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

(Unless otherwise noted, these are all free and open to the public and appropriate for all ages. Please check the organization sites for updates.)

• Jan 15 – 7PM: Arduino Users Group Meeting @ Willoughby&Baltic Hackerspace, 197a Elm Street, Somerville
• Jan 16 – 730AM: The State of the Robotics Industry in New England @ Charles Hotel, Regatta Bar, 1 Bennett St, Cambridge
• Jan 19 – 1-4PM: Celebrate Luminous Windows (light and holography art) (free w/ museum admission) @ MIT Museum(K)
• Jan 19 – 7PM: Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey (http://www.coolidge.org/node/2163) ($)
• Jan 20 – 1230PM: Talk: Peter Semmelhack of Bug Labs @ Berkman Center, 23 Everett Street, 2nd floor (R)
• Jan 20 – 6PM: Cyberarts Festival Volunteer Party Party! @ 9 Myrtle Street, Jamaica Plain (RSVP: info@bostoncyberarts.org)
• Jan 21 – 7PM: Nano Robotics Applications in Modern Medicine @ CRMI ($/)
• Jan 22 – 7PM: Noise Night – Circuit Bending @ Willoughby&Baltic Hackerspace, 197a Elm Street, Somerville
• Jan 23-25: Vericon Scifi, Gaming, Anime con (http://www.vericon.org) ($R)
• Jan 27 – 7PM: Dorkbot-Boston 200901 (location tbd)
• Feb 8 – 9AM-2PM: NewBCamp (http://www.newbcamp.com/)
• Feb 12 – 5PM: Ignite Boston 5 @ The Hooley House, 25 Union St., Boston (R)
• Feb 12 – 7PM: Noise Night – Circuit Bending @ Willoughby&Baltic Hackerspace, 197a Elm Street, Somerville
• Feb 16 – Feb 21: National Engineering Week: Robotics (K) @ MIT Museum
• Feb 24 – 7PM: Dorkbot-Boston 200902 (location tbd)
• Feb 25 – 630P: Democamp Boston (http://www.eventbrite.com/event/238695946)
• Feb 26 – 7PM: Noise Night – Circuit Bending @ Willoughby&Baltic Hackerspace, 197a Elm Street, Somerville
• Feb 28 – 7PM: Boston Robotics February Meetup @ Willoughby&Baltic Hackerspace, 197a Elm Street, Somerville
• Mar 31 – 7PM: Dorkbot-Boston 200903 (location tbd)
• Apr 4-9: CHI 2009 (www.chi2009.org)
• Apr 24-26: Megapolis Audio Art & Documentary Festival (megapolisfestival.org)
• Apr 24- May 10: Boston Cyberarts (bostoncyberarts.org)

(/) – Links to more info below (R) – RSVP required ($) – Not Free (K) – Especially great for kids

Calls For Art / Deadlines (local unless otherwise specified)

• ASAP: Boston Cyberarts Festival: email to info@bostoncyberarts.org: bostoncyberarts.org
• Feb 6: share.tv – performance-based artists working in experimental media (sound, video art, net.art, new musical interfaces, etc.): http://share-tv.us/
• Feb 11: Megapolis Festival (Audio focus) Performances, presentations, and workshop submissions: megapolisfestival.org/blogalogadingdong/?page_id=3
• Feb 18: SIGGRAPH (New Orleans)- BioLogic Art, Emerging Tech: http://www.siggraph.org/s2009/galleries_experiences/index.php
• Mar 13: Tufts gallery: http://www.wickedlocal.com/somerville/homepage/x512387111/Tufts-gallery-seeking-artists-for-juried-summer-show

Classes and Workshops (most are not free)

• Willoughby & Baltic Classes (ex. ArtBot, Arduino for Artists, Urban Games): http://www.willoughbybaltic.com/home/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=46&Itemid=120
• MIT Independent Activities Period (Jan 5-Jan 30): http://web.mit.edu/iap/

Links & details

• Dorkbot-boston: www.dorkbotboston.com
• Nano Robotics Applications in Modern Medicine- Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation (http://crmi.org) @ 154 Moody Street, Waltham, MA 02453 – Admission: $10.00 7:30 PM – What used to be medical science fiction is now reality! Join us for an engaging discussion by Dr. Dinos Mavroidis, Director of the Biomedical Mechatronics Laboratory at Northeastern University. Professor Mavroidis will explain how science is fusing nano technology with biological tissue to aid in diagnosing and curing diseases. His international team of experts are using tiny robots smaller than atoms to conduct MRIs, repair bad blood cells, and deliver drugs from inside the body.
  

Click to view Christy’s website.

Typewriters that argue with each other, mobile phonographs, and a device that tunes its own sounds are among Christy Georg’s artwork she will discuss at the October 7, 2008 gathering of Dorkbot Boston at the Charles River Museum of Industry in Waltham, MA. The talk is free and open to the public.

Christy Georg is an artist specializing in kinetic sculpture. Christy Georg has been called “a sculptor of wit and ingenuity, clearly in the tradition of Jean Tinguely and Bruce Nauman, but brilliantly original in her use of existential humor to invigorate the works” by sculptor Rob Fisher. Born in Chicago and raised in Houston, she received her MFA from Massachusetts College of Art, her BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute, and studied glassblowing at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. She has exhibited widely, having solo exhibitions at the Contemporary Artists Center in North Adams, the Roswell Museum, Gettysburg College, and University of Massachusetts at Lowell. She has been awarded residencies at SculptureSpace, Ross Creek Art Center in Nova Scotia, Fine Arts Work Center, Vermont Studio Center, Boston’s Berwick Research Institute, Roswell AIR program, and the MacDowell Colony.

When: October 7, 2008 – 7:00 PM

Where: Charles River Museum of Industry 154 Moody Street Waltham, MA (Directions)

DorkbotBoston will begin holding a monthly meeting at the Charles River museum of Industry and Innovation starting on September 2nd, 2008 at 7:00. Meetings will be held on the first Tuesday of every month at this new Waltham location.

For those people who cannot make it to Waltham, or are allergic to the Charles River, you can come to our local Dorkbot meetings in Somerville on the third Tuesday of every month.

WoooHooo! DorkbotAustin’s loss is our gain!

The former overlord of DorkbotAustin arrived at our doorstep, ready to do some lording over, so me made him the co-overlord of DorkbotBoston! Please welcome David by coming to his welcome party on Tuesday, August 19th at 6:30.

Our next meeting will be July 16th at 7:00 at Willoughby and Baltic. Bring your projects and byob.

willoughby and baltic 195g elm stree somerville, ma 02144

Blip.tv video

The Boston Arduino Users Group meeting has been scheduled for Saturday, June 21st at 3pm. We usually meet at 2pm, but we need to push it back an hour to allow for the neighbor’s yard sale which is happening out front. We’ll be meeting at Willoughby and Baltic at 195g Elm Street, Davis Square. Bring your Arduino projects and Arduino parts and byob.

So, Tim, John, Jimmie and I actually managed to wake up early on Sunday and set up a booth at the MIT Swap. Despite the rain and it being father’s day, there seemed to be very good attendance and people were generally in a good mood. And even though it was evident that we were noobs, we didn’t humiliate ourselves too much, and managed to get things done.

Jimmie hypnotized people with his “open heart” kit, Tim sold a bunch of LED breakout boards and RGB 10mm LEDs, John educated people in Zigbee/Xbee/Arduino board buiding, and I managed to sell the contents of my junk fine collectibles closet.

Thanks to all of the Dorkbots who stopped by our booth.

Well, he’s finally done it now. It’s only a matter of time before mayhem occurs all over Somerville. Jimmie has finally released his “open heart” kit, and it has lots of those scary blinky charlieplexed led lights all over it.

You can buy one of Jimmie’s kits over at his website. The kit is only about $15 or so, and that includes the leds. Good deal.