired by the Lasersaur project to try building an XY table for laser cutting, Makerbotting, and light duty milling. The brackets, motor mounts and carriages are all 3D printed on NYCR’s Makerbot Thing-o-matic. Today I was able to put most of the pieces together for a dry fitting and found a few bugs — the carriages have too much play and will bind if pulled from the side, so the pull-pull belts will need to be moved to the inside of the rails, which will require all the carriages to be redesigned. The good news is that the printed teeth to engage the belt are well positioned to secure the belt under the rails without any additional hardware.
Are you jealous of all your designer friends who can whip up Illustrator images in an instant for the laser, for their website, for a client? Curious just what Illustrator can do? Come learn with Caitlin Sherman, a friend of Resistor who has been using Adobe Illustrator consistently since entering the fashion design industry four years ago.