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

I had a great time at Podcamp Philly. I saw old friends and new friends and thanks to Drew Olanoff and the Geek House Peeps, I stayed with the awesomeness that is the geek house! These guys shoot “The Best Damn Tech Show Period.”

CC tried out the brain machine and Chris Penn videod it! - MP4 Link

I also made a video with Steve Garfield in his awesome presentation! - MOV Link

This weekend I was interviewed by Bill Radke for Weekend America about making things. - MP3 Link

Ever thought about doing a weekend project, but didn’t know where or how to start? Well, Bre Pettis puts out a podcast each week called Weekend Projects. He picks things he wants to make and then just does it. He gives viewers a list of items they’ll need, then breaks down the project step by step. Best of all he’s not afraid to show you he’s human and things don’t always work out. Weekend America Host Bill Radke talks to Pettis about the weekend projects anybody can do. - Link

I’m at Podcamp Philly this weekend and I’m thinking about making a presentation. Does this sound interesting?

I Break Things. How to make things you don’t know how to make… yet.

- Some things that I’ve made this last year that I had never made before.
- Disasters.
- The secret.
- Simple tools, fancy tools, large machines, and robots.
- Getting help, collaboration, and bigger projects.
- Make friends who make things.
- Physical people in your neighborhood.
- Documentation and sharing.

This week, Bre Pettis teams up with Mitch Altman and George Shammas to make a little 3×3x3 cube made of little LED lights that you can program with any kind of animation you like! - Subscribe Link

Update: in the podcast I say you need a yellow purple brown colored resistor (470 Ohm). I need to get my glasses checked because actually you need a yellow purple black (47 Ohm) resistor!

After visiting a ton of hacker spaces in Europe on the hackers on a plane tour, George, Peter, and I decided that it would be cool to have a hacker space to share with our friends for developing really cool projects in NYC. The rent for a storefront with a basement in NYC will be something like $4000, but we’re going to start and see where the journey takes us! Right now we meet regularly for planning/hacking/soldering sessions. - Link

Pictured above is George!

Sidenote: dorkbot is this week! - Link