LilyPad Arduino MicrocontrollerThink about a coat that detects changes in air and body temperature and automatically adjusts to keep you comfortable. How about a sonar based device enabling you to see in the dark? Or always having your music player, video player, radio, and mobile phone with you wherever you go because they are built into your tshirt? eTextiles, electro-craft, wearable electronics; it’s about taking technology and transforming it around your body, creating symbiosis. Whether you’re looking to augment the human condition with technology or you’re more interested in the romantic ethereal glow of twinkly lights, you have to start somewhere.
In this short series of workshops we will provide a quick introduction to the Arduino Lilypad line of wearable electronics. We’ll look at how to tell the micro-controller (the smart component) what to do, and how to use some sensors and actuators*. And then how to put it all together into an actual, wearable, project.
Taking place one evening a week, for three weeks, we hope to introduce you to a new passion that combines electronics, programming, and crafting. Sound scary? The only pre-requisite is that you have a laptop (with USB port) you can bring to the workshops. We’ll help you with all the rest.
*components that do something, e.g. a buzzer makes a sound
This coming Saturday 17th August, is TOG’s regular open social. It’s a great opportunity to drop in, hang out and meet some of the members and visitors. The space will be open from afternoon until late. Bring beer, food, gadgets!
We also have a egg-bot kit. An egg-bot draws on eggs and other similarly shaped objects, such as light bulbs and ping pong balls. We’ll be assembling the kit during the evening and trying to get it running. You can read all about the egg-bot here….. http://egg-bot.com/ Come in and give us a hand!
Dublin Mini Maker Faire 2013 has come and gone. We’ve been recapping a few of the projects displayed at the event, like the Bubble Bird House, and the Twitter Knitter. The Craft Nighters* got in on the action as well, and contributed squares towards a patchwork quilt. The type of squares is varied, including crochet, hand knit, machine knit, embroidery, blackwork, patchwork (meta), and decorative uses of beads, buttons, and googly eyes. Rather than losing some of the detail by making them conform to a strict patchwork quilt, we instead chose a looser arrangement to better showcase the talent and variety of our dedicated crafters.
* Craft Night happens every second Tuesday from 7pm. It’s free, and open to all crafts. Simply, people show up and work on their projects. It’s great having others around who can help you out if you get stuck/confused, or just to chat with (and find out the best crafting suppliers). Get in touch and come along!
So you started to crochet, but never quite got further than a square that turned into a triangle? This is the class for you. We’ll look at some further techniques, such as crochet in the round starting with a magic circle and stitches for decreasing. During the class you’ll get a reminder of the basics, and then we’ll make a sphere, which combines increases with decreases and is a great starting point for making hats or amigurumi toys.
We have been working on projects that all went down really well at Maker Faire this year and will be working on over the coming months to improve as we go along.
One project that I worked on with another member is the Bubble Birdhouse.
It all started with some messing/science trying to make bubbles from washing up liquid and seeing what components are needed for a good bubble. Then trying to replicate what the commercial machines can do but build your own. Once we had this almost cracked we worked to scale up the project as we did for street performers event. We learned that children like to stick fingers into every bubble that comes out of the machine, so we came up with solutions for this.
We put it 6 foot off the ground, this was a really amazing experience to see how children and adults are drawn to bubbles.
Next stage is to take it all apart and redesign it from scratch like every project; rebuild and improve as we go along.
If you want to see the Bubble Birdhouse in action check out the end of this news piece.
