Reminder: robot workshop tonight, at Eyebeam, for those of you in NYC.

Mindstorms Workshop - This workshop, intended for ages 12 and up, will teach participants of all ages how to build and program their own robots using LEGO Mindstorms (small computers with programmable behaviors) in order to address a specific challenge. Participants will work with an artist to learn the Mindstorm programming language, experiment with the design of a physical computing project, and test the results in their own mini-robot "runway show".

Feral Robotic Dogs - The Bureau of Inverse Technology will lead a workshop on building feral robotic dogs. These semi-autonomous activist robots are created by disassembling and rebuilding commercially available robotic toy dogs. The toys are 'upgraded' by installing a new nose (data collection sensors), a new brain that programs the dogs to "sniff out" contaminants in the environment and by mechanically improving them so that they can traverse outdoor terrain.

New York-Tokyo robots tomorrow at the same venue, followed by a robot-DJ'ed party.

simonthehappy: this is creepily similar to what I'm working on, only I'm only dragging the paper in one direction, and using several head positioning assemblies from hard drives to actuate the pen...

hudson: thanks. A friend of mine has a running installation; I'll give backchaining a try. Until then, I guess I'll stick with eagle.

hudson: how on earth did you get ExpressPCB running under Wine? I've had no joy. What version are you using? Are you linking against an existing windows installation?

Finished my stupid electroluminescent handbag today. People seemed to like it. I am rapidly turning into a fashion designer for Mondo 2000. Ugh.

Maxim's site has some very good tutorials, and you can now order parts directly from them online. Got myself some MAX712 chargers. Will see how they work out.