Tuesday seminar series with laser jon: DEC. 16th @ 8:30pm

When: Tuesday, 16 December 2008 @ 8:30 PM
Where: HacDC (St. Stephen & The Incarnation Church) Auditorium (Enter through entrance facing 16th Street)
Cost: FREE

Tuesday’s seminar will feature Jon Singer, the Resident Researcher of the Joss Research Institute. Jon often works with (and sometimes builds) lasers. He will discuss laser basics:  what lasers are, what they aren’t and how they work.  He’ll also briefly talk about various types of lasers, and will cover some aspects of DIY nitrogen lasers and organic dye laser design and construction. The talk will be very shiny, with at least two demos. Hope he can help me (timball) debug my dead violet diode.

In laser related news, check out the awesome Blu-Ray laser that  CCCKC member hevnsnt put together out of old parts!  So cool, it got featured on i-hacked.

Picture by fatllama

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Categories: UncategorizedAuthor timball

All our events are FREE (Like tonight’s movie night at 8:30 PM)

NOW HEAR THIS: ALL HACDC EVENTS ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

Some of you at our first TSS event (which was full of WIN) were confused about the concept of membership.  HacDC does not exist to serve its members, its membership exists to serve YOU.

HacDC members have certain rights and responsibilities. Their biggest “right” is unfettered access to the space.  However, that right comes with the very large responsibilities of:

  • Planning, organizing and hosting FREE events for EVERYONE.
  • Building and maintaing a space where ALL DC’S dorks/geeks/hackers/makers/crafters/etc. have a place to go to collaborate, innovate, learn and teach.
  • Financially supporting the physical infrastructure to make this all possible.  

If you hear about an event on our blog, or on our blabber list, it’s free and open to you.

You may even want to follow @hacdcdoorman to see when we’re around, we love having visitors!

Of course, if you can handle these awesome responsibilities, we encourage you to become a member and become a steward of our rapidly growing community!

Hope to see you at tonight’s awesome movie night at 8:30 PM.

Categories: UncategorizedAuthor nootrope

RepRap Build-a-Thon

A "Darwin" RepRap built from laser-cut acrylic
A "Darwin" RepRap built from laser-cut acrylic

Join the HacDC and and the Baltimore/Maryland RepRap User’s Group (RUG) for a weekend of RepRap fun!  Save the weekend of January 24/25 for our RepRap Build-a-Thon.  Initial plans include a range of activities, including hands-on group construction a RepRap Darwin from the ground up starting with laser-cut acrylic parts.  We are also planning on having several local RepRap builders on hand with their machines, and hopefully able to demonstrate them in operation, making stuff!

We would also like to invite some of the local technology media/blogosphere folks, and take the opportunity to not only demonstrate what these machines can do, but also to talk in general about the implications of readily-available (and self-replicating) rapid prototyping machines. Certainly a great opportunity to chat with some RepRap pioneers, have a chance to participate in a hands-on build, and to generally have a good time with some local hackers.

More information coming as the plans develop- watch this space!  If you are interested in helping out, please let us know via the mailing list.  If you have contacts in the local technology media, or know someone in the trade who would be interested in this kind of event, please let us know!  See the movie post below for a time-compressed version of RepRap construction by one of the original designers- the time represented by the video is about four hours.  Given enough participants, we should be able to do something similar in our two days!

Timelapse of Adrian assembling the first RepRap “Darwin” from Adrian Bowyer on Vimeo.

Hurricane hackers!

Interesting article over at the New Scientist about the possibility of using supersonic jet fighters to neutralize hurricanes.  The concept depends on our understanding of hurricanes as delicately-balanced dynamic systems that depend on that balance for self-reinforcement and building strength.  Apparently, the math supports the concept of interfering with this delicate balance using the sonic booms created by a pair of jet fighters weaving in and out of the storm.  There are challenges, of course, such as the demands of long cruising at supersonic speeds, but overall the article posits a very interesting (and probably verifiable) theory that would be very interesting to test.

Fighter Jets Battle Hurricane
Fighter Jets Battle Hurricane

Therein lies the rub, however.  The article is all about a patent. Yes, kids, a patent.  I take this to mean that if someone wanted to try and stop a hurricane from ravaging the coastline of some hapless country, they would run the risk of getting sued by the patent holder unless the licensing fees were paid.  This seems kind of crazy, especially since lives are potentially involved- are they really going to stop someone from saving lives with this approach?  Sheesh.