Anamanaguchi makes some incredible guitar-infused NES based chiptune music, and is streaming their entire new album online along with some amazing 8-bit inspired visuals. You can experience the whole thing fullscreen at dawnmetropolis.com or check it out embedded below. Just click on a video stripe for the song and video.

With strong, catchy melodies, an excellent blend of chiptune and analog sounds, and an unrelentingly optimistic pace, Anamanaguchi definitely ranks among my new favorites artists. This is true musicianship using 8-bit tools.

Check out the videos here:

Or you can get the album from http://normative.com/#/anamanaguchi

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 [email protected] 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

This past Saturday, I stopped in at NYC Resistor looking to really start learning how to program electronics using the Arduino platform. I’d taken Zach’s Intro to Arduino “If funky get loopy” course (he says there will be more after the new year!), but hadn’t really made any of my own projects. Figuring that Raphael’s twitchie kit had some good servos and a little Ardunio based board in it, I started taking apart.

It turns out that Bre was already in the middle of a similar project, and had fashioned a DIY robotic arm out of servos, a twitchie board (which uses the same firmware as the Lilypad) and Popsicle sticks. We joined forces and put together this amazing little thing:

Things – Eric Skiff and Bre Pettis created a Popsicle Stick Robotic Arm from Bre Pettis on Vimeo.

We hacked an old Atari joystick to control the arm, and each servo is manipulated in turn as you press the red button. It really was a ton of fun to bring this project together, and I’m amazed at what we did in a few hours. Huge thanks to Bre for having the hardware all set to go and to Raph for his awesome Twitchie kit and all his advice along the way.

If you’d like to embark on a similar project, here’s the code for SuperRobotArm v0.2.

Bre is debating keeping the popsicle stick aesthetic or making a slick laser-cut body, and is taking votes via comments on his blog. Let him know what you think!

By the way – this video is part of Bre’s excellent “Things” series, where he features a new awesome thing each day. You can check out the archives at bre.blip.tv, or Subscribe in itunes to get new episodes as they come out!

In this video:

Devon Jones with his modification of “Third Hands ++” from Ryan Straughn

Video by: Eric Skiff (behind the camera / CC-BY music).

A fun little stop-motion made with Devon‘s “Helping Hands” project

Video and ridiculous sound by Eric Skiff