Scratch Day

Tomorrow, May 16, there will be dozens of gatherings around the world devoted to “Scratch,” a programming language sponsored by the MIT Media Lab which is designed to help young people learn the basics of computation. This is not your father’s LOGO; built in Smalltalk, Scratch allows users to create elaborate graphic and sonic environments with interaction and messaging between numerous visual objects. An unbelievably enthusiastic community of “scratchers” has uploaded hundreds of thousands of creative and brilliant Scratch projects to the main website.

Here in the DC-metro area, there will be two Scratch community events: one at the Arlington Career Center and one at Takoma Park Middle School.

At the event at the Arlington Career Center, Todd Fine of HacDC will be briefly presenting on how one, using Python and the Scratch Networking Sockets, can link the Scratch environment to microcontrollers, the Internet, and other software. As an example, we will control our Scratch games using a Nintendo Wii Nunchuck.

When: Saturday, May 16th, 2009, 10 am to 1 pm
Where: 816 South Walter Reed Drive
Arlington, VA 22204

Categories: UncategorizedAuthor tfine

Noisemaker Workshop: Round N+1!

Tonight: Diodes and Ring Modulators.

I’ve gotten in a bunch of XOR chips, and that lets us do ring modulation — the key to getting that tuning-in-the-shortwave-radio sound. (And more!) It’s lots of cheap, easy fun.

Once we get a handle on the XOR, we’ll make variable-width pulses. This gets us a cheap phasing sound and will let us sync a bunch of oscillators to each other.

But do we dare combine multiple sync’ed oscillators with XORing?!?! Oh yes.

Bring in breadboards (preferably with your 74HC14 and other chips). We’ll be making a bunch of quick and dirty circuits and there’s too much room for experimentation to be soldering this stuff up. As usual, I’ll have parts if you need them, but today you can also re-use any of the stuff you haven’t soldered down.

Thursday Noisemaker Workshop Round 4: Sequencers

An 8-step bleepy-bloopy sequencer? On a shoestring budget? Impossible! (Or is it?)

This project is a fair step up in complexity, so we’ll assemble and test on breadboards first. I’ll try to pick some up at Radio Shark, but please bring your own if you’ve got ’em. Also, feel free to bring in your old noisemakers; we can splice the sequencer circuit right in.

And if you’re just coming to a workshop for the first time, this is paradoxically a good time to jump in. You’ll be behind on some of the “theory” but we’ll catch you up quick.

See you all at our regular time — 7:30 at the HacDC space!

Peter W. Singer on “Wired For War” at HacDC (June 2)

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P.W. Singer
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We are pleased to announce that on Tuesday, June 2 at 7:30PM bestselling author Peter W. Singer will give a talk on military robotics and his new book Wired for War at the HacDC space.

Peter Warren Singer is Senior Fellow and Director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution, and he is the youngest scholar named Senior Fellow in the 90-year history of Brookings. His new book looks at the implications of military robotics on war, politics, ethics, and law in the 21st century. Described as “an exhaustively researched book, enlivened by examples from popular culture” by the Associated Press and “awesome” by Jon Stewart of The Daily Show, Wired for War made the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list in its first week of release. It has already been featured in the video game Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriot, and Singer has given presentations on the book to a diverse array of military and civilian audiences.

We will be posting more information as this event approaches, but please do spread the word to media, listservs, or other communities of interest. HacDC is a nonprofit community space for people who experiment with all kinds of technology, and we have a strong group interest in robotics. In addition to robotics hobbyists, this event should appeal to people who work in public policy, engineering, military, and other fields in the Washington, D.C. area; we welcome all to the space. For specific information about the event or if you would like to cover it as press, please contact Todd Fine at tdfine@gmail.com.

Where: HacDC (1525 Newton St NW, Washington, DC)
Date: Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Time: 7:30PM