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NYC Resistor: Making Awesome Things Happen

Posted by Alex_Pasternack on Wednesday, Jan 06, 2010

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Over the summer, at a DIY repair-off called Get Yr Fix, I watched as ragtag teams battled each other and the clock to breathe new life into all manner of dead and disused goods gathered from the streets of Brooklyn. The toddler’s three-wheeler was rad and the resurrected baby pen would have fit right into a Tim Burton version of Mad Max.

But there was also a kinda jaw dropping moment: two guys armed with little more than a soldering iron and a mutli-meter turned a couple of busted TVs into one fully fledged boob tube. “Eet’s aliiive!” one of them crowed. They didn’t win — the tricycle did — but they weren’t there to win. The duo, from the group NYC Resistor, took a kind of mad pleasure in making things better, like a cross between Bob Villa and Dr. Frankenstein. On this episode of Motherboard, we pay a visit to their Brooklyn lair.

Founded by a handful of friends who wanted a place to tinker with electronics and meet like-minded hackers for good, NYC Resistor. has blossomed into one of the country’s most influential hackerspaces. On any given Thursday night, their cozy, cluttered loft workshop is crawling with a diverse crowd of hardcore tinkerers and curious newcomers. Throwing some caution and many user warranties to the wind, they’re there to build, refine, break and share everything from toy robots to intricate paper sculpture to open source musical instruments.

On top of public workshops on topics ranging from algorithms to laser-cutting (“fiiire the laser!” is the cry often heard from the next room), the group has spawned a huge DIY following, and a number of events and offshoots to match. First among them is MakerBot Industries, a company spearheaded by three of the Resistor co-founders that specializes in kits for an innovative and inexpensive 3D printer, a “robot that makes things.”

With roots in the underground computer hacking movement — a marginal and marginalized group whose only crime, the Hacker’s Manifesto proclaims, is “curiosity” — NYC Resistor is redefining the idea of hacking while reclaiming space, skills and materials to, as Resistor co-founder Bre Pettis says, “make awesome things happen.”

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    ghostpusher about 1 month ago

    Can someone please post the link to where i can get the stuff to make "the Mono" that box that lights up and makes sounds! thanks so much!!!

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    cacophobia about 1 month ago

    told my friends about this !

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    Another 2 months ago

    Drink-making robots? I love technology.

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    Stewy 2 months ago

    I really enjoyed this. Great quote: 'Once you can actually fix something, it can't ever be broken again'.

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    1up 2 months ago

    Great episode. Some of the others have impressed me but this is the one that might get me off my ass to build something or destroy something. I haven't figured out which yet.

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    Mason 2 months ago

    Now we just need some robot dogs.

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    nerdvana 2 months ago

    it's great to see these people so passionate about what they do even if they don't get rewarded for their accomplishments

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    mouseface 2 months ago

    the drink-making machines are cool but need more variety. imagine a button for "double" or "extra dry"

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    modtechmod 2 months ago

    these nerds will put bartenders out of work.

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    nerdvana 2 months ago

    these nerds seem like a lot of fun. i'd love to meet them

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Alex_Pasternack

my other card is a hard drive
New York, United States
Member since 2009

An enthusiast of science, technology and web surfing, Alex Pasternack has written about culture, politics and the built and natural environments in places as far afield as Sichuan, China, Ulan Ude,...

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