AS220 Labs now has a complete set of the famous Electronotes newsletter, the seminal analog electronic music publication from the seventies and eighties. It is a great collection of theory, schematics, full-blown synthesizer designs, beginner tips, and obscure analog knowledge. The collection is available for research purposes (and no, we're not putting it online because we aren't the copyright holder).

More about Electronotes here.

AS220 Labs produced a limited edition of 5 deluxe drawbot kits last month. We're going to see how it goes before doing another batch, so for now they're Sold Out. Here are the instructions for building the AS220 Labs drawbot kit.

The raffled Makerbot has finished its long journey from Providence to Tempe AZ, where it is now ensconced in the workshop of Becky Stern. She writes in her Sternlab blog:

I recently won a raffle for a Makerbot Cupcake CNC machine, which is a DIY 3D printer. The raffle was held by AS220, an awesome hacker/etc lab in Providence. Thanks a million, guys, it works great! You can find the file for the little mushroom that I printed (John Park modeled it) in the Thingiverse.

Wednesday, June 24
7:00 - 8:30 PM
AS220 Labs
115 Empire St., 2nd floor

Come down to AS220 Labs and join the Pd club for it's first meeting!

Pd (Pure Data) is a graphical programming language and open source project with a large and growing user base. Pd is widely used by artists to create interactive computer music and multimedia works, and to some extent is interoperable with its commercial cousin Max/MSP.

The Pd club will be a periodic, informal gathering (a "patching circle") where Providence-area "patchers" can work together, exchange ideas, trouble-shoot, and learn from one-another. The club is open to all, from beginners to experts. Artists, students, teachers, programmers, hobbyists, and the "just-curious" are welcome. The only requirements are that you like a challenge and have a laptop.

On the agenda for the first meeting will be an introduction to Pd by Shawn Greenlee. Shawn will cover the basics of patching, working with sound, and handling communication with Arduino boards and MIDI devices.

Before the meeting adjourns, we'll get beginners up and running and determine the summer schedule for meetings.

What to bring: your laptop with Pd-extended installed. Pd-extended is available (for free) at http://puredata.info/downloads

More about Pd from the Pure Data portal.

4 weeks, Tuesdays in June
June 23rd, 30th, July 7th, July 14th
Instructor: John Duksta Workshop cost: $100 + $100 materials fee = $200
Materials fee includes an Arduino and all components needed for the class. In the AS220 Labs space, 2nd floor, 115 Empire Street, Providence

Sign up here!

It's official. This past weekend we hosted Zack Hoeken of Makerbot Industries and NYC Resistor and built a Makerbot with the help of about a dozen workshop-goers over the two days. Reprappers Bruce and Nick Wattendorf arranged the whole event; Nick is shown in the photo above, working on the Makerbot with Zack. The Makerbot we built is #48 in the lineage of Makerbots.

Thank you to everyone who bought raffle tickets! We sold a total of 107 tickets, and received a $100 match from board member Brian Jepson (thanks Brian!). The raffle closed at midnight last night, at which point Arley-Rose pulled a name from the glass jar. Drumroll please... and the winner is...

Rebecca Stern of Tempe Arizona.

Congratulations Rebecca!

Check here for a full list of everyone who bought tickets and threw their names in the hat. The current batch of Makerbot kits is sold out, but we will be trying to get an order for the AS220 Labs bot in the July batch.

Take a chance on winning this homebrew CNC (Computer Numerically Controlled) three dimensional printer! The Cupcake CNC is truly the cutest rapid prototyping machine ever. This piece of equipment will be the one built from a kit at the 3D printing Summit on June12-14th at AS220.

We'll even give you a training and some plastic to start with. The winner will be selected on June 14th, 2009.

Our goal is to raise enough money to buy a second Cupcake kit that can live at AS220 Labs. The maximum number of tickets sold will be 150. Oh, and we'll ship anywhere in North America.

Buy a ticket at the AS220 Shop.

Bruce Wattendorf is organizing AS220's first 3D Printing Summit featuring Makerbot and RepRap demos and howtos. It will be held at AS220, 115 Empire Street, Providence RI on June 12, 13, and 14.

The team will be building a MakerBot, a DIY open source 3D printer. The build will be organized as a series of sessions, so you can help AS220 build a MakerBot and learn about electronics, 3D printing, and the design of the bot. The meeting will kick off Friday night, June 12 at AS220 Labs (2nd floor) from 7-8:30pm to come up with a schedule for the weekend.

Sessions will from 10am to 2pm Saturday and Sunday and will be held in the Performance Space.

There is no charge for these sessions, but you can help AS220 by entering in a raffle
to win a MakerBot of your own. Details in the AS220 Shop.

For more information about the specific 3D printing platforms, visit:

http://makerbot.com
http://reprap.org

For more info contact Bruce at bwattendorf@gmail.com or 401-339-5625.

It's a three dimensional microcontroller! Program it using the Arduino software environment (arduino.cc), hook up buttons/sensors/motors, make it play music; whatever you would do with an Arduino!

What is it? This, my friend, is a remixed version of Limor Fried's excellent Arduino Wave Shield, in cube form. I described it to my daughter as a kind of clunky, impractical iPod. It will read WAV files off an SD Card and play them back. Because playback is controlled by the Arduino-compatible top of the cube, you can hook up all sorts of buttons, sensor, joysticks, etc. to control which sounds are played when and at what speed. It also has an Xbee antenna on one side so the boxes can talk to each other and trigger each other's sounds over a mesh wireless serial connection.

Unfortunately, this is a limited edition for a particular project and not available as a kit.

All the solder joints on the inside hold the thing together and act as signal connections between the faces. You can get an idea from these pictures:

Oh, and all the Eagle files are available here:

BoleroBoxv1.zip

This workshop will introduce you to the basics of the Arduino microcontroller system. The goal is to introduce you to its open source development platform and get you started with the creation of your own interactive object(s). No previous programming or electronics experience necessary.

4 weeks, Tuesdays in May, 6:00pm to 8:00pm
May 5th, 12th, 19th, 26th
Instructor: Lutz Hamel
Workshop cost: $100 + $100 materials fee = $200
Materials fee includes an Arduino and all components needed for the class. In the AS220 Labs space, 2nd floor, 115 Empire Street, Providence

Sign up here!

When: Wednesday March 25th, 5:30pm to 7pm
Where: AS220 Performance Space

The real fun in electronics is when you can use a circuit to make things go. Come learn some basics of electric motors, including DC motors, AC motors, servos, and steppers with Tom Sgouros (www.sgouros.com). Guest appearance by Judy the robot.

This session is free if you want to come and listen. You'll have to pay for materials if you want to complete the kit and take things home with you. Some sample motors will be available, which can also be purchased cheaply.

April is International Laser Month at AS220 Labs!

Announcing Laser cutter workshops: Learn how to use this tool to cut or etch wood, plastics, papers or textiles! Every Tuesday 5:30pm to 9pm, beginning April 7th.

Each workshop is limited to 5 people. Register now at the online shop.

Please note that an earlier version of this article (and...ahem...some of the posters) said every Thursday beginning April 7th. Well, April 7th (2009) is a Tuesday! So...the dates in the shop signup are correct; they're on Tuesdays! Sorry for the confusion; I'm an idiot.

This is kit version of the drawbot that is installed in AS220 Labs. This limited edition comes in a fancy laser cut wooden box. Put all the pieces together, mount it on a wall, put the Sharpie in the clip and you have a working drawbot!

The kit come fully soldered and tested. Right out of the box it will draw the shape that is on the box (a nice circular mandala shape).

No programming is necessary, although the drawbot is 100% Arduino-compatible and comes with a library that makes it easy to draw Bezier curves, circles, and move from one point to another. The board is based on the Sanguino board (www.sanguino.cc), so you have plenty of memory to work with (64k program space and 4K RAM). This is a limited edition with laser cut parts and custom circuit board; order yours in advance today! Kits will ship in early April.

Visit the AS220 Shop to reserve your own.

Debugging problems in an electronics project can be frustrating. When things don't work, they often just sit there and do nothing. Or sometimes, they will billow smoke. When writing firmware, you can sometimes find yourself creating elaborate debugging scaffolding to track down buggy code. Sometimes blinking LEDs and a serial connection are not the best tools for debugging.

Okay, I know that good debuggers exist for microcontrollers. But wouldn't it sometimes be easier to write your code in a familiar environment, debug on screen, then cut and paste into your Arduino code? That's where Processing -- a close relative of Arduino -- comes to the rescue!

The Arduino Integrated Development Environment and language forked from the Wiring project, which was the hardware-oriented twin of the Processing language and IDE. The similarities and compatabilities of the two projects are a Big Win for sketch developers.