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

LVL1′s New Year’s Resolution is to “make more makers!” We are offering not one, but TWO new Makerships to start off 2012! Through private donations from LVL1 membership, we have raised funds to award $100 of project financing and 3 months of LVL1 membership to TWO worthy makers!

The Makership recipient gets $100 for project materials like arduinos, sensors, electronic components, laser cutter materials, conductive fabric, EL wire, software, books, 3D printer filament, tools, bits, odds, ends or whatever else you might need.

The LVL1 membership gives you access to our 40W laser cutter, Makerbot 3D printer, woodworking tools, electronics tools, metal mill, computers, electronic surplus and much more.

DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS IS JANUARY 31, 2012

A Makership is a $100 project stipend and 3 months worth of LVL1 membership dues awarded to an individual in the Louisville area. We recognize that potential makers with limited financial resources often are unable to afford any membership rates- no matter what the discount might be. Similarly, the cost of materials to develop a cool project can be just out of reach to those strapped for cash. Our makership program seeks to eliminate these financial hurdles and get makers making!

We award our makerships to applicants who can put together the best pitch for (1) what they want to make and (2) how they plan to do it. Your project could be anything from an electronic gadget, to an open source software project, to a citizen science project, to a fire-breathing robotic pony, or (hopefully) a project we haven’t imagined. We want LVL1 to be the place where these things are made! LVL1 makerships are open to anyone whom could benefit from our community and resources to make something great.

For more information on applying for a LVL1 Makership click here.

Do you want to see this Makership program succeed? You can help LVL1 provide more Makerships with a small donation of $5/mo. We will announce a new Makership as soon as the donation funds make a new one available! Click the Paypal donate button below to contribute to a Makership:

As promised, here are some pics and a small video of my light show.

The controller for the lightshow is from solsticewerks.com.  It is a 16 channel controller, but I blew out a couple of channels so they stay lit all the time.  Here is a pic.

The light controller is in the center and it feeds all the light plugs.  The sockets are just screwed onto a 2X8 board and is set into a rubbermaid tub.  This worked pretty well in the rain.  I cut slits in the side of the tub to run the wires.  No water got into the tub whatsoever.

I also built a FM transmitter to play the song to car radios.  I made a sign.

The transmitter I used was a ramsey FM 10C http://www.ramseyelectronics.com/cgi-bin/commerce.exe?preadd=action&key=FM10C

It is a nice kit.  I would recommend it for this application.

 The software I used is Vixen.  http://www.vixenlights.com/

Now I need to get more songs to play.

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

Looking up in flight at balloon, vent valve and cutdown device

Hi All, the flight of the SuperPressure Initiated Termination Balloon Flight 1 was successful as far as we can tell so far.  We don’t know for sure because we haven’t gotten the SD cards that hold the video and science data on them.  Technical results as they come in over the next week will be posted on our wiki site, here.

With just skeleton assembly, launch and mission control crews preparations for this flight had to be less organized than we’ve done in the past for SpeedBall flight attempts.  We allowed for that by targeting an early launch time, with plenty of daylight left for schedule slip.

The massive zero pressure balloon was launched from SpacePort Indiana around 3:30 PM EST, by having the payload support crew run with the wind as soon as they released the balloon, allowing the balloon to rise straight up as it lifted each payload.

The balloon landed about 1.5 hours later on a family’s home in Miamisburg OH and was recovered shortly after.  The family made a youtube video of the balloon on the house!

Thanks to all who helped!   Some science observations follow.  The three pics above were emailed to us by the recovery crew in Ohio.   More pics available on Flickr here.

Read the rest of this entry »

Join us on VOKLE.com to view the live stream of spitball-1′s first launch. You can ask questions and talk directly to the launch control team!

After the popularity of Butterscotch I seem to have got a reputation for adding fire to things (even though it was FireTim that did the pyro half of Butterscotch).  So when the Mythbusters posted a link to a fire breathing pumpkin I was bombarded with questions about when I would be building one.  Not being the type to do what others expect me to do I rejected the idea of doing a pyro pumpkin outright.

Though I was set on not building a fire breathing pumpkin it did make me think about building other things inside of a pumpkin.   Then it hit me just two days before Halloween. I needed to build a pumpkin that would forcefully deliver candy to Trick-or-Treaters much in the same way they would deliver eggs to my house if I did not provide candy to them.  From that point on I had a mission. Throwing sleep and other responsibilities to the wind I went to the bowels of the LVL1 bone yard to hack together a candy launching pumpkin.

After design concessions due to time and help from fellow LVL1ers (thanks FireTim and Jon the Kilted) I was able to defend my house this year.  Although I never saw the pumpkin Mythbusters link and I am sure it is cool I considered this a spite project similar to JAC 101 Micro-Laser Cutter.  I just hope everyone enjoys it as much as I enjoyed making it.

I have posted an instructable for this project to help others defend themselves next All Hallows’ Eve… but really, why wait.  Go to that instructable and start defending yourself for Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, or Christmas.  There is nothing like a fruitcake chucking Santa to keep those damn carolers at bay.

Thanks to all that attended and competed in the 2nd annual Sumobot Tournament.  We had 12 bots in the melee and the winner was Exspurt, built by Rick Brooksbots.com.  Check out his bot site for ideas.  Jose got second and I got third.  That ExSpurt is an awesome bot and Lessor is a tough competitor.  Below is an epic battle between Lessor and ExSpurt.

Here is the final bracket showing the winners…

The bracket software was called Bracket Maker HD on the iPad.  The iPad projected the results on the wall.  The software worked very well for our double elimination competition.

Big thanks to Solarbotics.  They provided some awesome prizes for the competition.  Check out their website for all your robot needs.

Special thanks to Jeff Johnson for the hot wings and pizza bites.  Thanks to Rick, Jule, and Gene for making the drive to Louisville to fight your bots.  We hope you had a great time.  Thanks to Alex – it is great to have some high school hackers.  Thanks to all who dressed up for Halloween. And big thanks to Tim, who put together a fantastic sumo workshop.  These simple looking bots can be deceptively complex!

Overall it was a great event!  Can’t wait until next year!

Hack on,

Brian

LVL1 community member Tim G. and his wife created this great ghostbusters costume for their son Harper.

I have attached the schematic for the proton pack lights.  I used a 6V lantern battery as part of the pack so I didn’t need a voltage regulator.  The flashlight has a separate 9V battery located in the gun and 6 white LEDs.

I used these plans for the pack:  http://www.gbfans.com/equipment/plans/norm-gagnon/ although many parts had to be swapped out for similar items that were half the size.

The main structure of the pack is made from black coroplast since I had some on hand.  In fact I made the whole pack aside from the straps using items I had lying around.  For sounds I mounted a small mp3 player on the gun and used the 6V battery to power a set of USB powered PC speakers.