I never appreciated my internet connection enough when I lived in the city. Now that I’m a country mouse I think it really IS a series of tubes. Reliable it’s not. So I thought it would be fun to use an Arduino, my BlinkM and a bit of python to create a visual network monitor.

Here are the steps:

1. Plug your BlinkM into analog ports 2-5 (the standard way instructed by ThingM).

2. Load the Communicator sketch from ThingM onto your arduino.

3. Run the python script. This must be run as Administrator on windoze and although I haven’t tried it yet I believe it must be run as root on Linux. The code should be safe, but review it anyway for your own piece of mind.

Here’s the python script, this includes ping.py which is a pure python module I use for ping functionality. I also hacked code from John Tokash for talking to the BlinkM. You will also need the pySerial module installed.

https://github.com/noiseislife/PingduinoM

Before:

After:

As I expect is generally the case with RGB LEDs, the BlinkM needs a diffuser to properly mix colors. I’ve used a variety of things for diffusers in the past, usually something within arms reach. They tended to be relatively large and fragile.

This time I wanted to come up with something more compact but that still used whatever materials I have on hand. One of the first things I came across was a bag full of jewel cases from software long obsolete. Primary material search complete.

My idea was to stack some small chunks of jewel case plastic, glued with super glue, drill a hole in the bottom so that it would sit on the rounded top of the BlinkM LED. I thought perhaps it would be necessary to sand the layers to add diffusion.

So that’s what I did. I using a dremel cutoff wheel to slice up 4 similar sized chunks around 3/8”x1/2”. I used some gel type super to stick them together. Then I clamped the stack in my PCB vise and rounded the edges with a dremel round sander. Finally I found a drill bit close the diameter of the BlinkM dome and carefully drilled a hole. An added bonus was that the super glue fogged the plastic so no extra sanding was required.

The pictures above show the BlinkM set to yellow with and without the diffuser. It’s a bit tough to capture the intensity and color in an image, but you get the idea. I think it could use another couple layers of plastic and perhaps some more creative shaping, but isn’t too bad for a first attempt.

More of Pat’s Projects can be found at his tumblr Noise is Life.

There are various plans for nozzles online but I wanted something simple and a bit more elegant (if that’s possible with PVC) than what I was seeing. I also wanted my nozzles to use as few parts as possible.

Here’s what I came up with:

Parts:

* 1” PVC threaded to smooth adapter
* 3/4” PVC end cap that fits inside the smooth end of the adapter
* 12, 16 or 20 ounce plastic bottle of soda. Some caps work much better than others, look for the ones with numerous thin knurls. Regular Pepsi caps are good for instance.
* PVC cement.
* 5 minute epoxy.
* A nail or non tapered toothpick to use as a trigger. It has to be long enough to go all the way through the 1” adapter and stick out on both sides.
* String to use for the remote trigger.
* Drill.
* Drill bit the same diameter or slightly larger than your trigger.
* 3/16” drill bit.
* Hobby knife or Dremel with a spiral cutting bit.
* 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi.
* Package of mint Mentos

Directions:

1. You will be screwing the bottle cap into the threaded end of the adapter and securing it with epoxy. Before adding the mess of epoxy it is a good idea to make sure you cap fits and works the way you want. So screw the cap onto the empty bottle and thread it into the adapter part way. Make sure it screws in securely and doesn’t pop out, the wrong kind of cap will pop right out. Don’t screw it all the way in as it may be difficult to remove.
2. Remove the cap from the adapter and mix a quarter sized blob of epoxy, slather the epoxy liberally all round the adapter threads and then screw the cap back in as far as it will go. Let the epoxy fully cure.
3. Remove the nozzle from the bottle.
4. Cut out the top of the bottle cap. You can whittle away at it with the hobby knife but a Dremel spiral bit is much easier and quicker.
5. Drill a hole through the center of the adapter right at the top of the cap, it’s somewhat important to get this right since too low and the bottle and trigger will interfere with each other and too high will not allow enough room for the Mentos in the nozzle. Make sure the trigger fits through the holes without being too tight or you may pull over the bottle.
6. Drill a hole in the center top of of the 3/4” PVC cap with the 3/16” bit, it may be easier to get it centered if you first drill a pilot hole with the smaller bit.
7. Cement the cap into the smooth end of the adapter with the PVC cement. Apply the cement liberally all the way around the adapter in order to prevent any leaks or you may get some unexpected jets of Dt. Coke.
8. Tie or glue the string to the end of the trigger.
9. After everything is dry drop 4 Mentos into the nozzle.
10. Slide the trigger through it’s holes.
11. Screw the cap onto the 2 liter bottle.
12. Carefully play out the string being careful not to prematurely pull out the trigger.
13. LET IT RIP!

Extra Credit:

* Play with different sizes and shapes of holes in your nozzle for maximum height and other fun.

If you have no idea what the deal is with Dt. Coke and Mentos check out Eepy Bird.

For more awesome stuff check out Noise is Life

Mike Hord will be holding geek court this Saturday from 2pm on. Come and chat about all things electronics and stay for the soldering primer ($30 for the class).

See the original post for more details.

[image attribution]

Our Makerbot was delivered to Brandon on Tuesday and we started working on it last night.  As you can see we made good progress.  With some luck we will be printing by next Wednesday.  It a great kit with good instructions and quick progress was made.

We also received the sister Makerbot that will be sent out to the raffle winner in the coming days.

Update:

Beckie and Jon worked on the Makerbot some more on Thursday night and got it working.

There’s some more tweaking to do before it’s fully functional, but here’s the first object du 3d:

The next Handmade Music: Minneapolis will be on Saturday May 1st, starting at 5pm. Alex Deeba (from GetLoFi) and Micheal Una will be holding a Workshop to build an interesting bleepy electronic instrument and there will be lots of other great stuff going on.

See the blog post for details at the dedicated HMMM site http://www.tcmaker.org/hmmm/. Also if you are interested in the workshop please sign-up at Eventbrite so that we have a head count. There will be a $10 parts fee collected at the time of the workshop. GetLoFi Workshop Registration.

Stop the presses! Alex just sent me this video of an example of what we will be building.

More information about Handmade Music Minneapolis over here, along with photos of past and information on past events.

This Thursday is the second installment of Handmade Music: Minneapolis.  There will be some fun stuff to see, hear and do.  Come check us out, the festivities start at 7pm.  We have created a blog dedicated to the monthly event, so you can read all the details about this month over there.

Also, if you would like to to help us spread the word there are some fliers that you can print off and distribute.

Handmade Music: Minneapolis #2

If you didn’t get a ticket to Ignite Minneapolis or would rather hang out with a bunch of cool geeks instead of marketing drones and social media consultants then head over to the Hack Factory.

There will be minimal structure, just another great night of creating at the factory, including but not limited to the following:

• Free software swap – bring your favorite free app on a cd to trade, be prepared to do a pitch about how cool it is.
• Lensbaby test and review.  John Baichtal from Make blog and Geekdad scored some lenses from Lensbaby so he could write a review, so we will be testing those out.  He has a pinhole and soft focus lens, can anyone say geek boudoir?
• Kicad hacking, etc. – Adam Wolf (inventor of the Tactile Metronome) will be there doing something awesome as always.

What a great night! Our first Handmade Music was a big success, lots of people showed up and got to show off and learn a bit more about sound. The night was mostly just a free for all with no direction or organization, it was awesome, none-the-less we had a great response and some terrific enthusiasm.

A few people brought things to show off or play. It was a pretty diverse collection:

- Cigar Box Guitar
- PICaxe-based Synth
- Mini-theremin kit
- Synth chip and MIDI file playback.
- Drum Pad Game Controller
- MIDI drum pad and ChucK apps
- PAiA Theremin, KAOSS Pad, Drone Lab, Supercollider Apps, MFOS Weird Sound Generator
- 555 Throwies, Arduino Synth, Thingamagoop, Assorted contact mics

I didn’t take a head count or record attendees (live and learn) but I think we probably approached around 30 people total throughout the night.

Here are some pictures from the event.

And here are some of the ambient sounds of Handmade Music.

The next event will be on March 25th, 7:00 to whenever again at The Hack Factory, please bring things to share with the group. More information on that night and future nights can be found at Handmade Music Minneapolis Page on TCMaker’s Wiki.

Short demo of the Paia Thermax at The Hack Factory in Minneapolis.

The first handmade music is coming up on the 25th @ the Hack Factory. The itinerary is being worked on currently as more info becomes available we will be posting it here.

Sneak peak: we have procured a sound system and are planning on having a little performance at the end of night, and lots of people at Saturday’s minne-faire have shown interest in the event, it should be fun.

We are exploring some ideas for the first time around, so please if you have some ideas or thoughts worth sharing about handmade music or perhaps you have been to an similar event and know what works, please share. You can comment on this post or email myself at sobczak.paul at Gmail or Pat if he wants to post his email.

Hi, this is Pat.  Feel free to email me at lifeisnoise at gmail or post on the forums or tcmaker google group.

More on Handmade Music over at Noisepages

First Update:

I’m thinking a fun project we could do is 555 “throwies” that I’ve been working on.  It’s an idea that is still in development (I built one prototype which I gave away), so it could be fun.  I’ll try to build one and post a pic later today.
Wayne (wammie) also has some speech synthesis chips that could be fun to play with.

We are looking for 2 acts to perform each set will be 30 minutes long, but we would like the artists to walk us through exactly what they brought to the stage, nobody is currently booked so if you are interested let us know.

February 18 update:

People have been wondering what this even is really all about, to get to the bottom of it I offer the following justification.

Handmade Music: Minneapolis is trying to cultivate a DIY music scene in Minneapolis, by having these open nights at the Hack Factory for people who make sonic machines to socialize and share ideas. (Note: This is basically the same goal as TC Maker has but just narrowed down to musics.)

Wayne will be bringing 2 or possibly three of the SN76477 chips to the event.

Talking to him last night about the chip, he had these up and running about 15 years ago so there is no telling if they still work but it should be fun to try. There are a few suggestions on the data sheet of setups to try, see the suggested setups from the data sheet:

The mothership connection again from the data sheet has the following setup:

I think we will try to set up one of the first ones. And possibly someone will wire up the mothership connection and bring it to a future event. If in the mean time you at home are interested in messing around with this chip there is a newer version of it here.

There has been some interest in performance but nobody has jumped forward as of yet so if you are interested let us know. There will be no compensation this time around as we are not charging for the event at all, that said, if you have been looking for a venue to show off what you have been working on this might be it, read it doesn’t have to be a finely tuned, a bit of sonic tom-foolery is welcome.

Also If you are currently working on or with with any of the following things:

• DIY Analog/Digital Synths
• Max/Msp
• SuperCollider
• Pd
• Arduino
• Circuit Bending
• Instrument building ect…

We are looking to find people to teach classes at The Hack Factory if you are interested and have some ideas of things you would like to do in the future let us know and we start to set it up.

For those new to The Hack Factory we do have some things if you want to build a kit or do a bit of trouble shooting during the night, We have a few soldering irons and 1 (1/2) oscilloscopes, a dc power supply and a few other things so you can bring pretty much anything to put together. We don’t have any electrical components yet so if you have some that you would like to donate that would be great.

For those new to the organization, our weekly meetings are usually geek fests where you can meet up with and talk to people about whatever catches your fancy.  Ask for help, share thoughts, inspire and be inspired.

Of course, anyone wanting to pay dues or bring in tools (or anything else they want to contribute to the stocking of the space) is welcome to do so.

Highlights:

• Building Workbenches
• Jim W. will be doing initial planning for the Life Size Operation Game.
• Nick L. may be there to share his plans for some sort of Blofeldian device that punches holes in steel with electromagnetism.
  

We’ll see you there!

Hack Factory
3119 E 26th St
Minneapolis, MN 55406

Use the side door, it’s yellow and just around the corner from the garage door.

View Map

A few of us are getting together this Friday, Jan. 22nd at the Hack Factory to do some group hacking. Bring your projects and join the fun. Somebody will be hacking at the factory starting at 8am and going until at least 8pm.

I’ll be working on a couple of arduino video projects that I’ve been itching to check out and who knows what else.

BYO-Project, BYO-Tools, BYO-Whatever else you might need, I expect we’ll order pizza at some point.

(Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/matchees/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Let’s have our meet-up at the new space this Wednesday.  It will just be a casual get together, no business, but everyone should try to stop by and pay your dues so we make sure to have rent for the first month.

Make sure to bring all the cool toys you scored for Christmas, or anything you made over the break.

See you there: 3119 East 26th St.

It’s official! Twin Cities Maker will partner with Hack Factory of Minnesota to share a maker space. The members meeting resulted in a unanimous vote to merge with Hack Factory. The new space is located at 3119 East 26th St. in Minneapolis.

Starting January 1st, monthly dues will be $50. Membership will include access to the space and other benefits to be determined.

Full details on partnership structure, membership responsibilities and opportunities, etc. will be resolved going ahead. We’ll announce further information as we have it. Both the Twin Cities Maker and Hack Factory names will be retained in some regard.

This month the business meeting will be held at 3119 East 26th St. in Minneapolis. This will be the location of our new space once we officially merge with Hack Factory. Details will be discussed at the meeting. Please be prepared to pay dues (cash or check).

To enter the space go through the chain link gate on right side of the building and enter the first door on that side of the building.  There should be some signs in place to help. Here is a link to the street view of the building, you can see the yellow door on the side of the building just past the gate (right side of the image): Street View.

Bring your own chair (or bean bag or pillow or whatever you feel like sitting on) or you may be sitting on the cold concrete.

Tentative Agenda

• Introduce Hack Factory to TC Maker
• Vote on merger with Hack Factory
• Brainstorm about the future

Most importantly, bring something to show off or play with, especially those things that you wouldn’t normally feel comfortable bringing to Common Roots (hmmm, lots of room for misinterpretation/misuse in that sentence).

Here is the map. My house is on a hill, so if there’s something you don’t feel like dragging up the stairs feel free to drive around back in the alley.  There will be space enough for a couple of people to park.

LTSpice is a free SPICE simulation tool from Linear Technologies.

For those in the electronics world, SPICE simulation can be a great way to answer the “will my circuit work as advertised” question without breadboarding. It’s a great sanity check- if it don’t work in SPICE, it won’t* work on a breadboard.

LTSpice is Linear Technologies’ own incarnation of SPICE. It’s a nice little product, and comes with models for many of Linear’s products (power supplies, op-amps, etc) along with many supporting components from other manufacturers (diodes, transistors, capacitors, inductors, etc) and generic parts (555s, LEDs, etc). Obviously, they provide it expecting people to download it, sim up a solution involving Linear parts and then sell eleventy-billion a year, thus providing a nice income stream for Linear (and it works- LTSpice makes it much more likely that I’ll reach for a Linear part for power supply design than another manufacturer’s parts).

[via uptownmaker]

Twin Cities Maker is having a business meeting, Wednesday November 11 at 7pm.  As usual, our meeting will be in the back room at Common Roots Cafe, 26th and Lyndale, Minneapolis. Topics for discussion:

• Maker Faire Attendee Ideas – Please come to the meeting with at least two ideas for groups or individuals that could be invited to a Maker Faire.
• TGIMBOEJ Collection – Bring any electronics junk that you would like to contribute to The Giant Internet Migratory Box of Electronic Junk.
• Halloween Event Report
• Prototyper Build Update
• Financial Update
• Vote for Secretary
• Grants
• Officer reports
• AOB

Hope to see you there!

Attendance at the TCMaker Clothesline and Halloween Costume Contest was pretty light, but we had a good time nonetheless.  The were four total entries in the clothesline race, two racers that had been built ahead of time, one was built from scratch on site out of LEGO and one that wasn’t quite done but made an attempt at running.

Nobody fully completed the course out and back, although Michael and John came very close with similar solutions at opposite ends of the complexity spectrum.  Scott’s racer made it down the cable one way and then failed catastrophically upon contact with the end plate.  It was difficult to judge an actual winner of the contest because a number of factors, so it was decided to reward all participants for making the effort. Prizes were distributed from the box of swag that Mike received from Make: Magazine.

At the very least by the end of the day we were all pretty excited about the concept and started to brainstorm about some fun ideas for future racers.

There were no entrants in the costume contest although as you can see from the group picture above there was a certain level of personal style from some participants that may have qualified.

Please visit the TCMaker flickr pool for more images from the gathering.  Mike has also now uploaded some pictures and video to our new Picasa public gallery.

Thanks to John for the venue, Jude for setup, Michael for the fun idea and to everyone that brought chow.

Agenda:

• PayPal, bank account, and collection of money
• Non-profit registration in the state of Minnesota- adjusting the constitution and by-laws to meet the requirements for registration
• Collecting data on fees and rates- SurveyMonkey? E-mail?