This Saturday, January 21st, there will be a KiCad Workshop from 1pm to 5pm.  Sign up here: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2696636713.

KiCad is a free utility for designing and laying out printed circuit boards.  Printed circuit boards connect your circuits together without the need for breadboards and jumper wires.  With circuit prototyping services cheaper than ever, it’s simple to turn your design into a real, working board.

This workshop will cover the basics of KiCad, from Schematic Capture, to Board Layout, you’ll walk out of the workshop with the knowledge necessary to take your circuit ideas from dream to reality.

If you’re already familiary with Eagle, KiCad has a number of advantages, including unlimited board size, up to 16 copper layers on your board, multiple sheets of schematic, and more.

Please install KiCad before coming to this workshop.  If you have any problems, or questions, don’t hesitate to let us know.  If you need help installing KiCad, show up early and we’ll try to help you out.

SIGN UP HERE http://digitalarduino.eventbrite.com

We will build and program an electronic game and in the process learn LED’s, tri-color LED’s, pushbutton switches, speakers and Arduino programming.

More info here: http://wiki.lvl1.org/Digital_for_Arduino

I am teaching.  I hope you can come.  Put your Arduinos and Freeduinos to good use!

Brian

Signup at EventBrite http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2562787366

2:00 PM - 6:00 PM (ET)

Don’t have a sumobot for this years competition and Halloween party? Want to be one of the cool kids? Do not be afraid the friendly folks at LVL1 are here to help.

Learn the basics of building a Sumobot! It’s a small autonomous 10cmX10cm robot that doesn’t like sharing the ring. More information about Sumobot competitions can be found here.

All parts, tools and equipment needed to build it will be provided. If you already have a FTDI cable for programming the microcontroller, you can save $15 with that ticket option. If you do not have this cable, purchase the full ticket including FTDI cable. A FTDI cable is common with Arduino variants and is very reusable.

http://wiki.lvl1.org/Sumobotsclass

10 total seats are available. Sign ups are open  http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2288210098

-Fire Tim

IT’S TIME FOR A LVL1 MEGA-WORKSHOP!

Sign up now on EventBrite:http://lvl1summercamp2011.eventbrite.com

This summer only, at the LVL1 hackerspace in Louisville, KY, you can learn how to Design, Etch, Solder and Program your very own microcontroller project.

This series of four workshops will take place across every Saturday in June, from 1pm to 5pm.  The first Saturday, you’ll learn how to use EagleCAD to route PCBs for manufacture.  No more perfboard!

The second Saturday, you’ll learn how to use dangerous chemicals to turn a blank copper board into a functional AVR programmer!  With this clone of LadyAda’s USBTinyISP, you’ll be able to program almost ever AtTiny and AtMega chip ever manufactured, freeing you from the surly bonds of the Arduino develoment environment.

The third Saturday, you’ll learn extremely useful skills in prototyping with surface mount components, soldering tiny parts on to the boards you etched the week previous.  Surface Mount soldering is  an important skill, as projects and parts get smaller and more powerful.

Finally, on the fourth Saturday, you’ll learn how to program a CapsLocker, a nefarious device which masquerades as USB keyboard.  This device is capable of entering any key sequence at any interval, super useful for makinG SURE YOUR MARK ALWAYS TYPES LIKE THIIS.  Or p#erha#ps #ann#o#yin# him# in ##eve#n #mo#r#e interes#ting #ways.

If you want to enroll in all four workshops, purchase the four-pack and the four pack only!  If you’d like to participate in just the etching and building, purchase the “Etching It and Soldering It” ticket.  If you’d like to participate in any just the Eagle or Programming workshop, without the fun parts to take home, simply purchase those tickets separately.  If you’re confused, or would like any combination of the above workshops, contact us!

LVL1 members, you get a discount! Contact the appropriate authorities!

Sign up now on EventBrite:http://lvl1summercamp2011.eventbrite.com

LVL1 and the Louisville Digital Association are proud to present the next Idea to Execution Workshop hosted at LVL1 Hackerspace, this Thursday 5/12 at 6:30pm. The topic this time is Ruby on Rails AKA RoR.

In keeping with the collaborative nature of our Idea to Execution workshops, the evening opens led by Ernie Miller with a short talk that focuses on making the business case for employing web development using RoR along with some best practices every business or tech lead should know. In the latter portion, attendees get their hands dirty working on RoR code.

Be sure to grab your ticket now and learn what you tools you’ll need. Seating is limited!

Intro to OpenSCAD

This Wednesday at 7pm we’ll be hosting a Intro to OpenSCAD workshop. If you’ve been wanting to make stuff on the MakerBot but didn’t know where to start, this is the class to attend! OpenSCAD is a free open source 3D modeling program that uses scripting instead of your typical graphical elements. While editing text files to do anything graphical is counter intuitive at first it can be very quick and effective once you learn the basics. (It also works a lot better on small notebook screens)

This class will focus on creating simple 3D models with only a few key dimensions. When prototyping a part only a handful of dimensions actually matter and the rest are derived somehow from those key dimensions. For example, when making a coupling to fit two pipes together the outer diameter of the coupler doesn’t matter, only the inner diameter and wall thickness of the coupler do. Instead of manually setting the outer diameter OpenSCAD allows dimensions to be derived from formulas (in this case, inner_diameter+2*wall) so that when one of the key dimensions is updated the rest of the part updates automatically.

I will also cover importing and using drawings from Thingiverse (why reinvent the wheel when you can copy someone elses?) and the basics of using the MakerBot for those who wish to print their drawings/test their patience.

Requirements:
Computer with OpenSCAD (we have a few people can use, but not too many)
Basic Algebra
Trig is optional but very helpful
$5 Attendance fee (will go towards LVL1)

We are having a Car-B-Gone workshop at the space this afternoon. Sorry we did not get the Eventbright announcement up. Just show up to build your very own Car-B-Gone tonight at 8-ish. If you do not know what a Car-B-Gone is… it is another fine Mitch Altman project. Read about it here

Following the Car-B-Gone workshop will be the ever popular Beer-B-Gone workshop. Hope to see everyone there.

Brian

Andy Funston is teaching a workshop on Android Game Development!

He’ll be covering 2d game programming in Android. In this workshop you’ll roll up a simple platformer, simple AI, etc. Cover the main ideas, getting touch events, etc.

It’s suggested that you have software programming experience and in particular a *basic* knowledge of Android programming and it’s IDE.

Come to the workshop with your laptop with the Eclipse IDE installed, along with the Android SDK.

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1411308261

With winter showing signs of weakness it is time to look forward to spring.  There are a lot of people in the LVL1 community that have interest in urban agriculture and we plan to offer a few talks and events based around this through out the year.  This season will start out with a talk on keeping chickens in an urban environment.  This talk is meant to give anyone with an interest in keeping chickens a better understanding of what it will take along with the pros and the cons.  This is a free event that is open to the public so come out and meet with interesting people and chickens alike.

Chicken Husbandry

Sunday February the 27th

6PM-7PM

LVL1 Hackerspace