Next Month

First of all, I want to try and pull this all together. This month's meeting was all right, but not nearly as large as I'd hoped for. First thing we're doing, though, is changing the night that we have the meeting.

Next month's meeting will be on the first Thursday night of the month. This will be October 2nd. We will be meeting from 6-8p at Webster's Café on S. Allen St. in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section. This is in the back on the right side in the store.

Google Calendar Event

This is for a few reasons. First of all, it turns out that people from both the robotics and physics clubs on campus who wanted to come couldn't due to what night we chose for the club to be on. Next is the fact that it will be easier to have the space at Webster's on Thursdays.

Unfortunately, due to a slight lack of attendance, the prizes we had for this meeting were not given out. We'll still have those for next meeting.

Finally, Elaine, the owner of Webster's, is hoping that we might be able to help put together something creepy for Halloween, since she's planning on doing a "haunted bookstore"; any ideas?

Hope to see you next month!

TV-B-Gone

Well, I think I have an idea for October's meeting already. Who wants to bring their soldering iron to Webster's and make one of these? I think it would be fun to solder some up, then go around to the local bars afterwards... or maybe go over to one of the dining halls or the HUB to turn off that MTVU stuff that they're trying to fill kids' brains with these days. Seems like it might be fun.

Hope to see you at the meeting! Sept. 3rd, 6-9p, here!

RSynth

Today I finished making my RSynth. This is a resistance-based synthesizer, based on a large variable resistor and a VCO circuit.
Here's another view:

It's made from a piece of plywood with a large amount of conductive paint, a steel wire with tensioner, a copper wire with tensioner, and a 555 Timer-based VCO circuit, which, by the way, is extremely easy to build, and versatile, accepting power from 5-15 VDC.
And now for a video:

StickDuino Fun!

I got my StickDuino in the mail yesterday, and, upon opening it, realized something was missing: headers! There were no header pins! Luckily, I had some laying around. I placed those in their holes on the board, plugged the whole thing into a breadboard to hold it still, and soldered. Two minutes later, it was ready to go. Within 15 minutes, I had a program modified to control an RGB LED. After some further programming, I came up with this:

/*
* RGBRandom
* by Pete Marchetto
*
* Based on Loop by David Mellis. Randomly lights an RGB LED with one of 7 colors.
* Demonstrates the use of a for() loop and arrays.
*
*/

int timer = 1000; // The higher the number, the slower the timing.
int pins[] = { 0,1,3 }; // an array of pin numbers (Vcc or 3.3V is on pin 2)
int num_pins = 3; // the number of pins (i.e. the length of the array)

void setup()
{
int i;
randomSeed (analogRead (0)); // seeds the random number generator off A0
for (i = 0; i < num_pins; i++) // the array elements are numbered from 0 to num_pins - 1
pinMode(pins[i], OUTPUT); // set each pin as an output
}

void loop()
{
int i;

for (i = 0; i < num_pins; i++) { // loop through each pin...
digitalWrite(pins[random(0, 3)], LOW); // turning one on at random,
delay(timer); // pausing,
digitalWrite(pins[random(0,3)], HIGH); // and turning one off at random.
}
}

Which can be found at this location as a Processing file. So far, with the exception of the missing headers, I like it alot!

Arduino Pirate Madness

A weekend project presentation from Make Magazine:

And if you fancy something a little easier to connect to, and easier to use on a breadboard, try the StickDuino. Mine's in the mail, and I'll be reviewing it at the meeting.

Cool VCO Tutorial

Check out this Cool 555-based VCO.

After a brief interruption...

Here we go. Back to business on the first wednesday of September. We'll be in the Sci-Fi and Fantasy section at Webster's on Allen St.

Welcome one and all!

Welcome to the dorkbot-psu blog. Here we will cover the events of our meetings, future presentations, and other strange things done with electricity. Links will also be posted to cool sites in the area, as well as to interesting articles online.