Circuit Bending

Around the middle / end of July I was contacted by the unstoppable Jose Rodriquez (Queens Museum / New New Yorkers) and asked to teach an 8 week circuit bending workshop at the museum.  So, I quickly put together a game plan for the 8 weeks, designed a PCB, etched them, ordered all the needed components, printed hand outs and class materials and was ready to BEND! I would bring my group of multi cultural Queens adults through the basics of circuitry, learning different concepts and principles, identifying components, reading small schematics, soldering, wiring preparation, planning out an enclosure, testing and trouble shooting, circuit installation and hacking. I took a different approach to this workshop, considering I knew we would have multiple weeks to figure things out.  That being said, instead of just making a simple step by step kit for everyone to build… I designed the workshop’s circuit board with lots of “hack points”.  The idea being, everyone in the group would wind up with a slightly different final project from the person next to them.  Everyone was given a handout with different options they could add or leave out of the circuit (depending on what was most important to them). Meaning, some folks wanted to be able to power the circuit with USB instead of a 9V battery, we learned how to do that.  Others didn’t care for the screaming synth sound, and really were only concerned about the LEDS, so we added 3 large ones on a dimmer. There were different switch options, power options, touch point options, light sensors and more. This certainly made things harder to figure out, it wasn’t a paint by number project (which often, people don’t really learn from) this was actual circuit bending / hacking.  The only difference was, instead of starting with a completed circuit… we needed to first build out the main circuit, then add our custom modifications.  By doing things this way, I believe everyone received a greater and more realistic understanding of what we were working on… and felt truly gratified when it finally worked the way THEY wanted it to.  Mission accomplished!

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