intro and a couple of questions

[Darcy Whyte]

Hello!

I recently joined the list and have been lurking around a bit.

I'm dreaming of moving to NYC so I figured I should get to know the maker/hacker community.

I worked in computer software for 23 years and lately have gotten into making things and art (imagine!). So I've joined my local communities in that space and have put together a small lab. It's now a full-time activity for me. I'm having so much fun I can't stand it.

1) I'll be in town this week for the Open Source Hardware and World Maker Faire Event. I'd like to visit hackspaces and other relevant stuff. What are the things I should see (in order of importance so I can work through a list). I'm already a regular at venues such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I'm sure I'll be crammed with stuff to do but I may even try salsa dancing.

2) Is this the only list for Resistor? Is it the right place to talk about things that are not micro-controllers?

3) Recently I'm getting into Arduino and making crazy stuff like drawbots and stuff. Are there others here that are into drawbots and stuff? Well anything that's fun to do with Arduino. I want to explore some other microcontrollers as well since Arduino seems to lack debug tools.

4) I'm all hooked up for accommodations but for next trip I'm curious if any of the hackspaces have crash spaces for out-of-towners like myself. Site3 in Toronto has extended this when I visited.

My projects are mostly listed at my Art blog below. I've listed them as categories. I've only had the blog for a few months so it's not a complete list of my projects but at least you can see much of what I've been doing. 

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Darcy Whyte (Da...@Siteware.com)

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[Bryon Connolly]

I'm new here too.  Howdy!  Im out on long island, so not very informed on your nyc questions.

> I worked in computer software for 23 years and lately have gotten into making things and art (imagine!).

I'm a software guy too.  Started with electronics and physical stuff less than a year ago (at first just for home automation purposes).  It's been awesome, loving it.  And I feel very artistic about a lot of it, I've even made some less-than-optimal design decisions on my robot project for the sake of style.  I can see al ready that sacrificing a little technical correctness and involving some creativity will result in something more impressive to most.  (of course this is a hobby project and not a brain surgery device)

> 2) Is this the only list for Resistor? Is it the right place to talk about things that are not micro-controllers?

Was wondering the same.  If not I've been completely offtopic.

> 3) Recently I'm getting into Arduino and making crazy stuff like drawbots and stuff. Are there others here that are into drawbots and stuff? Well anything that's fun to do with Arduino. I want to explore some other microcontrollers as well since Arduino seems to lack debug tools.

My current (first) robot is more devoted for moving things, but i'm designing so that it will also be able to draw with chalk on pavement.  Which has me working out the details of a swappable attachments.  I want to build a painting robot as well, specifically one that will paint a bit more like a human and less like a printer or XY table, but thats just on the drawing board.

As far as microcontrollers, i've only used Arduinos so far.   If you know electronics this would be too trivial, but If you're as new or newer than me, an easy (relatively) project would be to add home lighting control via Arduino. Basically just need an appropriate relay (and a couple diodes, its all new to me, but there's a thing they call flyback to read about).  You could do it in a lamp, or like me, just an automotive relay in a standard electrical box with two outlets and faceplate.
Once working you can use any thing you want to trigger it.

[Nick Vermeer]

The overall answer is that this is an open community, and we don't require discussions here be related to NYCResistor or microcontrollers.  We follow the ideals of a 'Do'ocracy, so if you are doing something cool and want to talk about it, feel free. If you are learning something and have questions, you can ask here as well.  We all just try to be polite and constructive.

So: What kind of drawbots have you built?  I've been thinking of building a physical Logo turtle some day. 

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[Darcy Whyte]

You can see my drawbots on my Art blog http://mambohead.com/category/drawbot/

I've got two of them running with Arduino and some cheap geared steppers. One has a motor shield and the other uses easydrivers.

I made all the parts on my CNC mill (out of hardboard).

I'm just at the point where I'm ready to write some serious programs to get real drawings done. 

[Bryon Connolly]

So: What kind of drawbots have you built?  I've been thinking of building a physical Logo turtle some day. 

I have a pet giant tortoise (only about 40 pounds at this point) and I've been considering the idea of a LOGO capable turtle that also looks like my turtle.  I've been picturing a large stainless steel mixing bowl for a shell.  Would look really neat and give a nice space for equipment.

About 8 years ago I a was having a garage sale and (while the tortoise was fully walking and looking around) an adult woman asked me if he was real.  I remember being in awe that she thought a machine (or toy) could be that realistic.  It also kinda tempted me to stick an antenna on his back and pretend to control him with an RC controller. 

[Darcy Whyte]

A real turtle? Wow, that's unusual.

I'm back from NY now and am getting back to the grind of making things. 

I'm just writing some sort of Cartesian system for my drawbot so I can try and rasterize or vectorize images and then have the drawbot make the images.

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