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Since I primarily talk about Ruby here, you may not know that I’m also a hardware hacker… a beginner, in the scheme of things, but a hardware hacker nonetheless. Cool hardware hackers the world over have a group called Dorkbot:”http://dorkbot.org. Here in Portland we’ve got our own chapter: Dorkbot PDX, organized primarily by fellow Rubyist Thomas Lockney.

Dorkbot PDX is about to hold its first official event. Included below is the announcement. As it says, if you’re a hacker, painter, engineer or sculptor, musician or maker, you’ll fit right in. Come join us!

Dorkbot PDX 0×00

Come join DorkbotPDX, people doing strange things with electricity, for our inaugural event at Vendetta on June 24th at 5pm. If you’re a hacker, painter, engineer or sculpture, musician or maker you’ll fit right in. We bring together the tech and art worlds and enjoy it all over a pint of beer. We’ll have presentations and performances by these fine folks:

• Jason Plumb is a software engineer by day…hardware hacker, reverse engineer, and experimental sound geek by night. He will provide an overview of the Essential Reality P5 glove controller and explain how it can be used with free and open-source software to create and manipulate sound.

• Jesse Fox studied music composition and physics at Bates College before getting a Master’s Degree from the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University. He will discuss his involvement with the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots (LEMUR) and describe the detailed techincal recreation of George Antheil’s “Ballet Mecanique”, which includes xylophones, bass drums, tam-tam, pianists, electric bells, a siren, airplane propellers, and a volley of player pianos.

• Donald Delmar Davis, principal research anarchist at D3 Laboratories, will overview the deconstruction of Arduino and Wiring platforms to create artistic robot platforms with AVR microcontrollers. “AI Begins With Self Destruction”

• paint & copter create multi-media experiences of regurgitated and improvised media. By synthesizing live and pre-manipulated video feeds, field recordings and live instrumentation, Paint and Copter filter cultural noise and reprocess it into a new, mesmerizing thread.

We will also have a brief open-mic of sorts referred to as Open Dork. This is a show and tell where you can have the mic for a few minutes to discuss your latest project, vent about frustrations trying to get your art grant or tell us about the intricacies of the color blue. It’s your time to tell us what you think we need to hear.

Festivities will begin at 5pm and you can expect them to last until they kick us out. Please bring yourself, your friends and any thing you’d like to share.

http://dorkbotpdx.org/wiki/dorkbotpdx_0×00

........................................................................ .........dorkbot: people doing strange things with electricity.......... ......................... http://dorkbot.org ........................... ........................................................................