Appropriate Technology

March 21, 2017

Hivelord at the Barnes STEAM Fair

The Hivelord made an appearance at the STEAM Fair at the Barnes, in his new business friendly attire, along with Hive76 members Chris Terrell and Mike Barretta! In case you didn’t know, STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics, ie all the good stuff. Mike was there to entice visitors into the STEAM lifestyle with his custom portable gaming machines based on the Raspberry Pi and emulationstation, while the Hivelord took photos of unwitting participants using his face, and thus stealing a tiny portion of their soul (as it is told in The Legends). Click the link below to see the photos from the Barnes!

-> Click here to see the Hivelord’s Photos from this event! <-

October 30, 2014

The Hivelord at UArts Design Charette 2014: Cyborgs

Salutations, flatlanders! Your electron based mail message reached my hyper-dimensional lair, I was lured out of the 67th dimension by word of snacks, refreshments, and of course, your attempts to augment your meaty forms with your so called ‘technology.’ The idea: to design artifacts made 50 years in your future. How will they affect the fragile social human construct? More specifically, are these items you’re designing to simplify and enhance your lives creating one step forward in the inevitable march toward a dystopian hellscape? I’d answer these questions, but I’m technically not allowed to break causality.

But I digress, I’m really here to show you all the ~~souls I stole~~ pictures I took with my face. It only took a few years off your lifespan, and there’s a 50/50 chance they were bad years anyway. Thanks for being such good sports!

Click here -> The Hivelord at UArts Design Charette 2014 <-

April 5, 2014

Philly Tech Week 2014: Hive76 DIY Music Night

If you’re into music, making music, or making things that make music, you won’t want to miss this! If you’ve been to the space before, you’ll know that we run on a steady diet of tunes. And on Thursday, we’ll have all our audio and music-centric projects out in what is sure to be the loudest night of PTW. No RSVP necessary.

When: Thursday, April 17 from 6PM to 10PM

Where: Hive76

December 1, 2013

T.E.R.A. Incognita at The Hacktory

Our friends over at The Hacktory (Repurposing Technology, Making Art) are running a Kickstarter to raise matching funds for an excellent project to unite artists with the latest technology to empower new designs. From their Kickstarter page:

Electronics and digital technology can infuse works of art with an element of magic. At The Hacktory we have literally put this magic in people’s hands, through classes and large public events. We want to do more though. We want to make our classes available to artists. We’ve found that they are usually the most excited to take our classes and play with technology, but usually the least able to pay for our classes.

The Hacktory is creating a program called T.E.R.A. Incognita: Tech Education and Residency for Artists. Our goal is to support artists who want to create new work and experiment with technology such as cameras, projectors, sensors, robots, software and circuits. The name “T.E.R.A Incognita” is part acronym, part vision for the program. We want to give these artists an opportunity to learn and explore at the edges of technology and art, literally in unchartered territory, to create new experiences and new possibilities with code, hardware and creative expression.

The Kickstarter ends on Monday, so go check it out and consider making a pledge! Some great rewards are being offered too.

October 21, 2013

Civic infrastructure hacking: laser-controlled streetlight.

Three more things in my house require a remote control now, and one of them is the streetlight in front of my house. Ever since I heard about a hacked streetlight at the Guerrilla Drive in for Back to the Future in 2009, I have been turning off the streetlight on Darien Street by carefully aiming a laser dot at the light sensor on top of the streetlight. The light sensors on most streetlights face west to catch the last photons from the fading sunset before illuminating for the night—and this one faces right into the third floor of my house. It is very important to me to be able to choose to sit in the cozy dark, save my city some money, and not contribute to light pollution for a minute.
Just recently I revamped the process with a new, permanent laser and remote control system. Here it is in action:
I’ll show you how …
Continue reading “Civic infrastructure hacking: laser-controlled streetlight.”

January 23, 2013

NANOBOTS

June 13, 2012

What We’ve Been Up To

June 21, 2011

Cellulose Some, and You Win Some

I have a new obsession — microbial cellulose. I have been meaning to experiment with this stuff ever since I read Fermented Frocks, the New Couture. Recently, my sister’s room-mate was discarding a kombucha culture, long past its prime, and I knew I had to have it — despite the fact that was about the closest thing to two gallons of pure biohazard that I have ever laid eyes on. I peeled a few layers from the decrepit SCOBY that was floating in the middle of the rancid kombucha, and dried them into tough, leathery, translucent “paper” (see the photo with the “paper” covering a CD for perspective). After that, I was hooked — smell be damned — and after some research, I was really hooked.

Microbial "paper" formed by peeling a layer from a kombucha "pellicle" (a.k.a. SCOBY)

Continue reading “Cellulose Some, and You Win Some”

February 11, 2011

Appropriate tech in Guatemala: AIDG biodigester

This past winter, I spent a month in Guatemala studying Spanish, checking out appropriate technology projects, and zipping around the geologically manic country around the Western Highlands. Here’s a reportback from a visit to the offices of the Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group (AIDG). I got to check out some prototype wind and solar designs and take a peek at their new kit-built CNC machine and custom circuit board designs. Later, I got to poke around the office and come along on a site visit to a biodigestor installation they did outside of the city. It lets the farmers nearby turn animal waste into organic fertilizer and cooking gas while reducing greenhouse emissions. I got to hear about the combination of technical and user friendliness challenges they encountered and saw how the system is working now that it’s been tweaked a few times. Pretty cool stuff.