My wife and daughter gave me a great Christmas gift this year. They gave me some Rit fabric dye (along with some color fixative). I had some old jeans that were still good (no rips or fryaing) – but they were really faded in some spots. I guess this was to be expected after 5 …
Author Archives: JR
Mining for Crypto
We were wondering how we could dip our toes into the profitable world of cryptocurrency mining. After all, the crypto scene is exploding and fortunes are being made. Our group created a Bitcoin miner back in 2011 – but it all ended badly when we couldn’t decide how to divvy up the profits (not that …
Buy American this Christmas Season!
When purchasing gifts for your loved ones this Holiday season, remember to buy American! Buying from American producers and manufacturers supports families and communities right here in American soil. Spending money on products mace in China supports the leadership of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), a group that does things like enslave thousands of Muslim …
One Heck of a Guy …
We here at Rippowam Labs have always referred to William “Bill” Saturno as the Godfather of all Makerspaces here in Connecticut. He was a big proponent of this movement and ran the finest makerspace in the state. It was no easy task to establish our own space. No one ever gave us free rent and …
Raspberry Pi-powered Bi-Ped Robot Rocks a Moonwalk
We’ve been having fun with our PiSloth robot lately. This is a bi-ped robot that uses 4 servo motors, a Raspberry Pi and some Python code to literally dance, sing and navigate obstacles.
Stick Welding Fun Leads to Cool Catapult
We spent a recent glorious weekend day creating a catapult out of an old bed frame we got at Vulcan Scrap Metal in Stamford. It’s been a long time since we broke out the stick welder but, once we got it going, I remembered how absolutely essential it can be to help create something useful …
NASA Event at Mill River Park Saturday Night
Join the Rippowam Labs community at Mill River Park on Saturday night to take part in NASA’s International Observe the Moon Night 2020 event. This is the lates in a series of Sidwalk Astronomy events put on by Zane Landers, a Stamford resident who is considered the face of America’s next generation of astronomers. He …
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Zane Landers brings “Sidewalk Astronomy” to Stamford
The man who taught students to build their own telescope at our makerspace a couple of years ago is now working to ignite a passion for astronomy in Stamford. Stamford resident Zane Landers is starting a regular series of Sidewalk Astronomy events at Mill River Park in Stamford (near dog park). Interested people need only …
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Online Tutoring Available for Robotics and Coding
Over the last several months, many members of our community have been asking whether we will be offering Web-based robotics and coding classes. This question – and the pandemic, for that matter – caught us off guard. While we had great success with classes at our makerspace, we never optimized our tutoring to be an …
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Raspberry Pi Coder Dojo @ the Stamford YMCA
Rippowam Labs has been hard at work educating the youth of Stamford. In early October, we set up the city’s first Raspberry Pi Coder Dojo! The Coder Dojo program is a volunteer-based global initiative to teach young people how to code and create with technology. There are more than 1900 active Dojos in 93 countries …
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