This past weekend, the MakerLab hosted a special workshop led by Mitch Altman. Mitch (and Illinois alum) is Co-Founder of Noisebridge (one of the first hackerspaces in the US) and CEO of Cornfield Electronics (maker of TV-B-Gone). Mitch, who travels the world teaching people how to make things, as been an artist at resident here at Illinois for the past two weeks). In this workshop, Mitch taught a group of MakerLabbers how to create a battery-operated LED light device that flashes various colors (using the Red-Blue-Green color spectrum). This device has an infrared sensor that restarts the color pattern when a hand is waved over it. Using soldering irons, we connected a set of resistors, capacitors, controllers, lights, and a battery to a circuit board. Making these light kits was great fun and relatively easy and is a great illustration of how making things (including electronic devices) on your own can be an alternative to buying things in a store.

Please see our events listing for information about other workshops that we plan to hold this semester. You can sign up to be a member as well, to get invites to exclusive events and get some discounts on your prints. We hope to see you there.