[dorkbotpdx-announce] DorkbotPDX June Workshop: Capactive Sensing Workshop (6/29/14)

[Brian Richardson]

It's June, we've got another workshop! Woo! If anyone is interested in doing a workshop in August, please get in touch! 

Learn about capacitive touch sensing, the same technology your phone's touch screen use.  In this class we will draw a sensor using a pencil and hook it up to a Teensy to light up LEDs and generate MIDI events!

Instructor: Philip Odom

When: Sunday June 29th, 1-5pm

Where: Flux (412 NW Couch, #222) Goldsmith Building. Look for doorbell on wall for entry.

Cost: $25

Bring: Laptop with Teensyduino installed, soldering iron, wire cutters, usb mini cable, pencil

Limited seating, RSVP: bz...@knowhere.net

Thanks,

Brian

[Brian Richardson]

Posting to announce:  Some more information from Philip!

We still have a few spots available for this Sunday’s capacitive sensing workshop. For more details, check out the announcement at http://dorkbotpdx.org/capacitive_sensing_workshop_2014. Please reply to Brian Richardson at bz...@knowhere.net if you’re interested in signing up. The cost is $25, and there’s limited seating.

Your $25 gets you a kit containing a Teensy 2.0, proto board, headers, assorted resistors and capacitors, LEDs, and 6 alligator clip cables. 

We’ll be talking about capacitive sensing theory and a couple of techniques for implementing capacitive sensors using on microcontrollers such as the Teensy’s AVR. I’m using Paul’s Teensyduino CapacitiveSensor library as a starting point, since it comes with Teensyduino, but I also plan to talk about a couple of completely different techniques with some demos.

We’ll build up a capacitive sensing demo system using the Teensy. My plan is for everyone to draw their sensors with paper and pencil, but you could easily use aluminum foil or copper—or basically any conductive object you can hook into the circuit.

The demos are going to be based on Arduino/Teensyduino sketches. If at all possible, please bring a laptop with Arduino and Teensyduino pre-installed. Teensyduino should be installed with at least the CapacitiveSensor library (I just installed all of the libraries; they’re not very large).

The sketches are set up to send MIDI events using the Teensy’s USB MIDI facility. I’ll make a Pd patch available that will act as a simple synthesizer, or you can use the MIDI software of your choice.

Also good to bring are tools for through-hole soldering: iron, solder, cutters, wire stripper. We’ll have as many extra irons and tools as we can, but bringing some of your own would help.

Cheers!

-Philip