dorkbot-boston

dorkbot-boston 200901
http://www.dorkbotboston.com

Tue, Jan 27, 7-9PM
Willoughby&Baltic Hackerspace
197a Elm Street, Somerville.
(Davis Square, above the Subway sandwich shop)

Dorkbot-boston kicks off the 2009 season with its first gathering in
Somerville.

Jay Silver (http://web.media.mit.edu/~silver/) is an artist, engineer,
and seeker working in the Lifelong Kindergarden group at the MIT Media
Lab. He recently invented the Drawdio (www.drawdio.com), a pencil
that lets you draw music. He was inspired to create Drawdio by
watching schoolchildren in the slums of Bangalore play with a modified
harmonium kit. His prior work includes studies of the urban jungle,
art that encourages human-to-human physical contact, and visual essays
about creative property rights. He was raised by a pack of hippies
and midwives.

Eric Rosenbaum’s (http://ericrosenbaum.com) interests include
collaborative learning in shared spaces, authenticity in learning
environments, musical improvisation for novices, and learning through
constructing science simulations. His projects have included Scratch
for Second Life, Shake and Play Duplo bricks for experimenting with
sound, motion and light, and MmmTsss playful looping software. Before
coming to the Lifelong Kindergarden group at the MIT Media Lab, Eric
did research in auditory neuroscience, created animations for music
education, worked on molecular dynamics simulation software for high
school science students, and developed augmented reality games for
science education.

David Nunez (http://www.davidnunez.com) is a freelance software artist
recently transplanted from Texas where he organized dorkbot-austin.
He will share what it’s like to do consulting for children’s museums
as he discusses the design and development of an animatronic lobster
for a soon-to-be launched exhibit at the Houston Children’s Museum,
part of an expansion that will encourage kids to explore programming
and tinkering. Previously, he developed the multi-touch table
interface for Eric Archer’s Electric Gongs at the Austin Children’s
museum (http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/07/electric_gongs.html)
and his robot marionette, El Quemira, won several blue ribbons at the
2007 Austin Maker Faire.

OpenDork – Everyone is encouraged to bring your own recently completed
or projects-in-progress for OpenDork, a lightning round-the-room
session of peer-review and general showing-off. Art and technology
projects at all stages (sketchbook to polished) and of all levels of
complexity are welcomed. This is the perfect chance to say, “Hey, I’m
trying to do something interesting… here is what I’ve got so far.
Can anyone offer suggestions to move forward?”

Also mark your calendars:

dorkbot-boston 200902 – 2/24 @ 7PM
dorkbot-boston 200903 – 3/31 @ 7PM

Dorkbot mailing list for art/technology event announcements and discussion:
http://groups.google.com/group/DorkbotBoston