Archives

Learn how to make super shiny festive decorations in this seasonal soft circuit beginners workshop! Whether you want to make a star, Christmas tree or a snowflake, you will learn how to stitch basic circuits using conductive thread and adorn your felt decoration with LED’s. Led by MzTEKer Emilie Giles, the workshop will give you new skills in working with textiles as well as learning basic electronics.

Back by popular demand!

For all you techie women, join our one day introduction to the LilyPad Arduino and get your garments interactive!

During the course of the day you will be introduced to the basics of soft circuitry, some basic electronics, Arduino software, programming, and reading a sensor. At the end of the day you will have a functioning interactive patch, which you can sew onto a garment, bag or cushion cover.

PLEASE BRING WITH YOU:

A piece of fancy fabric of your choice. It is best to use something non-stretchy and stiff, something like cotton or canvas – perhaps with a ‘Christmassy’ twist? ;)

If you want to bring your own laptop, please make sure you have installed the latest Arduino Software on it.

A USB to mini-USB (you are bound to have one somewhere, we thought best not to buy more ;)

Fee: Including LilyPad Arduino £75 + £1.60 booking fee – This includes the LilyPad Arduino, LilyPad Battery Holder and FTDI board.

Not including LilyPad Arduino £35 + £1.60 booking fee – This is for those who do not require a LilyPad Arduino Kit as above. There will not be spares to borrow unfortunately, please make sure you have one for the workshop if you purchase this ticket.

When:

15th December ‘2012 10am – 5pm

Where:

SPACE, 129—131 Mare Street, London, E8 3RH.

Tutor:

MzTEk’s Sophie McDonald

Sign up here!

If you have any queries, please contact us on info@mztek.org.

Please note that this is a women’s workshop only.

An introductory workshop with MzTEK at Phoenix Brighton to learn how to create soft circuits and make stitched or wearable electronic and interactive artworks. This course will teach you hot to make a soft circuit toy, in this case a chatbot (or a creature of your choice!), but the skills can be applied to other projects.

Make crochet chains with conductive yarn, sew with conductive thread and make buttons with conductive material.

The workshop is aimed at women only and celebrates Alan Turing Year.

Price:

£20

When:

Saturday 8th December 12pm – 5pm

Where:

Phoenix Brighton, 10–14 Waterloo Place, Brighton, BN2 9NB

Tutor:

MzTEK’s Emilie Giles

Sign up here!

This Saturday the Mini Maker Faire is coming to Brighton and for the first time we’re going to be part of it, showcasing some pieces from Chi-TEK!

Chi-TEK is a tea inspired showcase of technologically modified teapots by internationally acclaimed women interaction designers, sound artists, bio artists, architects, and performance artists.

Chi-TEK, based on the acronym for Computer Human Interaction, celebrates the talent and innovation that women bring to arts and technology. The exhibition of technologically modified teapots first showcased at the V&A Sackler Centre, and in the V&A John Madejski Garden as part of London Design Festival 2011, in the playful guise of a tea party. Almost a year on from the Chi-TEK tea party MzTEK brings a selection of the Chi-TEK hacked teapots to the Brighton Mini Maker Faire.

The showcase of playful, witty and thought provoking work explores themes of ritual, nostalgia and sociopolitical contexts surrounding tea and tea making. Some women embraced and embellished the rituals, some women rejected them, while others reinvented the teapot. Chi-TEK challenges the cultural association between masculinity and technology, whilst providing a tongue-in-cheek take on what women really get up to around the kitchen table.

The interactive art works at the Brighton Mini Maker Faire by Mouna Andraos & Melissa Mongiat, Tine Bech and Artemis Papageorgiou, are a selection of the 15 amazing hacked teapots by leading women artists and designers commissioned for Chi-TEK with the support of ACE Grants for the Arts.

This Is Not A Teapot by Artemis Papageorgiou

LightPot by Tine Bech

On The Difficulty of Serving Tea by Mouna Andraos and Melissa Mongiat

The details for the Brighton Mini Maker Faire are as follows:

Venue:

Corn Exchange and Dome Foyer Bar
Brighton Dome
12a Pavilion Buildings
Castle Square
Brighton
BN1 1EE

Timings:

Saturday 8th September, 10am – 5pm

For more info about the Maker Faire please visit the website, and for any further information about Chi-TEK please email us at info@mztek.org

MzTEK needs your help!

After the success of our first Hacked Human Orchestra workshop, in collaboration Guerilla Science, Engineer Shauna Concannon and Kobakant, we are running two drop in sessions at our home, the Centre for Creative Collaboration, for soldering and making soft sensors! The items created in these sessions will be put towards our Hacked Human Orchestra, which will be taking form at both Shambala and Wilderness festivals in August.

We need 60 little speakers soldering to wires, which will be the sound outputs for our wearable instruments as well as 99 more sensors created which will be the inputs for playing the instruments! This includes dino spikes, stretchy chains, pompoms and buttons, the latter of which you can see on our wearable piano.

To see what we got up to at our last Hacked Human Orchestra workshop, please check out the video on Vimeo.

This will be an un-tutored drop-in session so to attend you do need to have a previous understanding of soldering and working with soft circuits. We will be there of course to assist where needed however :)

Where:
Centre for Creative Collaboration
16 Acton Street London Greater London WC1X 9NG

When:
Thursday 2nd August 2012 – 3pm – 9pm

&

Friday 3rd August – 3pm – 9pm

To attend please email us at info@mztek.com or just drop in!

Please note this is a women only session.