Austin: DorkBot

I was delighted to be present at the first meeting of the Austin chapter of DorkBot tonight.  You would have loved it.

DorkBot's history is here.  The tagline:  “People doing strange things with electricity.”

Tonight we were standing around in a mysterious parking lot area outside a funky coffee place.  It was a sweaty hot night.  The group I was with got there late, so we missed the theremin demo (apparently someone made a 1984 Mac into a theremin).  Think Spellbound.

But the demos we saw were just great.  First there was software for a Nintendo DS2 that makes it really really easy to paint and squiggle and do a million things.  Really easy for a kid, really easy for an adult.  Cheers from the crowd.

Then there was a serious electrical show with Frankenstein-like zapping sounds and sparks:

Also cheers from the crowd.  Some members of the group backed up quite a bit from the display.  Usually techie demos aren't quite this….dynamic.

Before DorkBot we went to see the bats swarm out from under the Congress Avenue Bridge at dusk.  No one we asked knew the collective noun for bats.  A bevy of bats?  A belfrey of bats? Do you know?

June 9, 2006 | Filed Under main page 

Comments

3 Responses to “Austin: DorkBot”

  1. Anonymous on June 9th, 2006 8:02 am

    A group of bats is called a colony. Or Congress.

  2. Anonymous on June 9th, 2006 11:45 am

    I love the theremin. I recently discovered you can get almost all of Bernard Hermann's soundtrack (other than the opening credits, argh) from The Day the Earth Stood Still on Napster and probably other services.

  3. Anonymous on June 9th, 2006 11:59 am

    Whoops, should've linked to the original recording.

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