Alpha One Labs will be giving away 6 free Maker Faire tickets which gives the lucky winners entry to the “World Maker Faire New York”.

All you have to do to enter is:
1) Follow @alphaonelabs on twitter
2) Tweet this phrase:
So @alphaonelabs is having a party, this is my entry to win. Retweet this 4 a chance at a free #MakerFaire ticket (http://goo.gl/8Gmy 4info)

More info on the party here: http://inner.eventbrite.com/

Here are the rules:

• Each time you tweet the COMPLETE phrase above, it counts as an entry into the contest
• You can enter as many times as you want
• However, You can only enter ONCE per hour
• You need to be following @alphaonelabs to win
• The winner will be chosen randomly, so the more entries you have the better your chances.
• The winner will be notified via a Twitter direct message.
• You can pick up your ticket at the New York Hall of Science
• No purchase necessary, please click here for a free entry

At our first global synchronous hackathon, we met artist and electronics aficionado, Alpay Kasal, who with Alpha One Labs founding member psytek, conceived of the idea of an interactive Christmas tree with ornaments that react to mentions of specific keywords on Twitter. The idea spawned from Alpay’s previous installation for GE Healthcare. After many hours of hard work and material shopping, Alpay found some golf display cases at The Container Store to house the 12 mil LED lights which blink when a designated word is tweeted. You can view the tree in person by visiting Alpha One Labs in Brooklyn or online, broadcasting live through ustream.

A netbook running Processing with the Twitter4J lib is used for performing searches of predetermined holiday words (listed below) while generating and smartly managing a queue of ornament blinks. Our in house microcontroller master, Robert, RDM654 contributed his uln2803a chips which helped with the refactoring of brigher incandesant bulbs. We’ll also be using 75HCT595sr shift registers for further refinement and efficiency.

Twitter search terms include: Christmas, Xmas, Santa, mistletoe, hackerspace, alphaonelabs, hack, opensource, snow, season, merry, peace, cheer, consumerism, joy, presents, greetings, arduino, jingle bells, happy new year, 2010, 2009, reprap, Brooklyn

Check out Alpay’s video displaying the tree in all of its glory:

If you’re around for our New Years Eve party you’ll be able to interact with the tree in person!