Join us Thursday Dec. 16th at 7pm for a screening of BETWEEN THE FOLDS with director Vanessa Gould for an in depth look into the world of origami. Following the screening will be a paper folding craft night (we’ll supply the paper!).
Origami may seem an unlikely medium for understanding and explaining the world. But around the globe, several fine artists and theoretical scientists are abandoning more conventional career paths to forge lives as modern-day paper folders. Through origami, these offbeat and provocative minds are reshaping ideas of creativity and revealing the relationship between art and science… BETWEEN THE FOLDS chronicles 10 of their stories. PBS
This Sunday, December 5th, why not take a break from holiday shopping to learn how to make microcontrollers do amazing things! This is a repeat of an excellent class from earlier this year called Beyond Arduino: Using Microcontrollers Directly. In this class, you’ll build a shield for an Arduino that can be used to program other ATMega chips from 8 to 28 pins. Then, you’ll build your own circuit on a breadboard using at ATMega328 and a ATTiny85. You’re getting a lot of nice gear and experience with making creations that don’t need a $30 board.
We’ll teach you all the basics to get you up and running while brewing a batch of beer. You’ll learn about extract brewing, malts, grains, yeasts and how to avoid or troubleshoot the most common problems. All reference materials will be provided as well as a home brew sample for tasting! We’ll have starter kits available for purchase. Beginners welcome!
Do you have a product design that you’ve been putting off making for a while, but could blast it out in a jiffy with a 35 watt laser?
Want to make a pile of holiday decorations but hate all that cutting?
Would your loved one appreciate an engraved gift personalized from you?
Come take the laser class! It cuts wood, acrylic, paper, foamcore, leather, acetal, mylar and a lot of other things. It etches aluminum, steel, and glass. We’ll teach you all the basics to get you cutting your own designs.
A few weeks ago, Google approached us to see if we’d be interested in throwing in a DemoSlam entry using the QR Code Waffles that we’d previously attempted. (hat tip to Foxx, who came up with the idea at a craft night)
After some successful experimentation with hand-drawn QR codes I put out a challenge to the rest of NYCR: The team that makes the most righteous, edible QR code that actually recognizes using google googles wins the prize.
Naturally, the prize started with “W” and ended with “affles” 🙂
As always, the amazing creativity and ingenuity that Resistors brought out for this project blew me away! Check out the video below, and lots more info on the various projects after that
Our slam came out great, but it’s impossible to show all of the amazing projects in the short span of the video. Here’s a roundup of all of the amazing hacks:
Ranjit’s awesome QR Code Tortilla took home the prize for being an amazing and edible food hack that recognized.
Raph put the new milling machine to work on a custom waffle iron, milling out the tiny blocks of the QR code. Unfortunately the milling didn’t quite work out, so no QR code waffle maker (or cattle branding) for us, but the iron itself recognized when it’s recesses were filled with flour, and the thing just looks gorgeous.
Jeff not only made a custom cast QR code icon, he also brought a ton of tiny jello “jiggler” cubes and made a beautiful QR code in google colors.
Zach got a Makerbot frostruder going and printed a working peanut-butter QR code on a slice of cheese
Adam said “om nom nom” as he ate his mashed-potatoes and gravy QR code, and also lead a crew using the laser to each out the QR code from a pancake
Chris, Nick, Ryan, and Ben assembled a QR code out of cheese-its, EZ-Cheese and posterboard.
Charles attempted a QR code out of microchips (chips are edible, right?)
And finally, thanks to Liz, Jon S, Jon K, and Herb, we actually got the QR code waffle to work, after lots of slicing and splicing and some judicious use of chicklets and chocolate chips.
It was an incredibly fun night, and huge thanks to everyone who threw a hack into the contest, helped put them together, and to everyone who was friendly to the crew as they joined us in the space for the shoot.
PPS: Huge thanks to LuckyNY for doing the shoot and being generally awesome to work with!
(For anyone curious about the music, it’s one of my 8-bit tracks “Underclocked” from “Resistor Anthems” which you can download free under a CC-BY license here: http://ericskiff.com/music)
The 555 Timer IC is a classic from the days of analog electronics tinkering, hacking, and other good clean fun. Learn how the 555 can measure time! Blink an LED! Play music! Control a Servo motor! Output PWM! Wireless IR link to Arduino! Think of this as your Grandfather’s Arduino. The workshop will cover the basic configurations of the chip and what’s going on inside. Then we’ll explore more custom circuits and learn about how resistors and capacitors work together to control charge, and time events. You will get a kit with all the parts needed, a 9V battery and a breadboard. If you have your own servo, please bring it in.
Note the subliminal signals we’re sending to Mitch Altman. There’s the golden trophy in the background (never mind that it’s Adam’s Calculus trophy) and Herb’s wearing Mitch’s Trip Glasses. There are TV B Gone kits 10 feet from the BarBot too.
Eyebeam’s running a fun workshop, build your own personal powerplant:
In this workshop led by Eyebeam alums fluxxlab with collaborator Farrukh Zia participants will assemble and take home their own Personal powerPlant. The Personal powerPlant is a portable device that harnesses electricity through a hand crank generator (with solar cell option) into a rechargeable battery for use in powering portable electronic devices through a USB terminal. The workshop will begin with an introduction to circuit basics and a group discussion on sustainable energy harvesting. Personal powerPlant DIY kits will be available for purchase during the workshop. The first version of the kit (v1) can be seen on the Instructables website – http://www.instructables.com/id/personal-powerPlant/.
This workshop is for: Anyone curious, teen-adult; or pre-teens with adult collaborators. Previous experience with soldering is helpful, but not essential.
In March of 2009 a young bat gave his or her life in the pursuit of adventure, and in doing so captured the heart of a nation. NASA chronicled the odyssey of “space bat” in Interim Problem Report 119V-0080. Ultimately his or her unsanctioned attempts to break the bonds of earthly existence were deemed acceptable in ICE-01. NASA believed that space bat most likely perished soon after launch, but at the very least he/she lives on in our hearts. I like to think he/she made it to orbit, I like to think his or her little mind was doing back flips the entire way. And while I know it is impossible, I hope that he or she found the peace he or she sought among the stars.
As we approach the end of November, and the final launch of the space shuttle Discovery, it is important we remember what a rich history it has. Space bat, is just one of several hundreds of heroes that have climbed aboard that vessel in the hope of challenging the stars. But, space bat enjoys the special privilege of having been the only member of his or her species to ever attempt space flight of their own volition. He or she is a true American hero and truly a symbol of Discovery.
I hope that everyone will take a moment to remember space bat in those few short seconds during countdown before Discovery makes it’s last voyage into Ginsberg’s dynamo.
