There’s a little bit of cross-posting going on around this little event we’re having here, but we want to make sure that you (yes, YOU!  No, not the person behind you, YOU) come out and see what we’ve got going on.

There will be hacked acoustic instruments.
There will be blinking lights.
There will be repurposed MakerBots.
There will be noise.
There will be melody.
There will be fun!

More info is at http://handmademusic.noisepages.com, but all you really need to know is, be at CRASH Space tonight at 8.

In the meantime, here’s a little preview of the Guitamaton, one of the instruments that will be on display tonight.

Come by and say hello!

Steve has given this talk dozens of times as a special presentation for his employer, Belden, the leading manufacturer of cable for the broadcast and entertainment industries. Now he gives it to a larger audience. This thought-provoking presentation covers the march of technology, focusing on those with lack of vision that stood in the way of progress, and on the technologies that has been lost and rediscovered. He covers subjects as varied as Aztec basketball and the Big Bang, and challenges his audience about their own lack of vision and where we are going. Are you ready for tomorrow? There are ethical and moral questions rapidly coming which many do not see or understand. And, believe it or not, he brings the journey back to the subject of wire and cable.

Steve Lampen has worked for Belden for nineteen years and is currently Multimedia Technology Manager and also Product Line Manager for Entertainment Products. Prior to Belden, Steve had an extensive career in radio broadcast engineering and installation, film production, and electronic distribution. Steve holds an FCC Lifetime General License (formerly a First Class FCC License) and is an SBE Certified Radio Broadcast Engineer. On the data side he is a BICSI Registered Communication Distribution Designer. His latest book, “The Audio-Video Cable Installer’s Pocket Guide” is published by McGraw-Hill. His column “Wired for Sound” appears in Radio World Magazine.

Talk starts at 8pm, open to the public. Free for members $10 suggested donations for non-members.

Click through for fancy presentation player.

click it

Our good friends at Evil Mad Science Laboratories are coming to LA, and they want to hang out with us for an evening. Open to everyone, but of course if you’re not a member, we would really appreciate donations.

As they say:

“This weekend the lab staff will be visiting the Los Angeles area and we’re planning a meetup if you’d like to say hello. This will be informal, but we’ll be bringing along a few of our little projects to show off.”

If you’re unfamiliar with EMSL, they created the bristlebot, which we demo’d at Crash Space a few weeks ago. They also created the Larson Scanner LED Cylon/Knight rider kit we used for the first Speed Make competition. They’ve been doing so many cool things that it’s difficult to list them all. Needless to say, they’ve been featured in MAKE magazine multiple times.

I recommend anyone who has a cool project to bring it in and we can have lots of fun comparing them all.

We’ll have some refreshments and snacks too, because it’s not hacking unless you’re getting cheetos dust on your circuit.

So this weekend, and the second saturday of every month thereafter, we’re having a spare parts party. Come in, bring your unwanted gear, and we’ll sort, spindle, mutilate, and brainstorm how we can best use (and abuse) them and their precious pieces. If you see something you want, members get first dibs, but guests can bring home the bacon for a token donation (to be determined by the member on-hand).

We’ve already got a bunch of stuff to sort and disassemble for parts for storage and use, but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion there are some even cooler bits out there that could use a good home.

I’ll be wielding the pliers and soldering iron in the front room from 10am until midnight, and there will be steady flow of members in and out through the day. So stop by if you’ve got old gear you can’t use anymore, or if you want to pick through our extensive collection of old computers, cables, wires, bits, and pieces.

(also, as staff librarian, I would be remiss if I didn’t take this opportunity to pimp our fledgling technical library. If you’ve got books to donate, we’re in full-on collections mode. the older and mustier the better!)

PS: We’re well aware of the issues involved in disposing of the complicated and sometimes toxic pieces of industrial whimsy that are our electronic lives. In addition to the swap meet fun and games, we’ll be sorting and prepping unwanted stuff for recycling, reuse, and proper disposal, by material. So if you’ve got stuff you don’t know how to dispose of properly, bring it in, and we’ll take care of e-waste, mixed plastics, chemicals, and strange metals. It’s the responsible thing to do.

My outline notes of the meeting

We had another great Radio Mondays(about 10 attending), we discussed the wide variety of RC toys and models and organizations; paying special attention to areas people might be interested in trying out something.

The toy helicopter above was very popular to fly around, although it’s a bit tricky to control. Organizations like Big Gun scale ship combat and 3D-flying helicopter races were explored in detail, and we discussed some alternate uses of RC gear, like controlling art installations, decorations, using hobby flight gear as a cheap intro to UAV design, and much more.

• Amateur Radio
•     Services
•       ARES/RACES
•       Military Afilliate Radio System
•       SKYWARN
•       SATERN(salvation army)
• cells
•    wireless priority service
•    e911
• NOAA weather alerts
• emergency alert system
• sat phones(iridium, globalsat)
• police/fire/coast guard

There are also a host of military and government radio systems that get used in an emergency, but they tend to be satellite or tight/encrypted links we can’t access.

We also talked about what direction we should go for our first project, we’re leaning towards a recreation of the famous experiments van Eck did, that led to the TEMPEST standards. It would be interesting and even possibly useful to other projects, to know what kind of RF things around crashspace were emitting.

[pics later]

Programming and designing with micro controllers can be challenging, however parts like the Arduino make it much easier. Smart people have put enough wrappers and ‘scaffolding’ around the core to hide much of the complexity and open the use of these devices up to a much wider audience of hackers and designers.

I expect there are many other Crashers who are already playing with microcontrollers, or want to. Personally, I have built some basic ‘experiments’ with the arduino and some other chips. I also have a ‘blimpduino’ – a mylar blimp whose motors are controlled by an arduino, either by R/C commands or autonomously.  I have flown it as an R/C blimp but not tried it autonomously yet.

What is the interest/experience of other Crashers with microcontrollers?

The SVAS classes are open enrollment – you sign up for 3 months, start any time, go as often or little as you want, and if you dont complete the program in 3 months you sign up for another 3 months. School is open 9am-9pm M-Th and some people are there 8+hrs/day, while others make it only a couple hours a week (day jobs, etc).  The Basic Machinist (BM), CNC and CAD/CAM are a series and if you finish one part way thru a 3 month gig, you just start the next.  They figure if you go 8hr/day daily, you have a good chance to finish one certificate in 3 months.

I started the BM program back in August, shortly after I got laid off. Its been fun and interesting learning how to run a lathe and milling machine. It gives a good understanding of the basics that will be useful for CNC, etc. The program has you build 8 projects – generally tools you can add to your tool box for later use machining other things.

Welding is an area I’d like to learn and practice more.  I took the Safety Basic Use (SBU) classes at Tech Shop for MIG, TIG and Gas welding last fall with my son Brian. We have a small MIG and Gas rigs but havent done much with them. The MIG was not cooperative and I’m leery of Gas welding.  Having a small learning project would be good ‘driving problem’ to get going better.

I’ve also looked into Forging a bit. You can make a smelter for aluminum pretty easy using charcoal (got a book on it).  Casting is a bit more work, but 3d printing and desktop cnc boxes are often used for making the initial parts for molds used in casting. Jewelry and small parts for other machines are an option.

Supporting these interests may be harder in a hackerspace than electronics and textiles.  Space needs to be dedicated to them as dirty and dangerous (fire, injury hazards). But they could be a great asset to other projects.

Are others interested in these aspects of hacking? Sheet metal work is another related area (metal forming).

Perhaps a new category here for member interests (vs news&updates or uncategorized) would be good.

And perhaps starting pages for interests in the wiki.