Coming June 15th to NYC Resistor, the 2013 Interactive Show.  We’re still soliciting for a few more projects, but we’ve already got a great menagerie of really interesting & fun work lined up.  This year’s theme is Digital Archeology.  Expect to see the old, and the old hacked into new… Our show usually sells out far in advance, so don’t dawdle. Get your tickets here: http://interactiveshow2013.eventbrite.com/

Mike Massie will be presenting on an intro to Ambient Intelligence and how sensors can give the user super powers.

“As shrinking technology allows us to cheaply put hardware eyes, ears and touch sensors on everyday things, the data now readily available can offer a magnitude of information without the user even lifting a finger. Some are calling 2013 the “Year of the sensor”, and it giving passage to the Internet of Things and Big Data; aside from buzz terms we’ll talk about how these tools will offer the ability for more interactions to get out of the way.”

When: 6:30pm – 8:30pm, Monday, May 20th, 2013
Participants: Mike Massie (Host)
Info: http://mkeux.com/
RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/454981001262166/

In addition to the obligatory refrigerator full of soda (or sometimes empty of soda, depending on whether anyone’s filled it recently), we also have a water cooler that takes the big 5gal water bottles. They also sell coolers that can be plumbed into a water line, and a while back I discovered that they’re actually bottle-type coolers that come with a conversion kit. The kit consists of a float switch and a solenoid valve, and a mounting bracket that takes the place of the bottle holder.

There isn’t a conversion kit for the cooler we have, but it looked simple enough, so I made one from scratch. I don’t like float switches, so I used two other methods of sensing the water level (I wanted a backup sensor because certain failure modes could result in an unlimited amount of water on the floor, which would be a Bad Thing). Instead of trying to find the “best” way to do it, I used the components I was interested in learning about.

For more details, see the wiki page:

http://wiki.milwaukeemakerspace.org/projects/watercooler

Rapid prototyping tools are great for quick hacks, but their real power lies in their ability to allow you to quickly iterate and refine a design. Earlier this week I hacked together a primitive nine-channel punched paper tape reader, but it had a number of limitations: the LEDs that I was using to read the bits were noisy and slow, the materials used didn’t mask the light well enough, the tape wasn’t mechanically aligned well, the electronics were a mess and the entire mechanism was difficult to use. This Friday, I decided to do what my third-grade teacher would tell me to do every time I half-assed something: go back and do it right.

This time I used proper phototransistors and IR LEDs I scrounged up around the space (thanks, Miria and Raphael!). Because they’re 5mm in diameter (and the spacing between channels is only 2.54mm), I had to come up with a new sensor packing. This one reads bits from four separate columns over a space of five columns, requiring an internal buffer of five columns to reconstruct a single column of data. Even so, the spacing was tight, and I had to sand down the flanges of the phototransistors and LEDs to make everything fit. I milled simple PCBs for both sides to keep things nice and neat, and used a small surface-mount potentiometer to limit the current to the LEDs in case the paper wasn’t thick enough to block enough light. The light mask is made of black acetal this time, and the spacers include runners to help keep the tape straight. There’s still no automatic feed mechanism, but we now have a reader that’s fast and reliable enough to read tapes in earnest.

The updated code, mechanical drawings, and PCB designs are all up on Github. There are still a few tweaks we’d want if we were going to scan more tapes, but this version works very well. Now we just have to figure out what to do with all these PDP-8 binaries. Any ideas?

(Note to time-travelling computer conservators: in the past/future, please do not store your paper tapes in damp basements. These programs are stinky. The Fortran compiler, in particular, is exceptionally foul. Yours truly, phooky.)

Ever wanted to trick your nails out with a paint-job worthy of notice?  This is how… and no need to pay a salon $50 for the glory.  We’ll teach you how on Saturday (5:30-8:30pm) after our Laser Class, using templates stamps and other techniques.  We’ll have a small selection of polishes, so if you’re after a specific color combo you may want to bring your own. Tickets still available here– be prepared to come with a base-coat or to add one while you’re there.  GUYS WELCOME! (Remember you can also paint your toes).