This week Eric Beug joins me this week to make a musical instrument out of walkmans. The mellotron is an instrument that uses taped audio through a keyboard interface. Finding inspiration in Mike Walters’ Melloman, we hacked together a simple circuit to trigger loops of tape to make a super simple sampler. We had originally thought to use getlofi’s parallel port sequencer, but ended up going with the arduino instead. I’ll have the pdf, including the program that goes on the arduino, available for download Saturday. - Subscribe Link

We got the walkmans for two bucks apiece on the west end of Canal Street in New York City and there were still a lot left there.! If you need an arduino, we sell them now in the Make: Store - Link

Photo Credit: Eric Skiff

The first ever NYC Resistor Microcontroller Study Group met last Wednesday. there were approximately 15 people there with a wide variety of backgrounds and interests. There were people with electrical engineering experience and people who are new to electronics and excited to learn to make things with microcontrollers. We had a show and tell and talked about things we were excited about making. There’s lots of stuff coming down the pike for this group! I can’t wait until the next one on October 10th!

Get your eypatches and loose some teeth and you’re ready to watch Joe Grand and Bre Pettis join forces for another Awesome Electronics Workshop to introduce you to the Arrr-duino! In this tutorial, you’ll learn the basics of programming and setting up your arduino.

You can get an Arduino board in the Makezine store at or you can find plans to make your own from off the shelf parts. Then get some components and start playing around! You’ll want to go wander around the Arduino website and the Arduino playground where users can share ideas and benefit from their collective research. Once you’ve checked that all out, go get thne software. Whatever projects you make, take pictures of them and upload them to the Make: Flickr pool or you’ll have to walk the plank!

Intro to the Arduino PDF - Link
Buy one in the Make: Store - Link
Program Files - Link
Subscribe and get this podcast in itunes - Subscribe Link

I am so excited about this! If you’re into microcontrollers, come on down and bring a project to share!

The NYC Resistor Microcontroller Study Group will have its first meeting this upcoming friday from 7:30-9:30 at the Lemurplex!

Looking for a group of folks to hang out with and talk shop about microcontrollers? Is your microcontroller project lonely? Brush off the dust or put together a microcontroller project and bring it down to share at the first ever NYC Resistor Microcontroller Study Group. We’ll have tables set out for you to set your projects out on. If it’s not done or doesn’t work, bring it anyway! Disclosure: I’m a founding member of NYC Resistor.

What: NYC Resistor Microcontroller Study Group
When: 7:30-9:30 PM
Where: Lemurplex [map]

Photo Link

I’m into ARGs, Alternative Reality Games, and they’re becoming more mainstream. In an ARG, you have to hear about the game and get involved and the people who play and make up these games call this a rabbit-hole. For example, the latest cover of wired has a few phone numbers on it that when you call them, a challenging game unfolds. The phone numbers are a rabbit hole. Once you call the number, you’re in the game. It’s kinda like Myst except played in meat-space.
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Ivan is looking for an image tool to make an image into a pcb board. Does anyone know of any programs that will do this? Post a note in the comments! [Ivan] - Link

During World War II, GIs in the field built really amazing simple radios to listen too. These were made with materials that they could get their hands on and were small enough to carry around in a big pocket. You can modify this design if you want to set it up so that it’s tuneable too!

The first time I tried this, it didn’t work. It was frustrating, but I just went through my materials, blued the razor blade and it worked. The second time I tried to get it to work, I couldn’t get a station, I just got buzz. I played with everything and finally figured out that the ground connection wasn’t very good. When I fixed that, I was able to hear sports talk radio! One of the interesting things is that it works better or worse depending on where you put the pencil lead on the razor blade. If it doesn’t work the first time, don’t give up! Every project you work on can have 100% success as long as you don’t mind mistakes and redoing things!

Download the PDF to get the full instructions! - PDF Link

Rudy and Casey got wind of a movie about vloggers… It’s a cast of stars!

Richard Gere is going to play me. He’s going to need glasses!

VLOGGING: THE MOVIE!
starring

ROSARIO DAWSON as ZADI DIAZ
ODED FEHR as STEVE WOOLF
THE ROCK as LAN BUI
REESE WITHERSPOON as BONNY PIERZINA
RICHARD GERE as BRE PETTIS
RICKY GERVAIS as HAYDEN BLACK (sorry Hayden)
LUKE WILSON & OWEN WILSON as THE REY BROTHERS
SEAN CONNERY as RICHARD HALL
CAMERON DIAZ as AMANDA CONGDON
STEVEN WRIGHT as MARIO LIBRANDI
JACK BLACK as CHUCK OLSEN
JACK NICHOLSON as TIM STREET
DAN MCVICAR as … DAN MCVICAR
GINA TORRES as MISS BEHAVENS
BEN STILLER as MICHAEL VERDI
MATT DAMON as JAY DEDMAN
ANGELINA JOLIE as RYANNE HODSON
PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN as ROBERT SCOBLE
MAE WEST as IRINA SLUTSKY (we’ll use digital manipulation)
TOM HANKS as EDDIE CODEL
TOPHER GRACE as JOSH LEO
MACAULAY CULKIN as TIM SHEY
JOHNNY KNOXVILLE as CLINTUS MCGINTUS
JENNIFER ANISTON as VERONICA BELMONT
COURTNEY COX as CASEY MCKINNON
BRUCE CAMPBELL as RUDY JAHCHAN (Casey’s choice)

This isn’t a band, it’s a company! - Link

The folks who are into making stuff in Philadelphia get together every month to show a presentation and have a maker challenge. This was their 9th meeting (on 9/9)!

Slavko Milekic spoke about eye-tracking. If you know the context that the person is in and you know about eye movements, you can infer some interesting things about what someone is thinking. The gaze is a way of pointing, expressing emotion, regulating conversation flow, indicating intimacy and attraction, showing interest, provides feedback and can indicate social hierarchal positions. According to Milekic, Eyes only acquire information when they are stable. Which is only for 200-300 milliseconds at a time called fixations. (The jumping around is called “saccades) Milekic also mentioned that in 1967 a Russian mounted suction cups with mirrors attached to folks eyes and then light was reflected off of it which made it possible to document someone’s eye movement by having the reflected light expose s piece of film on the wall. If you know more about this, leave a note in the comments!

At every meetup, they have a Make: challenge where you have about an hour to make something. This time, each group had to build a section of a Rube Goldberg machine and use a bunch of junk lying around to make it all work! This project was so fun. It’s great to see such a vibrant, vital Make: community doing such cool stuff! - Make: Philly Link

Jake recorded another angle that shows the action clearer - Link