So, you have a circuit board and a bag of parts you need to assemble. Or you’ve designed a circuit board in Eagle, gotten it fabricated, and you just got it back. Now you see that the parts which looked so big in Eagle are actually REALLY DANG SMALL. What are you going to do? How are you supposed to solder that?!

Working with tiny Surface Mount parts is challenging but can be done in the comfort of your own home. Come to Dorkbot’s Surface Mount Soldering Workshop, presented by Jim Larson, held at OpenTechSpace at TechShop, on Saturday, December 19th, 2009 from 1pm to 5pm.

When you’re done, you’ll have a step-up voltage module to take a AA battery up to 5V.

To sign up, email smd-workshop@denizen.org.

Cost will be $35, payable at the class.

Please bring:

• A soldering iron
• A pair of tweezers
• A pair of wire cutters

Class will be held at:

TechShop Electronics Lab (OpenTechSpace)
10100 Southwest Allen Boulevard
Beaverton, OR 97005

Full information at http://www.dorkbotpdx.org/workshop/circuit_design_for_fabrication

Sign up for the class at http://tempusdictum.com/tdproducts.html
(class: eagle for fabrication)

You’ve purchased an Arudino-compatible board or completed the Audino Cult Induction, so now it’s time to make your board actually do something. This monthly workshop covers simple but useful circuits to connect to the pins and how to control those circuits using the Arduino language.

The first workshop is on October 5 from 7 to 9pm at TechShop in Beaverton. The class will be held in the upstairs classroom (the “Hack Hut“).

To sign up, go to http://www.pjrc.com/store/workshop.html

Cost of each workshop is $10. You will also need to have:

• an Arduino-compatible microcontroller board, such as the Dorkboard from the Arduino Cult Induction (with the pins installed so you can use it in a solderless breadboard), a Teensy, etc.
• a USB cable for your board
• a solderless breadboard

You can purchase a complete kit that includes all these (Teensy, breadboard, USB cable, plus the first workshop), for $40 from the same site. What a deal!

You should also bring a notebook computer with the Arduino software installed, or come a half-hour early and we will help you install the software on your computer. Finally, bring wire strippers/cutters and some wire. We will have some multimeters, but feel free to bring your own.

If you have any questions, email Paul Stoffregen – paul@pjrc.com

Etching in acid:

The finished product:

No life forms were harmed (except perhaps for a blackberry).

June 20, Noon – 3pm. At TechShop. Free.
Reserve your space on Yahoo Upcoming
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/2776974/

We are very lucky to have Surya Buchwald (also known as Momo the Monster — http://mmmlabs.com) teaching a Quartz Composer workshop.

Quartz Composer (QC) is a free, powerful but easy-to-use visual programming language for the Apple Macintosh that can create and manipulate amazing video and graphics in real time. This workshop will take you from starting the program for the first time to building your own interactive scene controlled with a gamepad. You’ll learn how to teach yourself QC, and meet others with whom you can collaborate and troubleshoot. No programming experience necessary.

For more information about QC, see: http://developer.apple.com/mac/articles/graphicsmedia/quartzcomposerinleopard.html
To play with an interactive video piece (written by Surya), go to http://momopro.com/stage/qc/ — click and hold your mouse on the video and move it around to control the video.

Required:

• Macintosh computer running 10.5 (Leopard). Anything from a G4 iBook to a Mac Pro tower will work.
• Gamepad (Mac-compatible). We recommend the Logitech Dual Action (either Apple Only or USB), which looks like a Playstation controller and can be purchased for $20 at Fred Meyer (or $22 at Radio Shack, $25 from Best Buy). You can use any USB controller or joystick, but this one will be the easiest with which to follow along.
• XCode -  This can be installed from your System DVD that came with your computer – it used to be called ‘Developer Tools’. It will install the components needed to develop software on your machine, including our Quartz Composer program. After installing, do a system update.

Immediately following the QC workshop, from 3-6pm, we will have a meeting of the NorthWest AudioVisualists, a new group of artists, musicians, animators, and video jockeys, which will include live performances using QC. See http://nwav.org for more information.

Have you ever wanted to lay out and create your own printed circuit board? Then this inexpensive course is for you. This is a focused workshop on fabrication that will take three designs and follow them all the way to physical circuit boards using commonly available chemicals and the freeware version of Eagle PCB design (download).

You should bring a laptop and any small designs you are working on. You will leave with enough materials to etch your own circuit boards, with the exception of chemicals that you can buy from any hardware store.

Here are some photos (click to see larger size):

OpenTechSpace, TechShop, and Tempus Dictum present an “Arduino Cult Induction” Workshop at TechShop on Saturday, May 9 2009, from 1 to 5 pm.
The cost of the workshop is $35, and includes all the parts you will need.
TechShop is at 10100 SW Allen Blvd, Beaverton (http://portlandtechshop.com/index.php/about-us)

In this workshop, you will build a complete and functional Arduino-compatible micro-controller (Dorkboard), and will upload and run a program on it. The Arduino development environment is very popular with artists and other creative people, and can be built and programmed even if you have little hardware or software experience.

To sign up for the class, go to http://tempusdictum.com/tdproducts.html
and purchase the “Cult Induction Tech Shop 09MAY09″ workshop
If you have any problems, email Don Davis - don@tempusdictum.com

You will need to bring the following:

• A laptop (Mac, Windows, or Linux, although there are some problems with the latter)
• A USB cable (standard A->B type — like http://www.cablewholesale.com/specs/usb-cable/10u2-02203.htm)
• A soldering iron (20-30 watt pencil type) and solder
• Wire cutters (dikes)

Other tools that can be helpful, but are not strictly necessary, include tweezers, a magnifying glass / helping hands, wire stripper, needle nose nosed pliers or small hemostats (locking forceps), etc.

You can find most of these things at Harbor Freight, Radio Shack, or most hardware stores.

You will be supplied with:

• A Benito USB to serial programmer (see http://www.dorkbotpdx.org/blog/feurig/benito_7_the_next_big_thing)
• A Dorkboard kit (see http://dorkbotpdx.org/wiki/dorkboard)
• An introduction to the Arduino and microcontrollers in an artists setting
• Help when you need it
• The knowledge that what you built works!

For more information on the workshop, see http://www.dorkbotpdx.org/workshop/arduino/cult_induction_rev4
For more information about the Dorkboard, see http://dorkbotpdx.org/wiki/dorkboard
For more information about Arduino, see http://www.arduino.cc/
For more information about TechShop, see http://portlandtechshop.com
For more information about OpenTechSpace, see http://groups.google.com/group/open-tech-space
To find like-minded and helpful people, see http://dorkbotpdx.org/wiki/meetings and http://www.portlandrobotics.org/

Note that this Workshop is identical to the popular Arduino Cult Induction held at PNCA.