We are so proud of his accomplishment. If you haven’t read the article, click here.  Way to go Mark!

Possibly a more in depth write-up later.  For now, we are tired.  Enjoy !

Thanks everyone who participated in the event.  Our booth was a huge success.  If you didn’t make it, here’s a pic flood of what you missed.   To name a few thing’s you missed: Mark’s robot HEX, Eric’s telepresence robot, Jeff’s LaserShark/Laser Pong,  The robot head game, the cornstarch monster,  Paul’s chiptunes streamer/midi interface, Miles and his cardboard robots, an awesome vacuum tube amplifier and the larger part of our redbull creation project!  See you next year!

So it’s that time again, time for Redbull Creation, 3rd year.  I’ll make this short, just got the box, wanted to show some pics. Here’s what we got for the qualifier, our TurBull Encabulator. We’ll have updates on this later I’m sure.  You may remember our entry last year, the telepresence zen garden, and our year 1 entry with crank’d and we went to the finals with that entry, where we built the chill-a-piller.

Lot’s of LED’s for the qualifier this year, maybe an accelerometer.  Need more time to dive deep.  Have fun with the pics.

You must register for this class on Meetup; Limited seating available.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

You will learn:

How to use a breadboard
What capacitors are
How to use capacitors for filtering power
How to use capacitors for basic debounce/timing circuits
Connect a 555 timer circuit for blinking an LED

This will require the purchase of a breadboard and some more expensive parts that last time (I’m thinking it will be about $15 — I may need to adjust this after I buy the parts). I will bulk-order and get everyone more parts that you need.

700pt breadboard (Like this: )
A few voltage regulators (LM317, 7805) in TO-220 packages
A few 555 timers (DIP-8)
A couple potentiometers (5k, 10k, linear taper)
More resistors (assortment)
Some capacitors (.1uF, 1uF, 10uF)
etc.

I’ll update this as I develop the slides.

You will need to bring:

1 power supply – can be a wall transformer that is between 9 and 15 VDC and greater than 200mA output. You should be able to salvage on of these from any number of places.

22ga Solid Core wire (for connecting to you breadboard)
Some kind of wire cutters. I got some of these the other day:
(Small version – will handle anything that can fit on a breadboard)

Some kind of wire strippers. I like these but any kind that can strip 22ga solid wire is fine.

The parts kit from the last class (need the resistors, LEDs, and multimeter from it) or you can buy a kit for $5 (we may not have more multimeters available if you wait too long)

Either $15 or all of the parts that I listed in the parts section above.

Here are the slides from the class: BasicElectronics_1_20130320 .  Note:  We are preparing a follow up class that dives further into the subject.  Please keep an eye out for the announcement.

Chris Cockrum will be hosting another class.  This time is for beginning electronics.

There is limited seating available so Please register if you wish to attend.  Wed, March 20th.

Part 1.  Ohm’s law and Watt’s law

This class will teach the basics of voltage, current, and power.  A lab will be included that will demonstrate how to calculate the proper value of resistor to connect LEDs to power.

Parts and equipment may be borrowed from the hackerspace or you can purchase a multimeter (http://www.harborfreight.com/7-function-digital-multimeter-92020.html), a few LEDs, a few resistors, clip leads, and a 9V battery for $5.    Alternatively, you can bring your own.

Please join us on Wed, Jan 30 for a special guest speaker.  Jim Jackson, co-author of the book HTML5 for .NET Developers.

There is limited space available, so you must register on meetup.com for this event.

Jim Jackson is the co-author of HTML5 for .NET Developers, available now at http://www.manning.com/jackson and on Amazon. Jim has worked on rich HTML5 web applications for clients like Vogue, Rolling Stone and Playboy and is currently building an HTML5 game for the Windows App Store.

Attention All Hobbyists

• Is your shop so cluttered you can barely work on your projects?
• Did you buy something online that didn’t fit into your plans?
• Are you still looking for that perfect gadget, part or tool?

If you answered YES or NO to any of these questions, you need to attend the 4^th Annual Techno-Swap-Fest to buy, sell and gawk at all the precious junk that other hobbyists crave.

More info here

We just wanted to say thanks to Baltimore Node for coming out and having a “Node on the Road”  OpenHack event at our place last week.

You guys are always welcome, See you again soon!