dorkbot

I'm going to be presenting at tomorrow's Dorkbot DC meeting — anyone who's interested should come on by. I'm going to be talking about making a Fonera router talk to an Arduino, a subject I first blogged about right here.

And of course the DC nerd community also shouldn't forget about Wednesday's Drupal Meetup at Affinity Lab, which is once again being hosted by our friend Mike McCaffrey. You can find details here. I think it's safe to say you'll be able to find some of us at each of these events.

Mercury-bound space craft, adding MIDI to everyday objects, and the software running ludicrously-complicated automated painting machines. Dorkbot DC doesn't fail to bring interesting stuff. Tom and I had a great time seeing these projects.

It started off with a talk about the MESSENGER probe. Katie Bechtold is a software developer who works on the X-Ray Spectrometer, some other sensors I can't remember the name of, and some day to day behind-the-wheel space probe driving. She brought along a 1/10 scale model of the probe and did her best to point out where the various sensors and crucial parts are. The model was probably two feet tall, if you want an idea of how big it is.

Her explanation of everything was great for those lacking a background in astrophysics (hint: me). I won't say much about the actual workings of the probe, as I don't think it's appropriate to do so until Echoditto is in the business of slinging extremely complicated computers off to distant planets. Here's what was really neat to me:

I really liked that movie Sunshine. Mercury is pretty darn close to the sun, and MESSENGER has to be protected from it at all times. That means there's a big sunshade the majority of the craft lives behind. It isn't even to Mercury yet and it already hits 700 degrees Fahrenheit on the surface of the shade! Bonkers.

On Wednesday Ben and I headed over to the monthly meeting of Dorkbot DC and soldered our little hearts out. I've only been to one Dorkbot before (well, unless you count the one at SXSW — but that was mostly an opportunity to buy t-shirts and drink free beer). My previous experience had been enjoyable, but maybe a little dry. It's inevitable that the speakers won't pique everyone's interest every time, I suppose.

This meeting was a lot more fun, and a lot more hands-on. The organizers did a fantastic job, preparing instruction material, assembling kits and even pre-drilling jigs for the rest of us in an effort to introduce the extremely large crowd to soldering by way of MAKE Magazine's LED cube weekend project, slightly modified to work with an Arduino.

Sure, it's a simple project, but we've never claimed to be electronics gurus. Besides, it was a great opportunity to refine our soldering skills — something I'm in sore need of after nearly trashing my Wii during a botched modchip installation.

I went to Dorkbot DC yesterday. Goodness, there were some great presentations. Before I gush, here's a description of the group for those of you who may be unfamiliar with them:

Dorkbot DC is a monthly meeting of artists (sound/image/movement/etc.), designers, engineers, students and others in the DC area who are interested in electronic art (in the broadest sense of the term.)

Basically, people have goofy ideas, mock some stuff up, and come in and show it. Some projects are great, some less so. I've seen a guy presenting on how to build a megawatt laser at home for under $1000, someone else who made a USB voodoo doll that reacts differently depending on where you needle it, a guy who made techno out of the human genome, and another guy whose art is making quilts out of circuit boards. Some of it has been incredible, some hilarious, and some completely confusing.

Yesterday's was pretty much 100% excellent.