Tag Archive for 'fizzpop'

fareWELL fizzPOP

Published on 05/09/2010 in Blog. 0 Comments Tags: .

Somewhere in late December 2008 I was frustrated with the apparent lack of a local hacking scene. Luckily a few other people felt the same and in January 2009 fizzPOP was formed.

I once had all the time and energy in the world to pump into helping to organise events such as the fizzPOP Howduino, a visit from Mitch Altman and, and Theremin Day, but unfortunately now I have very little time to dedicate to fizzPOP.

In short: I’m leaving fizzPOP

Although we’ve stressed that fizzPOP isn’t a group run by a single person over time a few key people have stepped up to take on extra responsibilities and have even organised their own events with us. If fizzPOP is to continue to exist and to grow into something more it’ll need more of these people who can maintain and build the community. Feel like you could help to build a hackersapce? Make yourself known to fizzPOP and get involved! I recently wrote a blog post detailing some of the areas that fizzPOP needs assistance in, but we’re open to all offers of help in any kind.

Just to clarify, my departure from fizzPOP as an organiser (I’ll still attend when I can) does not mean the end of it. It just means that the extra responsibilities that I’ve undertaken over the years will have to be covered by someone else.

fizzPOP residency at The Lombard Method

Published on 09/05/2010 in Art. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Improbable (by hellocatfood)

If being part of the awesomeness that was Theremin Day wasn’t enough since 1st May, and running until 16th May fizzPOP have been in residency at The Lombard Method. The event kicked off with the building of The Improbable Machine, very much inspired by Rube Goldberg and his crazy machines. This is a good indicator of our progress so far

I’ve also been taking the lead on building a modified Harmonograph. Ever since seeing Mr Underwood’s Pendulum Music for Optical Theremin and Torch I’ve been inspired to make something using swinging motions. I was pointed to a Harmonograph out of our most recent hack session and the discussion that followed saw me going through several designs before settling on the method of keeping the pen stationary and moving the surface.

Like the Improbable Machine I’ve been building this using whatever junk people have brought in or whatever I could scavenge from the space, and relying on the skills and resources of others to fill in the gaps where my skills are lacking. So far I’ve got my board swinging, which has produced a good set of patterns

Rhythmic scribbles (by hellocatfood)

There’s been several challenges in making this, mostly ensuring that the board has a good enough swinging motion and also dealing with the slanted ceiling. Want to help out? fizzPOP will be in residency at The Lombard Method for the next week, so check the wiki for when we’re in and lend a hand!

Theremin Day

Published on 27/04/2010 in Blog. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

For the last month or so the fizzPOP team and Mr Underwood have been planning the awesomely awesome Theremin Day that took place at fizzPOP on Saturday 24th April.

The day kicked off with an optical theremin building workshop, which produced some very interesting sounds. One person described the noises produced as “lil creatures… being tortured by having light shone on them“. Decide for yourself:

The circuitry for all of the theremin were the same, but the housing for the device made them all that more interesting. I think Julia’s Apple Theremin wins some kind of award for most healthy looking theremin! More photos from the day:

After all of the noises we did a frantic de, then reconstruction for the evening performance featuring 8Bit Pete, Mr Underwood and Ms Hypnotique (all totally real names).

First up, 8Bit Pete treated us all to his own Thingamagoop optical theremin and even invited earlier workshop attendees to join in the performance

8bit Pete (by hellocatfood)

Mr Underwood then treated us to a rather hypnotic rendition of Steve Reich’s Pendulum Music using optical theremin and torches:


It’s definitely worth watching the whole 10 minute performance!

Finally, world renowned theremin player Ms Hypnotique treated us to a short history of the theremin, improvised compositions and performances of a few classics, including that Dr Who theme tune

Ms Hypnotique (by hellocatfood)

Nikki has a few good videos of the performance on her Vimeo channel

I think the day was really a great success and I can definitely see a future workshop taking place and I’d really like to see Pendulum music being performed again somewhere. Well done to all involved in making this event happen!

Next up, the fizzPOP residency at The Lombard Method

fizzPOP’s first birthday

Published on 09/03/2010 in Blog. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Recently fizzPOP celebrated the two of its first birthday’s. On January 26th the mailing list was set up and on February 28th we had our first meeting. We count each one as our birthday, which, in theory, means more cake!

fizzPOP hacksession 03/03/2010 (by Nikki Pugh)

Leftovers from the last session. Photo by Nikki Pugh

I’m really quite proud of what myself and Nikki have achieved so far with fizzPOP. As I’ve stated in my many presentations about hackerspaces and fizzPOP it was first set up to scratch an itch: I wanted to have a space outside of education to learn more about electronics and technology. Luckily Nikki had the same itch and we soon found ourselves working on the creating and running of fizzPOP.

I wont rattle on about the history of fizzPOP as we’re still creating it, and there’s little to gain from talking about the pitfalls we’ve had. The thing that I’m most proud of is that we can regularly get people from all over the west midlands (and occasionally reaching as far as Liverpool and London) in a room to do what they love most. I just wish we could do this more regularly, maybe even every day!

fizzPOP 12/08/2009 (by Nikki Pugh)

Photo by Nikki Pugh

What next for fizzPOP? I’m still recovering from fizzPOP workshop from the awesomeness that is Mitch Altman and Jimmie Rodgers, so have no brain space left to think about anything else! All I know is that I want to see more workshops like that and more people showing off their mad hacker skills.