Perl has a mantra that goes, “Easy things are easy and hard things are possible.” In Haskell, the mantra is slightly different:

“Hard things are easy and the impossible just happened!”

If you’ve never seen Haskell before, you’re in for a real treat. It’s a language where functions can’t have side-effects, where variables
don’t vary, and where infinitely long lists are a topic suitable for chapter 2. To learn to program in Haskell is to bend your mind.

At its heart, functional programming is about correctness. Correct programs are ones that do what they’re supposed to do. While most
programming languages today are designed to churn out mostly-working code very quickly, the aim of functional languages is to produce actually-correct code at a reasonable pace. It’s a great tool for writing compilers, concurrent applications, secure systems, and algorithmic-heavy software for science or engineering. It’s also a good way to keep your robots from uprising against mankind.

Especially in the last few years, functional programming has been gaining significant momentum in industry. It is purported to be more modular, better at scaling, easier to parallelize, and leads to fewer bugs. Come see what the hype is all about and decide for yourself.

tl;dr

Who: Programmers interested in learning about functional programming.
What: A class on functional programming using Haskell.
Where: PSOne.
When: Sunday 2/24 at 6pm.
Why: Because lambdas.
How much: The class is free.
What else: Bring your laptop. You might also want to install Haskell Platform.

The first eTextiles workshop was a blast, and we have another coming up on the first Saturday of March. RSVP soon!

Adafruit has some good tutorials on getting started with the Flora here. After handing out Floras and supplies, we all introduced ourselves, Nate explained the arduino platform and talked through techniques and ideas for doing etextile projects.

• conductive felt styluses
• embroidery with conductive thread
• pressure sensors with velostat and fabric

The flora can work like a usb input device, and someone cut out a kitty shaped pressure sensor that typed “say meow” to the keyboard when pressed. Give focus to a mac’s terminal app and it will send “meow” to the text-to-speech program. This is cute.

Ever since the workshop we’ve had regular Sunday meetings of “Stitches with Switches”. Come along to one of our Sunday events for a skill share or work on your own projects.

Speak-n-spell + RockBand guitar. Seen at http://gizmodo.com/circuit-bent/

This Saturday, join Patrick McCarthy and Chicago area circuit benders for a fun approach to learning electronics.

For Beginners:
Merging music, art, and electronics, Circuit-bending is a hands-on, gratifying way to hack circuits by which you can transform a sound-emitting toy into an alien musical instrument. All you need is a battery-powered electronic toy and a few basic tools. Make sure the device you bring has lights or sound, and can be triggered easily. A sound effects box or a toy piano are good choices, a game that must be played is not. Do not bring anything that uses AC voltage.

If you’re an experienced circuit bender and want to show off your work, please attend and bring your instruments!

There is no fee for this event.

This NERP, Drew Fustini will show us how to WebIDE to program the Raspberry Pi. WebIDE is free from Adafruit. Put simply, “The Raspberry Pi WebIDE is by far the easiest way to run code on your Raspberry Pi. Just connect your Pi to your local network, and log on to the WebIDE in your web browser to edit Python, Ruby, JavaScript, or anything and easily send it over to your Pi.” Drew will use a Pi Plate RGB 16×2 character “Pi Plate” as the output device.

At the 1/28 NERP, we announced that the Adafruit Industries community grants people intended to send us a care package with Raspberry Pi goodies. The package arrived last week, and rather than opening it right away I thought it would be nice to share the surprise on Monday. It’ll be fun to see what kinds of ideas come out of the box and what kinds of projects they might inspire.

As always, if you have a NERP related project that you’d like to share, bring
it along!

Find NERP and Pumping Station:One
at http://www.meetup.com/NERP-Not-Exclusively-Raspberry-Pi/
and http://pumpingstationone.org

NERP meets at 7pm 2-11-13 at Pumping Station:One, 3519 N. Elston Ave. in Chicago. NERP is free and open to the public.

Hello again from Beer Church! Just this weekend we added the flavorings to Rhubarb Waves of Grain. We may keg Putting the India back in IPA this Sunday as well. But before all that, we’ll have a pot luck beer tasting featuring our in-house brews Pumpkin Spiced Ale, Doppelbock, and whatever you bring! Bring something you brewed or something out of the ordinary from a store.

Tucker’s worked out what’s needed to make Sake. So, we’re making Sake this Sunday. That won’t take much time total, so we’re going to do 2 things at once: Barleywine’s also on the ticket. We have Stone Brewing’s recipe for Stone Old Guardian Barley Wine which is a possibility. Other options will be considered day-of unless Eric’s already bought the ingredients for Barley Wine.

Brewing mead in November 2012

During downtime of the brew we’ll have the opportunity to have our heads 3D scanned by Colin, the CNC area host of Pumping Station: One… maybe. Take a chance: come taste some beer, help make sake & barley wine, swap stories of brewing, get your head scanned into a 3D model, and go home happy.

Nitty Gritty

When: Sunday February 10th, 1PM. We expect to be brewing until around 7 PM or so, but you don’t have to hang around the whole time if you don’t want to. People who help out until the end get a bottle of the beverages they helped with when it’s completed (approximately 1 month later).
Where: Pumping Station: One, 3519 N Elston, Chicago
What: Beer tasting and brewing hands-on
Who: Anyone 21 or over, Pumping Station: One members or not!
Why: Because beer is a worthy purpose for your Sunday afternoon
To Brew: Sake!
Brewmaster: Tucker Tomlinson
To Brew 2: Barley wine.. or something else, depending on what we decide.
Brewmaster 2: Eric Stein

Transfer function?  Poles??  Frequency Response???  Are these sections you skip over when reading electronics datasheets and application notes?  Well, let’s put the shame behind us and finally learn these topics which are fundamental to being an electronics engineer.  Come join us in learning the exciting world of Analog Signal Processing!  We’re going to cut through most of the clutter usually taught in a core electrical & computer engineering course and present you the most basic and useful concepts within this discipline of electronics.  You’ll learn powerful tools to help expand your knowledge as an engineer and/or an electronics hobbyist.  The following topics will be covered:

1. Complex numbers & impedance
2. Common signals & classes of signals
3. Linear systems & the impulse response
4. Convolution
5. Time-domain analysis of an RC Circuit
6. Fourier Series
7. Fourier Transform
8. Laplace Transform
9. Frequency-domain analysis of an RC Circuit
10. Ideal & Practical filters
11. Bandwidth
12. AM Modulation
13. Sampling Theorem & Aliasing

The overarching theme of the class is to emphasize why analyzing signals & systems in the time domain is inefficient and why you should do it in the frequency domain instead.  Along the way we’ll learn useful tools which have countless real-world applications.  We end the class with sampling an analog signal and turning it into a digital signal for use within a computer.

The class is quite heavy in mathematics, so be prepared.  Attendees who want to grasp everything should have at least some Calculus experience (know what derivatives & integrals are).  Come early if you would like to review some math.  The class will be all whiteboard & markers so you aren’t required to bring anything.  You can bring a notebook to take notes if you like.  There is a lot of material to cover, so it’s possible the class might run long depending on how savvy the audience is.  Either way, you’re more than welcome to stay after and discuss signal processing applications or anything else with electronics.

The Details:

• Who: Anyone (Open to the Public)
• When: Monday, February 18th – 7:00pm to 9:00pm;  Come at 6:30pm for math review.
• Where: 3519 N. Elston – 2nd Floor in the Electronics Lab
• Cost: FREE

reactive fabric controlling LEDs

Agenda:

We’ll intersperse lessons with small projects. You’ll learn what an Arduino is, and how to sew it together with fun glowing, noisy things on a scarf or hat or shoes or whatever we find that we can work thread through. We’ll have a break with sandwiches so that no one goes hungry

What to bring

Required: Yourself, a laptop, and $42 dollars if you go home with an Arduino, else $20.

Suggested for maximum fun:

• scrap fabric, zippers, buttons and notions
• junk toys with keypads, switches, speakers, etc.
• old gloves, scarves, hats and such
• scissors, pliers and other small hand tools

Class size:

We have room for 20 people and some overflow, but we only have 20 Floras to give out. We’re using this meetup to handle RSVPs: eTextiles using Arduino

If you can’t make this workshop then sign up for the next workshop on March 2 here: eTextile Workshop

This is going to be one of the odder events held at Pumping Station: One so far. It’s a 6 hour hangout from 8PM CST to 2AM CST (yes, timezones are crazy!) with people physically located in Taipei, Taiwan; Chicago, USA; San Francisco, USA; Wisconsin, USA, and probably a few other places!

The purpose is to bring people together from all over the world to show the people of Taipei what a hackerspace can do for them, and why it’s so cool that one is coming to their city very soon!

I’m personally giving a talk for a few minutes about how life changing finding hackerspaces can be, and how important their social aspects are. It’s a tall order to talk after the other two speakers, and I hope I can even remotely compare to them. Inter-space social activities like this and so many other things online allow our culture to transfer amazing ideas from far across the globe with so very little friction.

Hackerspaces globe by Joe Walnes

Below is the description by Taipei Hackerspace, the event’s organizer.

First Hackerspace event – (and accidentally Groundhog Day too)

The purpose of this event is to get people interested in joining the first ever hackerspace in Taipei. We will be gauging interest in the hackerspace to help us select a large enough space that we can afford to open. This will also be a chance for the organizers to meet people that can help us find the perfect space. Our goal is to have the space ready for a Hack the Hackerspace event by the time Maker Faire Taiwan arrives in May.

Schedule
======

10:00am Doors open
10:30am – 10:50am Speaker: Mitch Altman – The Philosophy of Hackerspaces
10:50am – 11:10am Speaker: Ben Heck – 3D Printing and Hardware Modding
11:10am – 11:30am Speaker: Eric Stein – Creativity in the Hackerspaces
11:30am – 12:00pm Speaker: Open floor – Hackerspace members answer questions
12:00pm – 16:00pm Learning stations open
16:00pm Doors close

Format
=====

Google+ Hangouts
The will be a main G+ Hangout that hackerspaces from around the world can join as a group. This will be displayed on the main screens at the event as well as smaller screen throughout the event. Local people will be able to interact with the members of the hackerspaces. This hangout will also be broadcast On Air.

Learning Stations
Each of the 4 learning stations will have a public G+ Hangout so anyone can join in to learn or teach. Each station will cover one topic that can be completed in about 30 minutes. Each station will have room for 4-6 local participants. The topics will be “Learning to Solder”, “Getting started with Arduino”, “Clothes Hacking”, and an open topic for the last station.

Introductions
—————-

The Speakers
========

Mitch Altman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Altman

mitch@cornfieldelectronics.com (PUBLIC)
A co-founder of Noisebridge, a hackerspace in San Francisco, and a pioneer of Virtual reality. Mitch has been featured many time is Make: and many other magazines.

Benjamin Heckendorn

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Heckendorn

benjamin.heckendorn@gmail.com (PUBLIC)
Console modder, internet celebrity, pinball enthusiast and designer, host of the Ben Heck Show. There are so many publications about Ben, I can’t even begin to count (Although Google say 3.9M hits!)

Eric Stein
Programmer extraordinaire and insatiable hacker. Eric discovered the hackerspace PumpingStationOne when he was transplanted to Chicago. He immediately took an active role in the community and is now president of the space.

The Organizers
==========
Gergely (Greg) Imreh
imrehg@gmail.com
Ex-pat living in Taiwan and founder of Taipei Hackerspace. He has been driving the online presence of the group.

Tom Haynes
TaipeiHackerspace@tomhaynes.net (PUBLIC)
Recently relocated to Taipei from San Francisco. After discovering Gergely through hackerspaces.org, they joined forces to found the physical space for Taipei Hackerspace.

The Media
======
Brian Song
Make: Magazine Taiwan

Amber Yan
Editor with Make: Magazine Taiwan

Caroline Hsu
Head of Google Communications, Taiwan

Lan Chang
Google Public Affairs Senior Associate, Taiwan and Hong Kong

Location
=====
Google Taiwan office, Taipei 101, Floor 73
Meeting at Taipei 101 Ground Floor

Of course, don’t go booking plane tickets! That’s what the Internet is for. We’ll be posting the G+ hangout information here, but for the best experience come down to Pumping Station: One for the event, we’ll have the live video up on the projector… and maybe our in-house brewed Pumpkin Ale on tap.

Nitty Gritty

* What: Meet people from all over the world, talk about your projects, and see speeches by Mitch Altman and Ben Heck! You’ve probably heard me talk already, so that’s not the fun part for you.
* Where: Pumping Station: One, 3519 N Elston Chicago IL
* When: Fri Feb 1, 2013 at 8PM to 2AM Saturday (no, you don’t have to stay the whole time!)
* RSVP: not required, but add yourself on Facebook if you like.
* Who: Any member of the public for the first hour and a half (through 9:30PM) and perhaps later, but no guarantees unless I can get someone else to take over hosting the event.

Bring  your favorite games over to Pumping Station: One this Saturday, the 2nd, at 7pm and play the night away! As usual, all games are welcome [even cuddle dice, though you may have a hard time finding people to play with], homemade games are extra awesome!

See you there!