Tag Archive for 'Hack'

Circuit Bending at Fargo Hack Play Space

Published on 06/12/2011 in Art. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

On Sunday 27th November I did a one-day micro-residency at Fargo Hack Play Space in Coventry. I was asked to bring unfinished projects, completed projects or something completely new that I wanted to start on. I have a fair bit of Pure Data and Processing code and ideas that need(ed) a lot of attention but I had serious doubts of whether they could be completed in six hours.

To say I had absolutely no idea what I was going to achieve in one day would be quite an understatement.

Fargo Hack Play Space

In the end I took along my laptop, the unfinshed audio cable hack, an Arduino, and the Vtech Learning Alphabet Classroom Toy toy that I had previously bought for a fizzPOP Circuit Bending Hack Session:

My previous attempts to hack it back then were largely unsuccessful. I was able to cut out the audio completely and break the toy on several occasions, but what I was after was a way to control or glitch the audio and LCD screen.

Fargo Hack Play Space

Part of my problem was that there were very few components to play around with. Aside from the buttons themselves all I had was a circuit board that had very tiny components.

Thankfully, with the help of Dom and Ashley I was able to locate the resistors and attach a potentiometer. Results varied throughout the day, but I was able to get it producing something out of the ordinary!

But then it borked.

Regardless, it’s progress! I’ll be continuing work on it soon, and may even try hooking up the buttons to an Arduino or my computer to trigger other things.

Thanks to Dom and Ashley for inviting me down there for the day, and for the pizza :-)

fizzPOP presentation at Brumcon 9

Published on 30/11/2009 in Events. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Brumcon 9 LogoBrumcon 9 is coming up this Saturday and I’ve been asked to give a short talk about fizzPOP and hackerspaces.

BrumCon is a regular event organised by Brum2600 regulars, featuring a wide variety of talks, discussion, demos and most importantly, alcohol. Incorrectly but neatly dubbed a ‘blackhat thinktank’ by NTK, The Register – ‘We have your water supply, and printers’, BBC Midlands Today – ‘Spooky’, By you lot as the UK’s biggest underground Hacker con, By hotel staff as ‘scary’ but nice people and I’m scared I’d get my ass so electronically kicked.
We welcome all kinds of phreaks, geeks and other technologically interested people from all sides of the fence (as long as hats, badges and warrants are left at the door).
The entrance fee this year is 8 UK Pounds per delegate. Corporate packs are available that includes entrance, T-shirt and receipt contact us at brumcon9@brum2600.net to book.

Entry from 11am Talks Start 12 noon.

I think it’s interesting that I will have delivered a talk on the same subject but to two different groups. For example, for the talk at Eastside Projects I talked about it more as an artist led space wheras at this talk I’ll more than likely talk about it more as a hackersapce.

Anyhow, my presentation is from 12:45, the full schedule is available on the Brum2600 website

Chiptune Marching Band

Published on 26/10/2009 in Blog. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

On Saturday 24th October I was at Space Studios in London to attend the Chiptune Marching Band workshop. I was really excited to go to this as I haven’t had a chance to dedicate my time to a single project with my breadboard and Arduino board.

Chiptune Marching Band (by hellocatfood) Chiptune Marching Band (by hellocatfood) Chiptune Marching Band (by hellocatfood)

After introductions we got down to making our noise making device. Essentially we were following instructions from a booklet, but more in depth explanations to how the different parts work were available if requested. My device had a light sensor which altered my sound, as shown below.

Once we finished our devices, which happened rather quickly, we took to the streets of Hackney to engage the masses in our noise!

Chiptune Marching Band (by hellocatfood) Chiptune Marching Band (by hellocatfood) Chiptune Marching Band (by hellocatfood)

There was a performance from pixelh8, Dave Giffiths (who I saw at OpenLab earlier this year) and others later on in the evening, but a slow train back home meant I had to miss it.

As usual this is exactly the sort of thing I’d like to see happening in Birmingham and the West Midlands. fizzPOP, which I run with help from Nikki and others, and 8Bit Lounge are going some way to filling this void and hopefully there’s some good news coming up in the next few days.

fizzPOP socials

Published on 03/07/2009 in Blog. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

I mentioned in a previous post how I wanted to get more people doing social things that related to hacking, like going to the Micromouse event last Saturday. I thought it’d be a great opportunity for people to see what else is available to the community and to link different micro communities that would eventually encourage more discussion and collaboration between the groups. Well, it looks like I’m not the only one with that idea. Several members of the group have been rather vocal on making the meetings more than fortnightly. My only concern with a move like that is that there’s a risk of exhaustion and people may feel under too much pressure to come. This is why I liked the suggestion of one member to have social meets in between the hacking sessions. In this way discussion can still continue and it may be a great way for new members to get better acquainted to other members.

Now the next task is to seek out of technical events in the West Midlands that we could go to and also to just chill over brew! If people interested in attending a social next week have a preference over day vote here