DorkbotPDX people doing strange things with electricity

As promised, here's a video demonstration of the Ghetto Drum retrofit with USB MIDI:

So Paul hooked me up with a Teensy++ with a couple bad pins a few months ago and I ended up putting it to good use by retrofitting my Ghetto Drum system in order to support MIDI over USB. The project page has been updated and provides a few more details about the Frankenstein job.

Yesterday was the Pd interfacing with the worldworkshop and we had a blast! Thanks to everybody who came, and even bigger thanks to Alex, Jesse, and Don for pulling it together!

For posterity, I am attaching two of the Pd patches here that I was temporarily hosting elsewhere. If you didn't have a chance to attend, please feel free to check them out and play with them.

• fm_synth_patch.pd - The HID/joystick controlled FM synthesizer patch.
• netsend_recv.pd - The netsend/netreceive demo patch.

Hopefully soon we'll see some more technical info/specs on the midi monster, and then people can begin sharing info, ideas, and patches that they have created!

Feurig taught a great Eagle PCB workshop this weekend and had a solid turnout with a bunch of fast-learning board hackers! Kudos!

As Feurig was about to place a pizza order, an utterly surreal and beautifully sarcastic moment happened. This is the exchange...

feurig: Is anyone here a vegetarian or vegan?
<crickets chirping in silence>
me: wow, that's gotta be a first in Portland workshop history!
mykle: well, I'm allergic to starches!
heckler#2: I'm allergic to carbon!
<laugh riot>

The DorkbotPDX gallery opening at ON Gallery last Thursday (First Thursday) was a smash hit.

I've posted some photos from the event (or click the above), but of course they don't do it justice. Live beats Memorex! Hooray!

         ___                            ____       _
        / _ \   _ __    ___   _ __     |  _ \   __| |
       | | | | | '_ \  / _ \ | '_ \    | |_) | / _` |
       | |_| | | |_) ||  __/ | | | |   |  __/ | (_| |
        \___/  | .__/  \___| |_| |_|   |_|     \__,_|
               |_|
 __        __      [/~]      _            _         [bang(
 \ \      / /  ___    _ __ | | __  ___  | |__     ___    _ __
  \ \ /\ / /  / _ \  | '__|| |/ / / __| | '_ \   / _ \  | '_ \
   \ V  V /  | (_) | | |   |   <  \__ \ | | | | | (_) | | |_) |
    \_/\_/    \___/  |_|   |_|\_\ |___/ |_| |_|  \___/  | .__/
                                                        |_|

                 THIS SUNDAY - Aug 16th - 1-5pm @ PNCA rm 205
 [pd(          //~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\\
  |   [you(   ///                                           \\\
  |  /        ///  Hi.  DorkbotPDX would like to welcome    \\\
 [+ ]         ///  you to an OPEN Pd workshop.  This is a   \\\
  |           ///  4-hour open workshop in which you can    \\\
 [creative]   ///  bring any project you like to hack on    \\\
  |           ///  and share ideas and get help.  All       \\\
 [outlet]     ///  projects are welcome, but we will be     \\\
              ///  focusing on Pure Data (Pd).              \\\
              ///                                           \\\
              ///  The workshop is intended to be a         \\\
              ///  collaborative effort -- there is no      \\\
              ///  curriculum, the cost is FREE, and you    \\\
   [+]        ///  may come and go as you like.             \\\
              ///                                           \\\
              ///  For the best workshop experience, bring  \\\
              ///  a laptop with Pd preinstalled and as     \\\
              ///  much or as little gear as you can carry! \\\
              ///                                           \\\
        [*~]  ///  http://dorkbotpdx.org/20090816_openpd    \\\
              ///  http://tinyurl.com/pnca-pdx <- map       \\\
              ///                                           \\\
               \\-------------------------------------------//

             people doing strange things with pd and electricity
   [dac~]

I built this little midi controller to trigger samples and control a few Pd parameters:

I posted a video of this in late May, but now that I've had a chance to document a few things, there is more information online.

I made this overkill DTMF dialer:

DorkbotPDX introduces free Pure Data workshop series

We are excited to announce a new workshop series devoted to Pure Data (Pd). http://puredata.info.

Save the date: Sunday afternoon, 3/29/2009
Where: PNCA, room 205, 1-5pm

Come join Dorkbot Portland for a four-hour geek-a-thon in the heart of the Perl (yes, I went there) District. Isotopes not required.