My Ugly Camera

Photo by Chris Conners
At the last Noise Night, Chris stopped by and noticed my camera. He thought it was interesting, so he took a picture. Since the camera has already made to Make, Dig, Gizmodo, and Boing Boing, I thought I should write up a bit of information on the camera's story.

Back in 2005 I went to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to do some volunteer work. Within the first week my camera was stolen. Being that I was volunteering in some of the communities there, I spoke with some people about it. They said that all digital cameras are worth money, but none of the film cameras are unless it's an SLR.

One of the other volunteers has this model of camera, and I thought that with the LCD closed, it almost looked like a film camera. So I bought one in the US, had it shipped over, and then I covered it in tape and sharpie marker. I also took off anything shiny.

I would take a picture or two, and then check the light levels with the LCD. After that, I would then close it, and would proceed to take pictures with it as if it was a film camera until light levels would change. The camera lasted me the remaining five and a half months in some of the most impoverished areas of Rio. Just about every picture in my Flickr is from this camera.

I was able to take over 5,000 pictures with it in Brazil. I was able to follow around a number of well known graffiti artists, and you can check out some of the pics here. I was also able to go into some fairly dangerous areas, and walk out with my camera. I was even mugged a second time, and they left my camera alone, and took my $20 cell phone instead.

The reason wasn't just the camera. It was my whole image. All my clothes I had bought in the communities, and I had little of anything on me when I went out. Speaking some Portuguese helped as well. I also NEVER took pictures of people openly (you'll get your camera taken regardless). I don't advocate going into the same areas I went, but try to be smart anytime you are in a place that theft is common.

Oh, and for the picture, Chris set my camera on top of my box of circuit bending supplies. I sell components for bending at Noise Nights, as well as electronic kits and the like.

HeartChuck

I just got an email from David Findlay with a really neat project with the Open Heart kit. Just check out the YouTube video:



He's combined the Wii Nunchuck with the Open Heart, and it looks great. He has a nice writeup on his blog, including a link to the code. Great build David!

Even though I'm sold out, you can pick up a kit still in the Maker Shed.

APC kits at Noise Night

Built at Maker Faire UK by @irregularshed (twitter).
This Thursday I'll make my new Atari Punk Console kit available for purchase at Noise Night. We'll have some soldering irons available, and everything you need to build one, including batteries and Altoid tins. Though you should bring your own interesting case. Build time on the kit is less than 30 minutes, but casing time can vary dramatically depending on how much room you have to work with. At the end, join in for the jam!

When:
Thursday, March 26th (Calendar)

Where:
Willoughby and Baltic Community Space
195g Elm St.
Somerville, MA 02144 (map)

Cost:
Noise Night is free. The APC kit will be $20.

Back from Maker Faire UK

Tuition for all
Originally uploaded by makerfaire_uk.

Wow, what an amazing few days that was. I just got back last night. I was running soldering workshops with Mitch Altman, and Ken Murphy. I got to meet someone who had actually built one of my charlieplexed hearts from scratch! I also got to meet Aaron from Oomlout, who is doing some amazing stuff with his laser cutter. I want to thank the UK Make team for putting on such a great event. I hope to go back next year.

I got to test out my new Atari Punk Console kit. I had a small panel of PCBs made as a test for my own personal use, and I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to just go ahead and kit up 50 of them to see how easily people can make them. This is the first public announcement that one will be for sale in the next couple of months.

Everything in the kit fits easily inside an Altoids tin, including 9V battery and speaker! Once version 1.0 of the board is in and tested, I will release all the design files as well as some fun ways to put it together. The APC is simply fun and easy to build, and a great introduction to soldering and casing projects.

So how would you go about getting one now? Show up to a Noise Night event, and talk to me. I still have about 30 "beta" kits left. I will also be participating in the Boston Cyber Arts festival. We will be having soldering workshops there. You can also get one then. I'll probably still have some PCBs as well, which I'm willing to sell to people who are interested in just the PCB.

TV-B-Gone workshop

I'm running another fund-raising workshop at the Willoughby and Baltic. This time we are building TV-B-Gone Kits. The last workshop helped us get some better soldering equipment, and an oscilloscope! There is a long list of needs and wants for the W&B hacker space, so any support helps.

You need no experience, or tools (though you are welcome to bring some), and you will walk out with a fully functional TV-B-Gone Kit. If you aren't familiar, it is a device that you simply press a button, and it turns off TVs.

Please check out the workshop post for information on how to sign up. Since we sold out of kits last time, I'm having people pre-register if possible. If we aren't sold out at the time of the workshop, then I will also accept cash at the event.

When:
Sunday March 22nd
Group #1: 4pm-6pm (Register Here)
Group #2: 6pm-8pm (Register Here)

Where:
Willoughby and Baltic Community Space
195g Elm St.
Somerville, MA 02144 (map)

Cost:
$30 per person. All parts, tools, and batteries included.

Open Heart that beats to a beat

This is the first video I've seen of someone else building the charlieplexed heart by scratch:

That's levels of awesome, and great work Moosebumps! Not only does it look great, but it beats to the music. Nice.

The Maker Shed Store is still selling open heart kits, which will save some time when building one of these. I've also got a new kit in the works, expect a post about it in the next week. If everything works out, I'll be debuting it at Maker Faire Newcastle. Come by and say hi to Micth, Ken, and myself in the workshop area if you are there.

Noise Night updates

I've started a whole new blog for Noise Night at www.NoiseNight.com. I've even set up both a Flickr group, and a Youtube group. People have already contributed some things to them as well! I've left them open to the public, so feel free to throw anything in there if you take any pictures/videos of anything going on. Future updates will go through that blog. Mostly to keep my personal one from becoming the central location for what I hope to be a community run thing.

My friend Jeff also created this really kick ass poster for this month:
Please feel free to print this out and share it with people. Flier away!

Since things are picking up, I'm moving the location to the "community" space at the Willoughby and Baltic. It is just across the alley, and we can accommodate 30+ instead of the 15 or so we were limited to before. We also have a stage space that can be set up if people wish to perform.

The next Noise Night is this upcoming Thursday (February, 12th) from 7PM till around 9:30 or so. The address is 195g Elm Street, Somerville, MA (map)

Bonus material: Here is a really fun jam session I had with Wayne on the second Noise Night. This went on for 18 minutes, but I cut it to less than 5. Though I'm willing to post the full video if requested. Check out the Youtube group for more videos.

Make:TV Screening postponed

Since it is a snow emergency and most people are unable to make it, we are postponing the screening till later this week. It will either be Tuesday or Friday night, at the same time. Please check the W&B calendar to make sure.

Update:
The showing is Tuesday night (1/13) from 7PM till 9PM.

Make:TV Screening at the Willoughby and Baltic

This Sunday from 7-9 we are going to screen the first two episodes of Make Television. So come by and check it out if you haven't already seen the show. If it goes well we will follow up with another screening next Sunday.

When:
Sunday, 1/11/09 from 7PM till 9PM
Check the calendar.

Where:
Willougbhy and Baltic Hackerspace
197A Elm St.
Somerville, MA 02144
It is the door to the left of Subway. Look for the W&B sign.

Cost:
Free! This is a public event, so anyone is free to come. Donations are appreciated, and go directly back into buying equipment and parts.

Noise Night at the Willoughby and Baltic

Circuit bending is back at the Willoughby and Baltic!
Noise Night is going to be a general electronic instrument music and noise night, not just circuit bending (you can bet that circuit bending will be a solid part of the event though). It is for anyone who enjoys making strange sounds and music, strange electronic instruments, and for anyone who wants to be around others that make strange sounds, music, and instruments.

We are going to start things off with a quick talk, and then a show and tell. So bring anything interesting you've made and want to show off. Then we will turn the irons on and start working on things. Hopefully jam sessions will pop up as well, and people will let others play with their toys.

If you've never circuit bent anything before, then this is the perfect time to stop by. We'll help you turn your toy into an instrument. Even if you've been bending for a while, it is always nice to have other perspectives on the possibilities of new toys and instruments.

This is also going to be an ongoing event, every second and fourth Thursday in a month. So this is also to keep me making instruments and sharing with others, and to have an ongoing noise outlet for the general Boston area.

When:
1/8 & 1/22 from 7PM till 9 (maybe later if people are interested), and then every 2nd and 4th Thursday afterwards.
Check the calendar.

Where:
Willougbhy and Baltic Hackerspace
197A Elm St.
Somerville, MA 02144
It is the door to the left of Subway. Look for the W&B sign.

Cost:
Free! This is a public event, so anyone is free to come. Donations are appreciated, and go directly back into buying equipment and parts.

Creepy Cave Crabs - Light detecting light & music synths

Check out the Flickr set
I made these for the Willoughby and Baltic Halloween show at the Charles River Museum of Industry. They use a single Hex Schmitt trigger inverter IC to generate the sound, and two RGB color change LED to generate the lights. I then encased them in friendly plastic, and painted them with silver paint.

Here is a short video on what they look/sound like:


I've also drawn up a quick schematic with the circuit. The capacitors were all mixed from 0.1-0.35uf, and the photo resistors were also grabbed randomly from my collection. Same with the diodes. The only thing I made sure to have as a constant was the light detecting eye circuits. They were tuned to the specific photo resistors I had multiples of, so you may need to adjust the value a bit, but 100k should be a decent place to start to make them very sensitive to light.



Parts:

• A small perfboard


• A 9v Battery snap

Sound

• 1 Hex Schmitt trigger Inverter IC 7414(Jameco)


• 6 Various capacitors from .1-.35uf


• 6 Various photo resistors


• 6 Various diodes


• A 1/8" audio jack

Light

• 2 NPN 3904 Transistors


• 2 100K Resistors


• 2 RGB slow blink LEDs (ebay - "rgb led slow diffused")


• 2 photo resistors (use similar ones if you want the same level of light detection for both eyes)

I purposefully wanted to have them scream loudly when the light comes on, but if you want to use these in normal light conditions, I would suggest that you play around a bit. These can be tailored to any light level, so just play around with what you've got. The fun thing is that this circuit is extremely forgiving and works in many ways, so you just need to play around to get the sound/sensitivity that you want. I'm sure you could even put a potentiometer in series with each photo resistor to tune them.

Here you can see the circuit running on a breadboard. This is the one that is running on the right in the video:


Once I soldered everything together, I then covered it all in friendly plastic, and painted it with silver paint. I did this because the crabs are going to be setting in a dark room with an oscillating light, which will have them in alternating light and dark.

I'll actually be running an open hack at the Willoughby and Baltic tonight, where we will be making a few more of these for the show. Feel free to stop by, even if you aren't a member. Come check them out, or just drop by the space and see it. I'll post more on these later, and I'll throw up an Instructable if I manage to find a few free hours before the Halloween show.

It has been a busy couple of months

So it looks like the Maker Shed Store is going to start selling my Open Heart Kit in short order. It will be debuting at the Maker Faire in Austin this month on the 18-19th. It should be a ton of fun, and I'm looking forward to it! I've been quite busy filling out an order of some magnitude for them (it's large for me anyhow). So come by and say hello if you are there, I'll be in the actual Maker Shed Store booth.

The other major thing I've been working on, is helping out with the new Willoughby and Baltic hacker/fabrication community. It's a very exciting time in the Boston area now that there is a place that you can bend, weld, saw, paint, etch, solder and DIY just about anything out there.

We were featured in the Globe this Saturday, and I'm featured in one of the pictures. They even wrote a bit about me: "Across from Beauregard, Jimmie Rodgers connected a toy guitar to a toy megaphone to make weird feedback. He likes to play with noise." I couldn't agree more.

On top of all of that, my responsibilities at my day job has increased a good deal. So I've been doing some higher level tasks and the like. Which has taken some of my free time as well.

Unfortunately, I've not really done much recently project-wise. I've only made a simple RGB mood lamp, and partially bent an Easy Button. I've figured out a way to get the easy button to loop with a simple transistor circuit, which I will release online once it is in proper shape to show people.

Once Maker Faire is over, you can expect to see a few new project from me. I'll have some free time again I hope, and I'll post some new things.

A graffiti stencil of an LED throwie schematic

I attended the graffiti stencil class at the Willoughby and Baltic last night, and came up with this idea. I brought some LED throwies with me to the class, and thought it would be fun to do one type of graffiti art of another type. So here I present a graffiti stencil of the schematic of an LED throwie:


[2032] represents the 2032 coin cell battery that you would use in a throwie, the [ N / S ] represents the magnet (I couldn't think of anything simple that conveyed a magnet), and the rest is basic schematic stuff. I'm going to tighten up this design and release a vector graphic file for people to use under creative commons.

The class was a bunch of fun, and I did a couple of things with the stencil. I made a few prints, and I even did a quick T-shirt. I'll keep it around, and if you want me to stencil a shirt for you, then hit me up and we'll work something out. Hopefully the W&B will be holding another one in the fall. It was a bunch of fun, and I highly recommend it.

Some examples:

Goosebent

Here is the Youtube video of my latest bent instrument:


All of the RCA ports have the tips and sleeves soldered together so that they can act as both jumpers and touch points. I found that many of these points only work as touch contacts. You can see in the pictures that I had originally color coded them, but I unfortunately used sharpie for the 4x4 ports, so the color is starting to rub off. This picture has all of the controls labeled:

Click for details
I absolutely love the sounds that come out of it, even when I'm just playing with the feedback. You throw a delay effect on top of this, and wow does it do some cool stuff. Also wanted to thank Brian Jepson for recommending the Flip to me. It's what he used to interview me with at Ignite. Quick and easy to set up, decent video, and decent sound. It's what I used to shoot this, and had my video on Youtube in about an hour.

Bending Workshop Update

The latest workshop went over well. It was not as fully attended as the previous one, but some people actually managed to make some legitimate instruments by the end. Only a total of four people were still around for the jam, but it was amazing none the less. Bill T. Miller was around once again showing his support, and taking additional photographs:


Photos to be posted shortly
I also want to thank Wayne Wylupski for dropping off a massive donation of toys. They ranged the gambit of easy pitch bends, to very complicated toys that I can't wait to dig into. They will be housed at the Willoughby and Baltic, and be around for future workshops.

I want to point out a new google group I started just for circuit bending in the Boston area, Bending Boston. All future communications related to my workshops and the like will go through that list first. I've also created a page to be used as a wiki-style link dump. Hopefully it will become the place to go for recent information, and will allow the facilitation of trade for bending resources in the Boston area.

Something that really struck me as interesting this time was the mix of male to female. This last class was composed of at least 2/3 to 3/4 women. Maybe Fred was right about the topic of his talk. The next workshop has not been scheduled, but I would like to get some artists to perform before the workshop, to show off what can be done with the instruments. If you are interested, then join the list and let us know. If we get enough people interested, we may have a jam-only night, where everyone gets a set, and then an open jam set will happen.

Biggest bend yet

This is the as of yet unnamed bend of a Goosebumps voice changer/sound effects box.


Click for more info.

It is going to be debut at the workshop I'm running this Saturday. So if you want to hear it, show up tomorrow night. I'll get clips online sometime next week.

Bending and Heart update

So the new bending event has a page up with some information. The last event went over extremely well, so I have high hopes. This will be a much longer workshop, with what I hope to be more finished projects. It's free like last time, but donate some money to the space if you have it. Everything goes towards holding public events like these.

Check Out Bill T. Miller's Photo set for pics of the last workshop.

Also, as of today I am officially selling my open heart kit on my website.

Go and check it out. There are also pages on how to make it, and how to program it.

The next circuit bending workshop

I've created a poll to help determine the day and time for the next workshop. Please check it out, as that is what I'm going to go off of to schedule it. Week nights seem to be easier for more people, but the weekends provide more time to work on stuff.

Open Heart Kit

Once again, I've been very busy with stuff, but I'm posting some info about the Open Heart. I've got the PCBs in, tested them, and I'm about to start selling the kits. You can go to the Open Heart page for some info on it.

Or check out the Flickr set for pictures:

I've also designed a flash program that lets you design the animations, and then generate the Arduino code you would need to run it with this kit. It still needs quite a bit of work, but it is at a state I'm comfortable with showing people. It's also open source (as open as a flash file can be), so have at it. To get to the FLA, you just replace the .html with .fla.

I've also decided to start taking pre-orders. The production boards won't be in for another couple of months though. I'm going to send out some evaluations boards to various places online to see if they would be interested in my kit. Once I've got some numbers, I'll send off for an order of PCBs. It will then take a month or so. They will however have nice silkscreens and solder mask, unlike the prototype. Hit up the official page for that button.

The latest share.tv is up

What is share.tv you ask? Well, it's a kicking rad program on Cambridge public access that I've been part of for the past few episodes. You can see me in episodes three, four, and five on the gallery page. Not to mention a full feature on the circuit bending workshop I ran a few weeks ago.



Originally uploaded by lovers v haters.

Check out the Flickr set of Episode 5:
In other news, there are only two seats left for my Atari Punk workshop. I can't believe how quickly it has filled up. I may run a second one shortly, or alternately run something different, like an optical Theremin class.

Atari-punk workshop

I will be running a workshop on the Atari Punk music synth on the 22nd at 7PM. I will walk you through building everything, and you will leave with a simple yet fun music synth that you've made yourself. You can go to the Willoughby and Baltic site to register for the workshop. Kits are available for purchase, which I would suggest you take up on. You should absolutely bring your own case though. Any decent sized hollow toy would work well for this, and it would really add some character. Though one is provided. There are only 10 seats, so I would suggest signing up early. Let me know if you have any questions.

the workshop last night

It went over extremely well (link to the Dorkbot blog entry, full of links). I'm very excited because it let me know that there is a bunch of interest for circuit bending in the area. I'm definitely going to have more of these, as well as some paid workshops in the near future. That way all the parts are provided, and it can be a bit more controlled. Everyone will also walk away with something.

I'm going to the Bent Festival this weekend in NYC, which I'm looking forward to. I've been over-extending myself again, so a break will be good for me. That way I can come back refreshed and really focus on my final projects for class, as there is nothing else coming up in the near future to distract me. Although, as soon as I say that, something always pops up. Actually a few things already have, but I'm getting better about declining things, or putting stuff to the side.

Circuit Bending Workshop

I'll be running a quick circuit bending workshop on April 15th at 7PM for the Boston area Dorkbot group at the Willoughby and Baltic in Davis Square. I'll cover a few basic things like pitch bending, as well as the basics of wiring up audio jacks, pots, and switches. I'll also go over a few best practices in exploration, so that you aren't as likely to fry your toys, and give a general introduction to some of the more advanced stuff out there (speak and spells, atari-punk, etc.).

This is meant to be a fairly low technical barrier type event. So even if you don't know anything about electronics, you can come and have a good time. Hopefully this will be the first of many, and if there is enough interest we could do additional workshops that maybe cover more technical stuff. I will also be giving away a few toys I have that are bend-able as prizes to the people with the "best sounding" modifications (this will be voted on by the group). Share.tv will also be there to help out and film parts of the event.

Go to the blog entry on my circuit bent guitar for an example of what to expect:

Click to get to the flickr set, which has a bunch of information on this bend.
What should you bring?

• some kind of cheap toy that makes noise, the cheaper the better, music and talking based ones are generally easiest to get good sounds out of (suggestions on where to get them are target, CVS, toys-r-us, or any other place that sells cheap crap to kids)
  
• beer
• assortment of switches and buttons you like
• metal things for body contacts, anything you can attach to stuff and then solder to (screws, knobs, and very thick wire works well)
• tools, the more the merrier (wire cutters, screw drivers, jumper wires with alligator clips, etc)
  
• 1/4" or 1/8" audio jacks if you want to have audio output
• both audio and linear potentiometers (volume control pots, etc). along with a suitable knobs
• assortment of resistors if you really want to get complicated (I will have some on hand if you want to dive into that)
• some more beer
• a VERY open mind to what you define music as, and a high tolerance for noise
  

I will have a few of each of these things to trade/sell if you need them, but everything can be bought easily enough at Radio Shack for a decent price. If there is enough interest in getting a bunch of pots and jacks, then let me know, and we can put in an order with Jameco/Digikey, but it only becomes cost effective with 10 or more of a bunch of stuff. We will provide some soldering irons, drills and wire for the permanent mods, but please bring some as well if you have them.

If you have anything you've made, then please bring it by and show us. I'll have some of the things with me that I've posted on this blog about, as well as a few others I've not. Please let me know if you have any questions by responding to the Boston Dorkbot google groups post, or going to my contact page.

I've been busy lately

It's a shame I've not updated this in a while. It's not that I haven't been doing stuff, I have. It's just that I've not been taking notes or pictures. I'll update with some shortly, but first a text update.

I've actually moved forward with having a PCB made for the open heart I made. Not only that, but I've already received the second PCB design in, and I'm actually going to try and sell a kit. I'm currently working on a Flash interface to easily create animations. It will allow you to create frames of animation, and then export the Arduino code. Once that is ready, I'll write up some instructions on assembly, and mail them out to some websites to see what kind of interest there is. My target price is around $15. It will include the PCB, 27 red LEDs, 6 resistors, headers, crimp housings, and some conductive thread. I'll have to see how that all works out though. Hopefully that will all be done in the next couple of months, and you'll see my kit in various stores online.

The president's day project unfortunately didn't get finished in time for the show. The hardware was done, but not the software. I still brought it there, and people were a good sport about it not working. I'll get it running in the next couple of weeks though, as I want it done for Open Studios here in Somerville. At the moment, I don't think it will be too difficult, as I've already done all the hard stuff.

I've also been circuit bending again. I created a nice looping device that also pitch shifts. I'm using the "Yada Yada Yada" toy as the base. Right out of the box you can record around 10 seconds of audio, and the play it back at different pitch/speed based off of a dial. Pretty cool. Luckily enough, if you hold down play, it loops on it's own. So no special circuit is needed. I added a 1/8" input and a 1/8" output jack, a switch to cause it to loop, a switch to turn off the microphone (in case you just want to record the input line), and a switch to cause it to dramatically slow down and distort. I also made the play/record switches conductive, so that you can short it out (which causes it to speed up a bunch). I'm planning on going back to Target and buying as many of these as I can find. I'm going to make a bank of them with a built in mixer.

Last night I was on share.tv on Cambridge Community TV. It was really awesome. I brought my bent guitar, and the yada looper, plugged right in, and had a great time. I'll post once the footage is on the tubes. I'll make a mixer for my stuff next time. I didn't have a method of controlling my own volume, so it was problematic at times. They aren't hard to make, so I should be able to have that done in time for the next one.

I've also been really busy with classes. I started at the Harvard Extension school, taking night classes. It's been tough, as I spend a bunch of time doing class stuff. I've also made a number of things that I've not posted in addition to the ones listed. Such as:

• crank flashlight with a minty-boost kit to make a crank-powered USB charger/power supply
• tiny USB flashlight to go with the USB charger
• miniPOV with headers, so that it can be changed around
• LED cube from the make podcast to go with the modded miniPOV
• Vista desktop PC, because my laptop was too old to run Adobe CS3 to my liking (complete with a 2TB RAID5 drive)
  
• a bunch of LED sequins to go with some sew-able electronic circuits I've been working on
• modified two keyboards into prank keyboards (go and do this, it's quick, easy, and funny as hell)
  
• a gigantic mess in my room
• and I'm sure some more stuff I've forgotten about

Anyhow, I should go back to work, as my lunch break is over. Hopefully I'll get some pictures and schematics up soon enough. I might need to get myself an intern to start documenting my stuff for me (I'm joking, but I wouldn't turn down an application).

I won a contest!

Wow, my Charliplexed heart just won the random (with the power of denial, this is first prize in my mind, and has nothing to do with chance) prize for Instructable's "Get the LED Out" contest. I get a $75 gift certificate for phenoptix, a t-shirt, and a TV-b-gone kit.

Internet, you do realize that this is just encouraging me don't you? When I told my roommates what I had won, one of them said "Great, just what you need, more LEDs". Yes, yes I do need more LEDs. It's only going to get worse from here on out...