dorkbot-boston

Awesome Foundation for Arts and Sciences and dorkbot-boston Present:

Lauren McCarthy: Tools for Improved Social Interacting

http://lauren-mccarthy.com/socialinteracting/

Talk and Reception
FREE EVENT
Fri, Jan 15, 7-9PM
sprout – 339R Summer St, Somerville

Directions:

Talk at sprout’s offices which are at 339R Summer Street just outside of Davis Square in Somerville, MA. It’s set back from the street, down the driveway to the right of 339 Summer Street; the “R” means “Rear.”
Map: http://thesprouts.org/contact

Reception to follow at The Spirit Bar (2046 Mass Ave, Cambridge) — Mass Ave and Creighton near Porter Square, just across the street from the Hess station.
http://thespiritbars.com

Lauren McCarthy will present her latest work of wearable devices at the next dorkbot-boston on January 15, 7PM at the offices of sprout at 339R Summer St, Somerville.

Funded in part by The Awesome Foundation, her Tools for Improved Social Interacting are items of clothing that use sensors and electronics to train the wearer to better adapt to expected social behaviors.

Guests are encouraged to bring their own projects to participate in OpenDork after her talk, a show-and-tell of people doing strange things with electricity – art and technology projects at all stages (sketchbook to polished) and of all levels of complexity are welcomed.

A reception will follow The Spirit Bar (2046 Mass Ave, Cambridge) where guests can try out Lauren’s devices.

Lauren McCarthy’s Tools for Improved Social Interacting are a “Series of wearable devices that use sensors to condition the behavior of the wearer to better adapt to expected social behaviors.”

• The Happiness Hat http://lauren-mccarthy.com/happinesshat/ trains the wearer to smile more. An enclosed bend sensor attaches to the cheek and measures smile size, a servo motor moves a metal spike into the head inversely proportional to the degree of smile. The smile size data is logged on a microSD memory card for download at the end of each use period.

• The Anti-Daydreaming Scarf contains a heat radiation sensor that detects if the wearer is engaged in conversation with another person. While he is, the scarf vibrates periodically to remind the wearer to pay attention and stop daydreaming.

• The Body Contact Training Suit requires the wearer to maintain frequent body contact with another person in order to hear normally. If the wearer stops touching someone for too long, static noise begins to play through headphones sewn into hood. A capacitance sensing circuit measures skin to skin body contact via a metal bracelet sewn into the sleeve.

• Lauren McCarthy is a designer, artist, and programmer, and currently an MFA student in the UCLA Design | Media Arts program. She received a BS in Computer Science ad a BS in Art and Design from MIT. Her work explores the structures and systems of social interactions, identity, and self-representation. She is interested in the slightly uncomfortable moments when patterns are shifted, expectations are broken, and participants become aware of the system. Her work takes any form necessary: video, performance, software, internet art, interactive objects and environments, and media installations.

Lauren was most recently working at Small Design Firm on projects for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monticello, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has also worked at Continuum and the MIT Media Lab.

• Founded in June 2009, The Awesome Foundation for the Arts and Sciences awards $1,000 grants monthly to projects that advance the interest of Awesomeness in our universe. There are no requirements for applying, no definite criteria for deciding the winner, and no limitations beyond the necessity for being awesome. Winners receive the money in cash, check, or gold doubloons, no strings attached. To learn more or apply, get on over to http://awesomefoundation.org

• dorkbot-boston is a monthly meeting of artists (sound/image/movement/whatever), designers, engineers, students, scientists, and other interested parties from the boston area who are involved in the creative use of electricity. dorkbot meetings are free and open to the public. http://dorkbotboston.com

• sprout is a group of learners and teachers working to inspire the practice of everyday experimentalism by running science programs that are embedded in the community–drawing inspiration and resources from the people, places, and things that surround us everyday! http://thesprouts.org

We are hosting an OpenProject session from 7PM-11PM on Tuesday November 17th at the Sprout/DINO shared space [339R Summer St. Somerville, MA 02144].

We are having two fantastically productive and prolific makers be in the space to demo their work and help you with yours:

Josh Gordonson Josh is a sophomore at MIT who’s recently received the Awesome Foundation’s Awesome grant, which will go towards creating several cotton candy guns, exposing the world to the horrors of ‘polysaccharide warfare’. For the past few years he’s been working on wearables (soft-circuits), time keeping devices (eddy current clock and others), and cotton candy machines (both standard and projectile). In the past few weeks, he has become deeply interested in learning how to integrate electronics with biological systems. On the average day, he enjoys embedding himself in nature, learning, and pondering the path towards our inevitable robot overlords.

Past and Present projects:

• http://www.instructables.com/member/T3h_Muffinator
• http://blog.awesomefoundation.org/post/205869776/october-awesome-fellowship-the-cotton-candy-cannon

Star Simpson Star is a mysterious and oft-sought after inventor of things previously never seen on this planet. Known to use any means necessary to accomplish her goals of making things both wacky and useful, Star delights in the using tools, from welders to wire nuts, and beyond.

Past and Present projects:

• http://starbur.st/portfolio/
• http://www.instructables.com/member/stasterisk

We also have a huge selection of tools and materials at the space so come with ideas or things half-made and be creative!

FREE Special Event
dorkbot-boston and Upgrade! Boston present Douglas Repetto
Mon, August 17, 7-9 p.m.
Microsoft New England Research & Development Center
1 Memorial Drive in Cambridge

Directions:

• http://microsoftcambridge.com/About/Directions/tabid/89/Default.aspx
• On the T, take the Red Line to the Kendall/MIT stop.
• Walk straight up Main Street toward the Longfellow Bridge (past the Post Office, Bank of America).
• You will see the Parking Garage on your right, Take a right and you can enter the building from the side

dorkbot-boston is a monthly gathering of people doing strange things with electricity. Artists, designers, engineers, students, scientists, hackers and anyone else interested in the creative use of electricity are encouraged to attend. dorkbot meetings are free, family-friendly and open to the public. Bring your projects, in whatever state they are in, and bring 10 friends!

This summer, dorkbot will present: hands-on workshops, outdoor hacking events (Breadboards and BBQ), tours of interactive entertainment venues, and internationally known tinkerers. To participate, please visit dorkbot-boston and join our mailing list.

dorkbot is thrilled to be working with Upgrade! Boston, a monthly gathering of artists, curators, and the public that fosters dialogue and creates opportunities for collaboration within the new media community, and Microsoft NERD to host our August meeting.

Presenter: Douglas Irving Repetto is the Director of Research at the Computer Music Center of Columbia University, where he also teaches a wide variety of classes including sculpting, electroacoustics, and music engineering, and the founder of the original dorkbot. He has become an international figure for also founding ArtBots, an international art exhibition for robotic art and art-making robots, organism:making art with living systems, a group blog of artists and scientists using biotechnology to create art, and MUSIC-DSP, a mailing list and website hosted by the California Institue of Arts that is used to share music and sound related digital signal processing (DSP) strategies, techniques, and code. Mr. Repetto has also collaborated with LoVid in the creation of “Bonding Engery”, a set of “sunsmile” devices that collect and measure solar energy from seven sites in New York state, and in work on the Cross Current Resonance Transducer, a solar energy to sound and movement transducer.

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?”

More Event Info at Upgrade!Boston

dorkbot-boston 200906 at Axiom
http://www.dorkbotboston.com

FREE EVENT
Tue, June 30, 7-9PM
Axiom Gallery for New and Experimental Media
141 GREEN STREET

Directions:
AXIOM is located on the ground floor level of the Green Street Subway (”T”) station on the Orange line, at the corner of Amory and Green Streets in Jamaica Plain, MA

dorkbot-boston is a monthly gathering of people doing strange things with electricity. Artists, designers, engineers, students, scientists, hackers and anyone else interested in the creative use of electricity are encouraged to attend. dorkbot meetings are free, family-freindly and open to the public. Bring your projects, in whatever state they are in, and bring 10 friends!

This summer, dorkbot will present: hands-on workshops, outdoor hacking events (Breadboards and BBQ), tours of interactive entertainment venues, and internationally known tinkerers. To participate, please visit dorkbotboston.com and join our mailing list.

dorkbot-boston is thrilled to be working with Axiom Gallery for New and Experimental Media to host our June meeting.

Our presenters:

• Leah Buechley is an Assistant Professor at the MIT Media Lab where she directs the High-Low Tech research group. The High-Low Tech group explores the integration of high and low technology from cultural, material, and practical perspectives, with the goal of engaging diverse groups of people in developing their own technologies. Leah is a well-known expert in the field of electronic textiles (e-textiles), and her work in this area includes developing a method for creating cloth printed circuit boards (fabric PCBs) and designing the commercially available LilyPad Arduino toolkit.

• Gideon Weisz is a jeweler, sculptor, and hacker working in Allston, Somerville and Cambridge. At the 200905 dorkbot, he demonstrated his beautifully mysterious Linked Boxes (http://gideonweisz.com/album/shadowboxing/). He will be sharing some of his work along with tips and techniques for fabrication.

  “Most of my work is inspired by forms from nature, math and science, exploring symmetry, complexity and topology. I’m fascinated by knots, fractals, polyhedra, proteins, molecular structures, and trees. I create jewelry and sculpture in sterling silver, platinum and gold, using fabrication and lost wax casting techniques. I both carve wax models by hand, and model rings in CAD, creating them with a 3D wax printer or a CNC mill. I am currently building an Arduino based CNC wax carving machine. I also work at a larger scale in steel rod (diameter 1/4″-1/2″), welding with both an oxy-acetylene torch and TIG.”

• Brian Knep is a new-media artist who uses science and technology to explore change, healing, struggle, and acceptance. Often his works are dynamic and respond to changes in their environment. Some are simply aware of the passage of time while others are interactive, sensing and reacting to the people around them. Knep has had solo shows at the New Britain Museum of American Art, the University of Massachusetts, Lowell and Arizona State University and has been part of group shows at the Milwaukee Art Museum, Laval Virtual in France, MobileArt in Sweden, and the Insa Art Center in Korea, among others. His works have won awards from Ars Electronica, Americans for the Arts, AICA/New England and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2005 Knep became the first artist-in-residence at Harvard Medical School in a program co-sponsored by Harvard’s Office for the Arts. Knep lives and works in Boston and is represented by Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, NY and Judi Rotenberg Gallery, Boston.

• 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?”

Tue, May 26, 7-9PM
Microsoft New England Research & Development Center
First Floor
One Memorial Drive, Cambridge

Directions:
http://microsoftcambridge.com/About/Directions/tabid/89/Default.aspx

• On the T, take the Red Line to the Kendall/MIT stop.
• Walk straight up Main Street toward the Longfellow Bridge (past the Post Office, Bank of America).
• You will see the Parking Garage on your right, Take a right and you can enter the building from the side

Dorkbot-boston is a monthly gathering of people doing strange things with electricity. Bring your projects, in whatever state they are in, and bring 10 friends!

Thank you Microsoft Cambridge (http://microsoftcambridge.com) for opening up their venue to us this month and for supporting local makers and user groups!

This month’s presenters:

• Michael Soroka (http://michaelsoroka.com/), inventor of the Electro-mechanical Pong Table, is a Research Engineer at the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Laboratory at MIT’s Sea Grant College Program (http://seagrant.mit.edu/). Among his many projects at MIT is the Sea Perch, an underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV) that teachers and students can build to learn about robotics, physics, and water sampling. When he’s not building autonomous subs, he can be found designing and building furniture, wooden puzzles, tesla coils and other mechatronics (see http://mikesoroka.squarespace.com/mechatronics/)

• (rescheduled from Feb) Oleksiy Pikalo (http://opikalo.wordpress.com/) is an independent inventor and artist who created a machine that can print intricate designs on lattes or other foamy beverages. At dorkbot, he will talk about the design process and technical challenges for building this artwork and demonstrate the device on tasty drinks. He’s turned this idea into a business (http://onlatte.com) and he will talk about how that process has been going.

• W. Aaron Waychoff is a network engineer and software developer and inventor of the iSrch Rndmzr 3000(tm), (http://subvertedindustries.com/) a speculative object that explores the social implications of “random” MBTA searches of riders. He will be talking about the project, and will share some tips on how to take an idea from a breadboard prototype to an object that actually looks great.

• Jimmie Rodgers (http://blog.jimmieprodgers.com/) designs toys and electronics kits and is the organizer for Noise Night (http://www.noisenight.com), a bi-monthly gathering of people enthusiastic about electronic music and circuit bending. At the May dorkbot, he will give the group an update (and, fingers crossed, a demo) on the recent Makerbot acquisition and build.

• 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?”

I have a really awesome announcement to make this morning.

A few weeks ago, I made a plea for some help organizing dorkbot gatherings and am thrilled to let you know that Emily Daniels has stepped up to help w/ dorkbot-boston!

She is a multimedia artist, tool-maker, community organizer and educator based in the Boston area. After earning a BFA in painting and printmaking from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, she went on to become the School Director of Kaplan Aspect – Harvard Square and has since developed and established the school as a leader in ESL education. Her more recent projects involve creating interactive robots that express emotions or thoughts in order to generate empathy and make a more approachable and personable experience with computing machines.

What impresses me about Emily is her commitment to community building and figuring out ways to break down the artificial barriers between various art/tech/hacker/school/etc groups around Boston. She speaks passionately about her own work but is equally enthusiastic about other people and their projects. She has an attitude of collaboration and has already proven it through things like organizing a talk at Barcamp about hackergroups and spaces, collecting resources to share with dorkbot members, and evangelizing on behalf of what crazy things people are doing with electricity.

It’s great to have her on board! We’re already starting to work on the
next few dorkbot meetings, some dorkbot field trips, free workshops and lots of other strange activities to fill your summer.

With that being said: If you’re ever interested in helping organize dorkbot-boston or even just want to offer suggestions for speakers, venues, or activities, then the door is wide open for anyone willing to step up!

Held in conjunction with a workshop at the 27th annual conference on Human-Computer Interaction (CHI)

What do glitter and glue, needles and thread, batteries and wires have to do with Human Computer Interaction? What can makers and crafters teach technology researchers and designers about the world and technology? How can CHI researchers engage with Do-It-Yourself communities? This session will be a dialogue about the relationships between academia and DIY communities. It will include presentations from the workshop organizers and participants who will demo and discuss their own DIY projects and then use them as springboards for open discussions with the audience. Come to see some interesting projects and to share your own insights and experiences.

When: 7:00pm Tuesday April 7

Where: Bartos Theater, Lower Level, MIT Media Lab (E15), MIT campus

Map: http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?selection=E15&Buildings=go

Free and open to the public.

Leah Buechley is an Assistant Professor at the MIT Media Lab where she directs the High-Low Tech research group. The High-Low Tech group explores the integration of high and low technology from cultural, material, and practical perspectives, with the goal of engaging diverse groups of people in developing their own technologies. Leah is a well-known expert in the field of electronic textiles (e-textiles), and her work in this area includes developing a method for creating cloth printed circuit boards (fabric PCBs) and designing the commercially available LilyPad Arduino toolkit.

Eric Paulos is an Assistant Professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute within the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Previously he was Senior Research Scientist at Intel in Berkeley, California where he founded the Urban Atmospheres research group – challenged to employ innovative methods to explore urban life and the future fabric of emerging technologies across public urban landscapes. His areas of expertise span a deep body of research territory in urban computing, sustainability, green design, environmental awareness, social telepresence, robotics, physical computing, interaction design, persuasive technologies, and intimate media.

Daniela Rosner is a graduate student at the School of Information at UC Berkeley. Her research focuses on how the design of social cues in information technology impact our interactions. She investigates how technology can support and strengthen ties between people using the artifacts they create.

Amanda Williams is a PhD student at UC Irvine. Her research interests are in the general area of Human-Computer Interaction, including but not limited to ubiquitous computing in urban environments, tangible user interfaces, computer mediated communication, and how Irvine got to be such a bizarre planned community. “If this whole HCI thing doesn’t work out, I’ll likely spend my time snowboarding and running a pi(e) shop.”

dorkbot-boston 200903
http://www.dorkbotboston.com
FREE EVENT

Tue, Mar 31, 7-9PM
Willoughby&Baltic Hackerspace
195 Elm Street, Somerville.
(Davis Square, alley between Joey’s Thai & the Subway sandwich shop)

Dorkbot-boston is a monthly gathering of people doing strange things with electricity. Bring your projects, in whatever state they are in, and bring 10 friends!

This months presenters:

• Todd Vanderlin (www.toddvanderlin.com) is an artist, designer, and technologist at the R&D Lab at Arnold, a Boston based new media agency. A graduate of Parsons School of Design, his research involves exploring touch and flocking interfaces, eye tracking, large-scale projections, computer vision, and sensory design. Todd is also a key contributor to the openFrameworks project (openframeworks.cc), a software toolkit for creative coding and art. His recent work includes software experiments w/ iPhoto, interactive projections, touchable sound installations, and a drawing robot.

• Gilad Lotan (http://www.giladlotan.com) is an artist, designer, and technologist at Microsoft Startup Labs, Cambridge. He is passionate about the intersection between culture, technology, and spatial design, made possible through interactive design. Previous work includes imPulse — a technological interface for augmenting intimate moments between people at a distance by allowing users to share their pulse with one another, stage design for Faust International Theater, Hong Kong, and Kotel — an installation that uses 3d technology and touch sensors embedded within a rock to interact with live images from the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. Some of his work from his time at NYU-ITP is featured in Tom Igoe’s “Making Things Talk”

  “My background is in both computer science and design and my professional identity centers around bridging these two worlds. I am a seasoned traveler, anxious to learn about and experience new ideals and cultures. While I dream of a network that connects us all, social and cultural barriers are reproduced online. People tend to stay in their familiar neighborhoods, even when consuming through the safety of their screens. My goal is to create work that takes down these existing walls, and presents its viewers with a new perception for a diversity of cultural perspectives.”

• 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?”

dorkbot-boston 200902
http://www.dorkbotboston.com
FREE EVENT

Tue, Feb 24, 7-9PM
Willoughby&Baltic Hackerspace
195 Elm Street, Somerville.
(Davis Square, alley between Joey’s Thai & the Subway sandwich shop)

Dorkbot-boston is a monthly gathering of people doing strange things with electricity. Bring your projects, in whatever state they are in, and bring 10 friends!

This months presenters:

• Oleksiy Pikalo (http://opikalo.wordpress.com/) is an independent inventor and artist who created a machine that can print intricate designs on lattes or other foamy beverages. At dorkbot, he will talk about the design process and technical challenges for building this artwork and demonstrate the device on tasty drinks. He’s turned this idea into a business (http://onlatte.com) and he will talk about how that process has been going.

  “Long time ago, I saw a great video about ‘Latte Art’, and figured that I absolutely must build a machine capable of printing the most beautiful art on top of my latte. So I bought a used x-y flatbed plotter (Philips 8155) on eBay and a great book by Matt Gilliland, titled ‘Inkjet Applications’ I put the two together, to get this nice Latte Art Printing Machine.”

• Ryan O’Hara is an engineer and owner of an independent design firm focused on unique consumer electronics (ohararp.com). At Maker Faire, he gave live demonstrations of how to use stencils and hotplate to include SMT (Surface Mount Technology) components in art projects. Since SMT has come up on the mailing list a few times, Ryan has graciously offered to give us tips and techniques that should help clear up how we might approach using SMT in our own pieces.

• 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:

• [03/07] Deadline: Dorkbot-Seattle Strange Things – http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotsea/events/pdstwe4/callforartists.shtml
• [03/31 7PM] Dorkbot-Boston 200903

Dorkbot mailing list for art/technology event announcements and discussion:

http://groups.google.com/group/DorkbotBoston

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