robotics workshop

we had an overwhelming number of successes today. the room was packed! Mike and his suped-up machine that hops like a low rider. Wayne and Lauren going with the perpendicularly-opposed drive, James had great success triggering the critter with his mag light, and so many others it escapes my electron addled mind. the photos of course are linked to the nbsp flickr group

many people asked, when is the next one? I am eager to try a project called the symet which is a symmetrical junkbot that is autonomous. autonomous, in that, it uses a solar cell so it searches for it's own "food". and "junkbot" meaning that we can salvage (ie free) many components from our garages, the thrift store, Aunt Mabel's attic, etc. start looking for discarded microcassette and cassette players, old pcb's, and anything else you want crack the case on. (on another project, I recently built FM transmitter using on materials scavenged from old pcb's!)

and lastly, I want to game these critters and the future bots. Obviously there is the race. what else could we do? I wanna see the nitro-fuel funny robot races between Lauren's and Wayne's 'wheeled' versions. send me your suggestions. I think we should have some games in the next couple of weeks. And I challenge Mike and anyone else to see who can make their bot jump higher, just like the low-riders here in O-town. Any volunteers want to judge?

a day at the CDC

the CDC has a public space & face. the public space includes a gallery space for a permanent and rotating exhibit. we had to go through an extensive security check that included a x-ray scan and physical search of our vehicle that was worth every bit of the inconvenience. the current visiting exhibit is from the National Holocaust Museum; Deadly Medicine tracks the 20th century Eugenics movement across the world and how it was used during the Nazi years. amazing stuff; i was not aware how large the movement was across the planet.

the permanent exhibit is about the history of the CDC. some of the artifacts include: an iron lung, tools for collecting small pox virus, level 5 'blue suits', and a lounging 6 foot mosquito called Betty. a tour group was getting a chance to put on the hazard suits, I am so jealous. I propose a nList field trip! they do a Disease Camp for High Schoolers, maybe we can talk them into a college-level course.


they have a giftshop (which I am already planning some suggestions for new products), i was able to get some goodies including a plush cold virus for my 7 month old cousin.

crack that (iPhone) case!

cute! my fave 3rd party Mac parts dealer will be cracking open the iPhone tomorrow. they are the smartasses who wear buttons that say "no I won't fix your iPod" (they will teach how to do it yerself).

get live updates of the iPhone surgery photoblog at:

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone

>>>>>>>>>>from my email>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
--3-- Live iPhone Disassembly

We will be live blogging the disassembly of an iPhone shortly after
its release at 6:00 EDT on Friday, June 29. The live stream of photos
will use the same AJAX technology that the rest of our site is built
on. Your browser will update with images as soon as we take them,
without the need to refresh the page.

To be notified as soon as we begin disassembly, enter your email
address here:

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone

The live disassembly will begin tomorrow afternoon at the above
address. Stay tuned!<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Wayne holds the antenna for the first broadcast of nList TV

the first broadcast

last night John and i met to prototype the TV transmitter. John has some experience at electronics and so he brought a breadboard and drew out the schematics for the transmitter. he then put the components together and we hacked a rca cable for input.

our testing was going poorly until we realized to check our source, sure enough the displays had not auto detected. we immediately saw a transmitted image and spent the next hour tuning the transmitter. an antenna is going to absolutely necessary and we want to prototype an amplifier as soon as I return from my travel.

and as a bonus i was able to make the FM transmitter broadcast through out the room while John was scaring up a cable.

vivoleum!

the future of energy, the history of energy.

just simply amazing, i know they don't need adverts from me, but i want to offer props. and if you don't know this you really should.

http://www.vivoleum.com/event/