Blog

This just in: ArcAttack has built the largest Tesla coil in existence. You can see photos of it on Flickr, courtesy of Steve Ward.

Arcattack and The masters of lightning come together for a common cause, to design the worlds largest DRSSTCs. Due to freezing rain, and extreme schedule constraints, the first test is limited to Daves loading dock, but still it was pretty awesome.

Thanks to everyone who came out to enjoy the creative tomfoolery at Dorkbot 25. A special thanks goes to the Austin Hackerspace for hosting the event. Also thank you to our presenters: Jonathan and Sharon with their masks, Christian and his UberHoop, the guy who brought his obstacle-detecting tank-bot (plz add to comments if anyone knows his name), Lindsay Greene of The Dead Left and his square-wave distortion boxes, and of course The Dead Left for a fantastic performance at the end of the event.

In case you weren’t able to make it out last night, here’s a sample of what you missed. Yes, you missed the LED throwies (which Hackerspace member do I have to thank for those little gems?). You missed custom-molded Halloween masks, an announcement about the Dorkbot-Arduino 101 class coming up in November, a raffle to give away some fantastic hackable electronic components (though I think Dustin was secretly just cleaning out his closets), a great band, and a fantastic space for hacking and working on whatever project you little maker-heart desires.

That said, how could we ever top Halloween-o-rama? With Dorkbot 26 of course! Coming your way in November. Details coming soon. If you or someone you know would like to present at the next event, just contact us. laura [at] eastsidehovel [dot] com or milsyobtaf [at] gmail [dot] com.

Christian Miller’s UberHoop in action during last night’s intermission. Thanks to Katie and Nate for hooping!

Lindsay Greene presenting his square wave distortion boxes that he uses when performing with The Dead Left.

Lindsay Greene and Lauren Gurgiolo of The Dead Left performing at Dorkbot 25.

Science Fair / CC Image courtesy Kelly Sims (http://www.flickr.com/photos/greyfodder/)

Looks like the President has decided to extend the warm White House welcome, so common for high achieving athletes, to the high achieving STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) students of the nation!  I look forward to checking out some of the celebrated projects once they hit the blogosphere.

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/10/president_to_host_white_house_scien.html

Researching unique ideas for LEDs in clothing (for my not-so-super-secret Halloween costume in the works), I came across a collaborative fashion project called HearWear. This line of clothing reacts to sounds in your environment by displaying moving light patterns.

You can read more about it here: http://absurdee.com/hearwear/

I was so excited to find out about this! We used to have one of these when I was a wee child in 1979.  We chased the cats around the house with it (which I’m sure is one of the reasons why they hated me). You can check out BigTrak and BigTrak Jr. at http://www.bigtrakisback.com/

Diego Stocco does things I dream of doing.  Like recording himself playing a burning piano for a movie soundtrack and inventing weird hybrid musical instruments. Well, I do those kinds of things anyway but…

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/06/gallery-strange-instruments/

So I was about to do a massive post on concrete, which is actually more interesting  (and tedious) than one would imagine (http://matse1.mse.uiuc.edu/concrete/prin.html) , when it dawned on me that it had nothing to do with electricity. Enter the unpronounceable Icelandic volcano to save the day:http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20100526/sc_livescience/icelandvolcanoashplumeelectrified

Sometimes one needs inspiration; a new way of looking at old things.

Presenting the Museum of Unintended Use:

http://www.museumofunintendeduse.com/

Get a velocipede. Electrify it and make it collapsible. This is why I like engineering.

http://www.yikebike.com/site/gallery/video/yikebike-discovery-channel