NYC Resistor

As part of my talk for 25c3, I spent some time talking about weaving looms. Looms are a lot like giant physical graphics processors. They’re also considered to be the first machines to really make use of punch cards.

At the Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin they have a ton of old industrial textile equipment, including a beautiful Jacquard loom. And next to it, a fantastic model which shows you just how a Jacquard head works. It was so great I had to snap a video.

You can see photos and video of the loom itself over on my blog, Kellbot!

More awesome textile tech was a punchtape driven embroidery machine which was completely mechanical. I couldn’t find much information about it, so if anyone knows about these machines let me know!

Of course there’s a ton of other stuff at the Tech museum… planes, trains, automobiles, math… we spent about 5 hours there and still didn’t see all of it. If you’re in Berlin you should set aside half a day to go see it.

Nicolle from Pumping Station One, a hacker space initiative in Chicago visited NYC Resistor today.  Pumping Station One does not have a home yet, but has begun organizing their paperwork for a 501c3 application.  The project has been going since November, and seems to be off to a terrific start.  We worked with Nicolle to laser cut the P.S. One logo.  We wish these guys all the best.  If you are interested in starting your own hackspace, checkout hackerspaces.org.

Our article in the NY Times

NYC Resistor was featured in the NY Times online today, and will appear in print this Sunday, on page CY5 of the New York edition.

First, huge thanks go to Ben Popper for contacting us, visiting, and writing the article. Michael Appleton also made our space look pretty darn snazzy in his photo. Thanks guys!

If you’ve found us from that article, welcome! As you’ve read, we’re a group of like-minded people who get together to learn, share, and make things - most often things that blink, beep, or move about, but we do crafty stuff as well, and we’re always experimenting. Here’s a few of the projects we’ve worked on in the past. Bre has also featured quite a few projects on his show, “Things“. If you’d like to keep up with what we’re up to, the best way is to stay informed is to subscribe to this blog. If you have any questions or would just like to say hello, you can email us at contact@nycresistor.com or leave us a voicemail at (888) 881-2802.

Now, if you’ve read about us and thought to yourself “That sounds neat, I’d like to go check it out”, here’s the deal. Our physical location is a private space and there’s not always someone around, so please be sure to drop us an email to make sure it’s a good time to swing by. We’d hate to have you come for a visit and find nobody home. You can also join us for any of our public events. We host open “craft nights” most Thursdays*, so check the calendar and then come say hello! Bringing a project to hack or craft on is highly encouraged.

Another good way to get to know us and check out the space is to come to one of our classes. The schedule for the new year will be filling up soon. The best way to stay updated as new classes are added to the schedule is to subscribe to the RSS feed of new classes.

Finally, if you want to start chatting with other like-minded folks (even if you’re not local to NYC), consider joining our “microcontroller study group“. It’s essentially the public email listserv for NYC Resistor, and a lot of interesting chats happen there.

Okay, I think that’s it… Thanks again to Ben, Michael, and the Times!

*Note: There’s no craft night this Thursday, due to it being New Year’s day, and the fact that a good chunk of Resistors will be attending 25c3

Check out this little gem: a ham radio store in the heart of New York City! It’s called Barry Electronics, and you’ll be forgiven if you’ve never heard of it, since they don’t have a website, or a sign, and as far as I know they don’t advertise anywhere. What they do have is an ample stock of Yaesu and Icom radios, various aftermarket antennas, several shelves of radio books, and a bunch of other ham equipment. According to the proprietor (appropriately named Jonathan), most of their business is in commercial Motorola VHF/UHF radios, but most of their showroom is dedicated to ham equipment because the corporate customers aren’t interested in window shopping. If you want to visit, they’re at 224 W. 35th St. (between 7th and 8th Avenues), Suite 408.

PumpoTron 3000 from Zach 'Iowa' Hoeken on Vimeo.

Get the files for laser cutting your own pump at www.thingiverse.com.

This is an image of actual Cray Super Computer Memory… each of those little rings, is one bit of visible read once memory.  Man has electrical engineering come a long way since then…  The opportunity to photograph this epic piece of electronic history was brought to me by my friend phar, who bought this on I think ebay.  Just thought I’d share the history.

Last year I made my nearly annual journey to Cleveland Ohio for one of my personal favorite conferences, Notacon.  Notacon has never been a purely “tech” conference, but instead focuses on the areas where tech meets art and creativity.  As a result it wasn’t long before someone attempted to bring back what is now a lost art for the most part in the United States… The demo scene.  Block party is the demoscene event that occurs at Notacon.  I was literally blown away by several of the entries last year.  Of particular notority was Jeri Ellsworth’s Custom FPGA board.  I am looking forward to going again this year, but I thought I’d post about it for everyone else’s benefit.  You can read more about the events here:

www.demoparty.us

www.notacon.org

We have a pretty neat class coming up this Saturday. It’s a beginners look at powering small devices with very small energy sources. Not only will you be saving the world, but you’ll learn a thing or two about electronics along the way! From the class description:

Using the most basic components, you too can gather electricity from a light breeze or a tiny solar cell.  We’ll cover generating power from wind, from simple bike generators and from light, and we’ll each build a simple boost circuit to convert small voltages into useful power. Gather year-round data on the top of a mountain! Make an immortal LED throwie! The possibilities are endless!

Taught by Raphael Abrams, Saturday from 1 to 3 at NYCR

Sign up here: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/235889552

Once again we are offering our basic soldering class. But for the holidays we’ve dropped the price from $35 to a mere $20. This is insanely cheap. We have gone insane.

This Sunday at 2PM:   http://www.eventbrite.com/event/234648841