Opposable Thumbs

DorkbotPDX 0x01 will be taking place on March 30th at the PNCA Graduate Studios building (1432 NW Johnson St.). Doors will be opening up around 6 -- show up early if you want to meet other dorks or find out what makes us tick.

The lineup of speakers is:

• Cathy Swider - Using LEGO Mindstorm NXT robots with students to create art
• Ward Cunningham - What If Bacteria Designed Computers?
• David Frech - Bootstrap yourself into conviviality by writing your own Forth

Talk Descriptions:

Using LEGO Mindstorm NXT robots with students to create art. As alternative to competitive competitions or skill challenges, LEGO ArtBots facilitates students to learn basic programming and robotic mechanical design for the purpose of creating line drawings or watercolor paintings. Students write short programs and attach sub-assemblies to hold brushes and markers to create the art. The robot moves autonomously with the assistance of light, touch and rotation sensors creating interesting and sometimes unpredictable results. It is hoped this approach will generate interest in engineering and computer science among new groups of students.

What If Bacteria Designed Computers? This talk explores Bynase, the biologically inspired protocol that Cybord computers use to signal values amongst themselves. The primary value of Bynase is that it drives system designers into novel tradeoffs with analogies in biological systems. A second value of Bynase is that it encourages casual small-scale hardware/software projects suitable for one-off art or educational projects.

Bootstrap yourself into conviviality by writing your own Forth. Forth is a simple language that yet has enormous expressive power. This paradox invites investigation. In this talk David proposes to explain - abstractly at first by talking about some philosophical ideals that Forth embodies, and then concretely by giving a short tutorial of the language that I implemented, muForth - how Forth can be both simple and powerful.

Speaker Bios:

Cathy Swider is the Project Administrator for the Oregon Robotics Tournament & Outreach Program (ORTOP), a program of Industry Affairs, Oregon University System. She has been involved with LEGO Robotics for seven years as a FIRST LEGO League Coach, co-founder of the LEGO Robotics Day Camp for Girls and Girl Scouts-ArtBot Camp. She is currently working with Saturday Academy and Grant High School to introduce LEGO ArtBots to more students.

Ward Cunningham, best known as the inventor of the Wiki, is a computer programmer who takes inspiration from life's processes ranging from cell signaling to cultural evolution. His day jobs include serving as Chief Technology Officer of AboutUs.org, a growth company hosting the communities formed by organizations and their constituents. Ward also co-founded the consultancy, Cunningham & Cunningham, Inc., has served as a Director of the Eclipse Foundation, an Architect in Microsoft's Patterns & Practices Group, the Director of R&D at Wyatt Software and as Principle Engineer in the Tektronix Computer Research Laboratory.

David has been tinkering with computing devices since the mid-70s, starting with a Motorola 6800 evaluation kit and an Altair 8800. He was introduced to Forth in 1980; didn't understand it completely until about 1990; and since then has implemented Forth at least four times. He is currently interested in using modern functional languages (such as Haskell and OCaml) as target compilers.

So, it occured to me that after soliciting everyone in DorkbotPDX to post the announcement for this to their blogs, I failed to do so myself. Bad self! So, here it is, the official announcement for the first ever DorkbotPDX event:

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 technical 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_0x00