Oobleck Demo v2

We have decided to upgrade our Oobleck demonstration since it seems to be wildly popular.  Our goals were to go bigger and reduce noise output.  One 15″ subwoofer and donated amp later we were done.  It is a much simpler, larger, and quieter design than our previous demo.  Videos will be posted soon.  

LED Fireflies in a Jar (v1.0)

Me and my wife recently had our first child.  I’ve been trying to come up with some projects I can do for the kid.  Well, around this time of the year the fireflies go crazy around my house, so we came up with the idea to do led fireflies in a jar.  It should be something cool for him to stare at and is easy to build.

Schematics, C source code and hex file are available here on our wiki.  If you want to build one it should only take about an hour.

I’m planning on making a version 2 with some changes, stay tuned for that one.

Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto

Robot Fest 2010 has come and gone. Some of the many interesting exhibits this year included the pneumatic rocket experience provided by the Baltimore Node, the many Lego Mindstorms projects, Maker Bot demonstrations, various art demonstrations, and a fashion show.

Make coverage and more pics here.

We’d like to thank everyone that stopped by our exhibit to view the Oobleck demonstration, PIC micro-controller LED arrays, the hand-powered Arduino random movie quote generator, build some cardboard robots, or just hang out and talk electronics. We had a great time and we hope to see everyone next year. Our next event will be at ArtScape in Baltimore. In the meantime, feel free to come by and do some hacking on one of our open hack nights.

Talking Dirty to MicroControllers!

Wednesday was the day we finally got together and started the tedious process of mastering microcontrollers.  What began with just some simple LED illumination evolved and progressed throughout the evening.  In the end we had individually, but collectively, written programs for interpreting analog inputs, displaying binary values, and performing counting and reset operations.  The evening was pretty fulfilling for some less experienced members and refreshing for the remainder.  Another microcontroller experiementation session is being planned for the near future.