Free Workshop: Pure Data Visual Programming 2014-02-01

https://www.facebook.com/events/525547904226770/

Local maker, musician, artist, and educator John Harrison will be teaching a course on visual programming for realtime audio/video manipulation with Pure Data on February 1st from 1 to 4pm at MakeICT.

Pure Data is unlike any computer language you already know. Instead of writing lines of code, you will describe relationships between objects with diagrams that you draw. If you have found computer programming too foreign or abstract a concept in the past, Pure Data may offer you a more visual way to “think code.” More importantly, Pure Data is fun!

All are welcome and no previous programming experience is necessary. Bring a laptop if you can, preferably with Pure Data Extended already installed and tested, as outlined in the event link above.

If you want to experience first-hand something created in Pure Data, come see John’s Second Touch wall, installed right now at Shift Space through February 8th.

ALSO!

To support Pure Data and similar languages locally, MakeICT is starting the Wichita Patcher’s Circle. If you use Pure Data, Max/MSP, VVVV or any other dataflow language, or you want to, join our email list! We’ll support each other! 🙂

Happy patching (that’s jargon for coding in Pure Data. See? You already learned something)!

Bus Update 1/16/2014

The next Bus Thursday will be Thursday February 6, 2014; 6 pm at Jeremiah’s.

Jeremiah, Dom and Barbara met to look over the bus.  We took a look at the connector that John asked about.  There is one installed and one extra.  We suspect the extra one is not functioning.  The picture with all the wires shows the installed one on the left with the other just sitting on the floor to the right.  The second picture is the one John found online.

Jeremiah and Dom checked the brakes for leaks.  It appears that the RH rear brake slave cylinder may be bad.  Dom was going to look for a replacement using the P/N out of the bus catalog.  The only catalog we could get from the OEM was for the next model, not ours.  We are using it for guidance.

Barbara did some sanding on one of the long straight cracks on the LH rear panel.  It looked like it might be just a paint crack considering the thickness of the paint.  However, it does appear to go through the body.  I couldn’t feel the crack on the interior of the panel, so maybe it is double skinned.  We can look when we take out lights, etc. for cleaning.  Jeremiah told me it went all the way through, but I didn’t believe him!

The plan for the next meeting is to clean up the battery boxes.  That means wire brushes, sandpaper, Rustoleum and elbow grease.

The controller saga continues.  It is very difficult to get one.  Several companies list them, but no one has our exact model.  Our best bet so far is Global Industrial Products out of Illinois.  Their engineer thinks we can use another model controller;  one that is in stock.  This would be a Curtis 1244-6561, 500 Amp rather than our 1244-6461, 400 Amp.  John is working on getting him more information.  They want to be sure that this replacement will work.