Yes, the Hive76 chapter of the Philadelphia Linux Users Group is meeting again this Tuesday! We’ll be giving a quick tour of the new facilities in addition to the usual meeting. So come by and check out the new digs!
PLUG Into Hive76
Tuesday, Nov. 24th
7 PM to 9 PM
So when you use a silicone platform for the heated build stage, the heat doesn’t go all the way to the edges and corners of the stage (the material’s low conductivity which protects you from the 3 A electricity flowing is also the property that inhibits heat conduction laterally). This has a disadvantage in that effective build surface area is decreased, but a minor perk is that you can handle the stage with your hands by holding at the corners.
So tonight we realized that the 4″ putty knife we had been using to scrape off objects from the makerbot build platform was actually perfect for addressing BOTH of these problems. We put the putty knife between the heat and the build surface… The metal surface conducts the heat evenly to about 80% of the build surface now. So how do you pick up this hot stage? A huge bonus is that even though the stage is now too hot to hold at the edges, we have a sturdy handle that doesn’t interfere with printing!
Build Your Own Effect Pedal!
Where:Â Hive76 (915Â Spring Garden)
When:Â Monday, December 7th
Cost:Â $50
Hive76 has wanted to host an introductory electronics class for some time now.   But instead of teaching folks how to solder together some dinky LED circuit, we decided to teach them how to make vintage guitar effect pedals!Â
Whether you are an old hand on the DIY electronics scene, or if you have never touched a soldering iron before, you will leave this class with some learnings about electronics, invention, and music, and, best of all, your very own home-brewed Tube Screamer clone.
Open to all abilities, ages 14+.
For more info, contact jack@hive76.org
Print out the flyer here.
Party in the New Space!
Dec 5th. Doors open at 9PM
Hive76 Headquarters
Food and Drink available all night
$10 suggested donation at the door
RSVP required!
We just moved to a new Headquarters (3x the size of the old one), and we want to celebrate. So we’re throwing a party December 5th with the doors opening at 9PM. We’ll have a couple of VJ, a DJ, and food and drinks all night. This is open event, so if you’ve wanted to come check out our new space, or meet the crew, come on out. If you want to drop in, we’re going to ask for $10 donation at the door, because we’ve mostly wiped our our saving to expand. If you’re broke, well, come anyway. (If you want to know what a hackerspace party looks like, here’s a peek).
Here are some numbers for you math-heads. 6 months now. 4 classes, 10 workshops, 24 open houses, and 1 (minor) electrical fire. From 4 to 12 members. 42 awesome personal projects, 33 pointless arguments, and a 1-billion ‘dude, that is such a bad idea’s’. OK, those last 3 are made up. But we are living the life, and doing what we promised. We are making things awesome, and making awesome things.
We are a little limited on space, so be sure to RSVP for it, so we can plan.
Hive76 member and quartermaster Brendan Schrader got his fellow Hive members an awesome field trip last Saturday. A journey into the inside of the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ, the worlds largest working pipe organ. Many thanks to Brendan and Andrew, the Curator’s Assistant for giving us this once in a lifetime experience. It really was amazing.
The Wanamaker Grand Court Organ, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the largest operational pipe organ in the world, located within a spacious 7-story court at Macys Center City (formerly Wanamaker’s department store). The largest organ is the Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ (which is barely functional). The Wanamaker organ is played twice a day, Monday through Saturday, and more frequently during the Christmas season. The organ is also featured at several special concerts held throughout the year, including events featuring the Friends of the Wanamaker Organ Festival Chorus and Brass Ensemble.
We also got a sneak peak behind the scenes of the Macy’s Light Show, which Brendan helped build.
The not-so-secret-but-kind-of secret plan to make a giant game of XXX for exhibition at XXXXXX during XXXX has been given the green light. If you want to be in on the project, there is still a chance to do so..
Well it’s time again for the monthly Philadelphia Robotics Meetup Group tonight at Hive76. Stop by for some robotics and electronics chat. We’ll be talking about our Quadrotor project, a flying robot. The event starts at 7:30 PM. Hope to see you there!
We like being in the news. We like being in a front page story even more. In this mornings issue, a story by Justin Lahart titled “Tinkering Makes Comeback Amid Crisis” about the DIY/Maker/Hackerspace revolution taking place in our busted economy and my shameless plug of phillys most awesome hangout.
Pick it up on your way today, it’s a good read.
On 
December 12th FUBAR Labs member Keith Chester will be giving an AVR Mico Controller class. You will receive all the tools and training you need to work directly with micro controllers. No matter the project – from interactive art to physical computing to robotics – the use of micro controllers can vastly expand the power and interactivity of your project.
By mastering the basics of the popular AVR micro controller (which is used in popular platforms such as the open source Arduino platform) you can put a lot of power into your project for less than a few dollars!
The class comes with all the hardware you need to begin developing your own micro controller projects and several sensors, allowing you to make real-world interactive projects immediately after the course is done!
The class will last three hours.
Included in the kit:
So, you’ll be going home with roughly $60 in parts.. all yours for the hacking.
Prior knowledge of C programming is encouraged – some programming background required. If you know Java or Wiring (Arduino programming language) then the transition to C should not be too difficult.
A laptop is required to take the course.
(Linux, Windows, and Mac can all be used)
Bar Camp Philly is Nov 14th (This Saturday already). It’s Philly’s version of the Bar Camp un-conference scene, and is going to be jammed with webby and invent-y people talking about what is going on in Philly.
Or if you just want to party on, you can just rock out at the Geekadelphia party. I think tickets are sold out, or close to it, so get your tickets (or not). I myself will be working the sign in table on Saturday, so if you are coming, say hi to the guy in the weird hat signing you in.
