Circuit Bending 101 with Nottinghack

Many thanks to those who came along to the first of my Circuit Bending 101 workshops, and extra thanks to Nottinghack‘s Dom for hosting us.

Circuit Bending 101 hosted by Nottinghack

After a quick soldering re-cap (selections from my ‘Soldering for 8-year-olds’ bit at Theremin Day) we started on the first project – making a music player controlled with light.

Here’s a recording of everyone trying out the toy as it was intended to sound:

…and here’s the new, improved version an hour or so later:

light and sound! from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

Several hours later we had eaten all the snacks, had a good laugh, discussed the difficulties of bomb-making [Theatrical-Fake-Bomb-Units, that is), worked our way through all three projects and arrived at this aural treat expertly performed by The Nottingham Hackspace Unharmonic Orchestra. A thing of beauty!

Marvellous!

Next up is more of the same in Birmingham on the 27th of November, this time hosted by Chris Unitt at Meshed Media. Although it’s still a good few weeks away, places are already nearly all gone (only three left as I write this!). Head on over to the booking page to buy your ticket so you can join in the fun!

Not sure what was happening at the other end of the room, but it seemed to have everyone's attention...

Circuit Bending 101 at Nottingham Hackspace

Circuit Bending 101 at Nottingham Hackspace

A4 poster (.pdf)

Learn how to add extra wiring to battery-operated toys to make them bleep with anticipation, howl with excitement and transcend their blinky light allowance at… Circuit Bending 101

Saturday November 6th, 12:30 -6
£30

Ticket price includes instruction, materials for three projects and some food.

Numbers are strictly limited. Sign up at
http://bit.ly/cb101Nott
to book your place.

Nottingham Hackspace
The Old Police Station
3 – 9 Station Street
[map]

Theremin Day

For the last month or so I’ve been helping Mr Underwood get the planning together for Theremin Day: an afternoon workshop building an optical theremin followed by an evening of film and performance, including a live set on theremin from Ms Hypnotique

Hard work, but what a great day!

The workshop had a great vibe, especially as the sounds of working optical theremin began to mingle with those of drilling and the occasional piano performance:

Pretty much everyone got their noise boxes finished and working, with some great playing styles starting to emerge:

noise boxes from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

After the workshop we did a quick changeover and re-arranged The Edge ready for the evening performances. There was much packing away of soldering tools; construction of staging; testing of audio and visual equipment. It all stopped when Susi started to play on her theremin. What an amazing sound: so different to anything else. Everyone was transfixed!

The evening event kicked off with a selection of short films exploring the historical, technical and fun sides of the theremin. This was then followed by a set from 8bit Pete and his Thingamagoops. This included a live mic off to the side of the stage where people could come up and contribute to the maelstrom of bleepy noises and flashy lights with the workshop-built theremin(s). [What is the plural?!]

Next up was Mr Underwood’s performance of Steve Reich’s Pendulum Music for optical theremin and torch. Brilliant. Pete Ashton has posted a nice video extract.

After that was the theremin set from Ms Hypnotique who performed a wide range of music for us. In her own words, the set list was described as: “Varese, Walter Carlos and forgotten scifi soundtracks”. She did an excellent job of interspersing the music with interesting explanations and anecdotes – entertaining and educational!

Here are my photos from the evening event followed by a couple of videos of Ms Hypnotique playing. The last video is how she ended the set. Perfect!

Ms Hypnotique performs from a visual score from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

Ms Hypnotique knows her audience from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

Thanks to everyone who supported and participated in the day.