When: June 26, 8pm-1am
Where: NYC Resistor, 87 3rd Ave., 4th FL., Brooklyn, NY
Cost: Free
Drinks: BYOB
RSVP: http://n2ycr-fieldday.eventbrite.com/

Preparty Class:
6pm-8pm: Learn to Solder by Building an Arduino Morse Code Oscillator, cost $90, register http://hamsolder.eventbrite.com/

Demos:
8:00pm – 1am: Transmitting on the HF Bands
TBD: Talking to Satellites
8:30pm: Old School Radio Goes New School Digital
9:15pm: Scanning Fun, listening on local fire departments, police departments, zoos, parks, lifeguards, and airport frequencies
10:00pm: Powering a Lightbulb with Radio Waves
Late Evening: Ham Radio Dance Party, Dj’s will remix beats live out of transmissions made by ham radio operators sitting on the stage

Sorry kids, unfortunately for insurance reasons we can only allow guests ages 18+ and NYC Resistor is not a handicap accessible space.

Door Prizes:
Like all ham events we will be giving away awesome door prizes from MakerBot Industries 3-D printers and Adafruit Industries.

Adafruit’s Ice Tube Clock Kit is just one of the prizes up for grabs. In honor to Field Day, Adafruit will be offering a 10% discount on their kits from June 26-27 for all licensed hams. Just enter code “HAMS” at check out and in the comments include your call sign.

“On a Wednesday night in February, one week after fashion’s biggest names descended on New York for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, techy designer Diana Eng’s models were strutting a different kind of stuff: the Twinkle Dress, for example. As a striking brunette model slinked by, her flirty frock, embroidered with LEDs, conductive silverized thread, and microphones, lit up in response to tunes from a quartet playing homemade digital instruments. Off the runway, the dress’s microphones can pick up sounds from the wearer’s voice: when she speaks, she lights up in true diva style…”

Reporter Ada Brunstein was super patient both coming to the fashion show and she working around my crazy show schedule to get the interview in. Thanks, Ada, I’m off to pick up a copy from the newsstand.

I just finished up my project, Collapsible Fabric Yagi Antenna for Make: Online. You can learn how to make one for yourself on the website.

A lot of people have been asking about my fabric color choices. I was inspired by the bright colors of Japanese hip hop clothing company Bathing Ape, and Kid Robot. I’m planning on putting a big Hello Kitty iron-on on the side of the carrying case… And adding some dangly bling. Then it will my sort of tongue in cheek “Hello Yagi.”

Next time, I am going to try to find something with more vibrant colors so that I can really see how nice my watercolor set is.

Last weekend I went to visit my little brother at MIT. Then while at the MIT Press book store, I saw my book, Fashion Geek. Being the dork that I am, I took a photo. I think the book store workers thought I was crazy. There was also a giant photo of fellow NYC Resistor co-founder, Bre Pettis on magazine beside my book. I guess the maker community is a pretty small place.

Last fall, I had a lot of fun being a mentor for an episode of PBS SciGirls which aired last week. I worked with 11 year old SciGirls Ariella, Hallie, and Sophia to create a super hero princess dress for the Fairytale Fashion launch party. Watch the Episode here.

The girls designed the super hero prince dress and I showed them how to make it. The dress had an EL wire cape controlled by an accelerometer so that the cape lit up in reaction to motion. And the skirt inflated to create a billowing cloud effect which every flying superhero princess needs.

The girls programmed an Arduino microcontroller to make conductive thread embroidered LEDs sparkle on lace. The girls really liked sparkly things. When I was showing them how to program the Arduino to make the LEDs sparkle, they practically pushed me out of the way so that they could program the sparkles themselves. I didn’t even finish explaining how to write the program. The girls just took over.

In between takes, Ariella, Hallie, and Sophia made up a song and dance for everything, the ironing dance, the LED song. It would be interesting to see little girls take over the electronics world with sparkle programs and soldering songs.

The Twin Cities Public Television production crew was one of the nicest I’d ever worked with. The whole crew was really chipper and upbeat which made them great for working with the girls. And I enjoyed drinking the juice boxes that were always on set. Thank you model Jen Kresge, make-up artist Santiago Sibert, and big thanks to Collab for letting us use their space.

The Fairytale Fashion Collection was presented on February 24, 2010, at Eyebeam Atelier in Chelsea, New York City. Models hit the runway while a quartet of circuit bending DJ’s created music from a hacked sewing machine and conductive felt. Seated front row were celebrity scientists, designers, and school children.