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  • July 2026

  • Thu 23
    Photo of a purple TP4056 lithium-ion battery connected to a TP4056 charge controller and a PH2.5 connector, which is plugged into a LoRa radio node with the green power light on

    ๐Ÿ”‹ Beginner Soldering: Li-Ion Battery Pack

    July 23 @ 2:30 pm - 3:30 pm ๐Ÿ”‹ Beginner Soldering: Li-Ion Battery Pack
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    Make a rechargeable battery pack for your LoRa node, a microcontroller such as an ESP32 or Pi Pico, or anything that runs on 3โ€“4 Volts. Perfect for folks who've never soldered before! To complete this project you'll need to buy a li-ion battery pack kit for $3.99. Here's what it includes: โ€ข 18650 battery clip […]

  • Fri 24
    Photo of blurry spinning top with colorful LEDs, and the following text: LED Top Soldering Kit Motion-activated spinning top w/ flashing lights! โ†’ Includes two CR2303 coin cell batteries

    โšก๏ธ Bฬถeฬถgฬถiฬถnฬถnฬถeฬถrฬถ ฬถSฬถoฬถlฬถdฬถeฬถrฬถiฬถnฬถgฬถ:ฬถ ฬถLฬถEฬถDฬถ ฬถSฬถpฬถiฬถnฬถnฬถiฬถnฬถgฬถ ฬถTฬถoฬถp (canceled this week!)

    July 24 @ 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm โšก๏ธ Beginner Soldering: LED Spinning Top
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    We're canceling this class due to a scheduling conflict. Sorry for the inconvenience!      

  • Sat 25
    Photo of a cyberdeck, i.e. a DIY laptop with a tiny screen. This one is running Kali Linux.

    ๐Ÿ’ป Cyberdeck Meetup

    July 25 @ 10:30 am - 12:30 pm ๐Ÿ’ป Cyberdeck Meetup
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    A cyberdeck is a DIY laptop based on a single-board computer (SBC) such as Raspberry Pi, with a tiny LCD screen and keyboard enclosed in a folding case. Bring an SBC to this meetup and start building your own! We'll have LCD screens and keybaords for sale, as well as wooden boxes in various sizes. […]

  • Sun 26
    Front cover of David Graeber's book 'The Utopia of Rules,' designed to resemble a pink slip you'd receive when getting fired from a job

    ๐Ÿด Anarchy Summer Reading Group: ‘The Utopia of Rules’ by David Graeber (1st half)

    July 26 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm ๐Ÿด Anarchy Summer Reading Group
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    We're meeting every two weeks to discuss classics of anarchist literature, starting with Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman and The Conquest of Bread by Peter Kropotkin. Stay tuned for more details!

  • Mon 27
    Orange rectangle with rounded corners in the background, with a blue music note, a celebration emoji, a smiling face, and the following text: Happy Birthday !!!

    ๐ŸŽฌ Make a Hand-Coded SVG Animation!

    July 27 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm ๐ŸŽฌ Make a Hand-Coded SVG Animation
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    Learn to make an animated SVG file using a plaintext editor and web browser. No fancy tools needed! Geany text editor Sublime Text Happy Birthday example file Register coming soon!

  • Tue 28
    Flyer with a green background and the following text: The Writing Room @ Iffy Books / Every Tuesday 5-7:30 PM / Come co-work with other writers in three 4-minute units of silent writing. Writers and projects of any type welcome. 10-minute breaks and accountability check-ins between units. BYO coffee, water, computer chargers, notepads, etc.

    โœ๏ธ The Writing Room

    July 28 @ 5:00 pm - 7:30 pm โœ๏ธ The Writing Room
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    Come co-work with other writers in three 40-minute units of silent writing. Writers and projects of any type welcome. 10-minute breaks and accountability check-ins between units. BYO coffee, water, computer chargers, notepads, etc.

  • Wed 29
    Zine cover for "Build a Solar-Powered Music Synth," with the Iffy Books logo in the lower left corner. In the middle of the page there's a black-and-white drawing of cute hamsters assembling electronic components on a breadboard. A spiral sun is overhead, with a curving arrow pointing at a pair of music notes.

    โ˜€๏ธ Solar Music Synth Workshop

    July 29 @ 10:30 am - 12:30 pm โ˜€๏ธ Solar Music Synth Workshop
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    Join us and build a tiny solar-powered square wave generator on a breadboard. No soldering required! The workshop is free to attend, but you'll need to purchase a kit for $12.50 to complete the project. Here's a link to the how-to zine we'll use. And here's a diagram of the oscillator circuit we'll build: Register:

  • Wed 29
    An illustration of an assembled Digital Notebook Kit on a solderless breadboard: a microSD card port, an OLED screen, and an ESP32-C3 microcontroller unit, all connected with purple and orange wires

    ๐Ÿ““ DIY Digital Notebook Workshop

    July 29 @ 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm ๐Ÿ““ DIY Digital Notebook Workshop
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    In this workshop youโ€™ll build a digital notebook, a pocket-sized device for taking notes with a USB keyboard. Weโ€™re using affordable, widely available components: a Seeed XIAO ESP32-S3 microcontroller, a 1-inch OLED display, and a microSD card reader, arranged on a solderless breadboard. The ESP32-S3 connects to the display via the I2C (Inter-Integrated Circuit) protocol, […]

  • Wed 29
    Front cover of the book โ€˜Ignore All Previous Instructionsโ€™ by Ada Hoffman, with an illustration of a rocket taking off from Jupiter

    ๐Ÿช Speculative Futures Reading Group: ‘Ignore All Previous Instructions’ by Ada Hoffman

    July 29 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm ๐Ÿช Speculative Futures Reading Group
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    Our July book is Ada Hoffman's newย Ignore All Previous Instructions, and we'll wrap up our summer with Louise Erderich's Future Home of the Living Godย in August.

  • Thu 30
    Photo of a purple TP4056 lithium-ion battery connected to a TP4056 charge controller and a PH2.5 connector, which is plugged into a LoRa radio node with the green power light on

    ๐Ÿ”‹ Beginner Soldering: Li-Ion Battery Pack

    July 30 @ 2:30 pm - 3:30 pm ๐Ÿ”‹ Beginner Soldering: Li-Ion Battery Pack
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    Make a rechargeable battery pack for your LoRa node, a microcontroller such as an ESP32 or Pi Pico, or anything that runs on 3โ€“4 Volts. Perfect for folks who've never soldered before! To complete this project you'll need to buy a li-ion battery pack kit for $3.99. Here's what it includes: โ€ข 18650 battery clip […]

  • Thu 30
    Flyer with the following text: Livecoding Jam using Strudel Pattern Language 6:30pm, July 30th 2026 @Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St. Bring a laptop, synth, or instrument to jam, no experience necessary!

    ๐ŸŽถ Hack + Jam: Strudel Pattern Language

    July 30 @ 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm ๐ŸŽถ Hack + Jam
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    Please join us at the wonderful Iffy Books for this month's edition of our livecoding jam! We will be making music using strudel. NO EXPERIENCE REQUIRED! If you have any questions, or want to help with jam setup, please join our discord! Organized by the Philly Electronic Music Club

  • Fri 31
    A Neo-6M GPS device, with a blue microcontroller board connected by a wire to a square metal antenna unit

    ๐Ÿ“ Offline GPS Unit Workshop

    July 31 @ 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm ๐Ÿ“ Offline GPS Unit Workshop
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    In this workshop you'll build a device that displays your GPS coordinates and the current time, without connecting to the internet or transmitting anything. 100% passive and off-grid, no internet or cell connection needed! We'll use theย MicroPython programming language and the Thonny IDE, following the instructions onย this page. You'll need to purchase a kit to […]

  • August 2026

  • Sat 1
    The Meshtastic logo, with the word "Meshtastic" in black

    ๐Ÿ“ก Meshtastic 101

    August 1 @ 10:30 am - 12:00 pm ๐Ÿ“ก Meshtastic 101
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    Join us for an introduction to Meshtastic, an application that lets you send private text messages over the air using pocket-sizedย LoRa radio transceivers. Weโ€™ll show you how to flash the latest Meshtastic firmware to the device, customize the settings, and start chatting with your friends. Hereโ€™s a link to our zine on LoRa + Meshtastic. […]

  • Sun 2
    Flyer with a photo of a QWERTY keyboard with stickers on some keys, and the following text: DJ Basixxx with Mixxx Iffy Books โ€ข Sun, July 19 at 4 pm โ€ข Weds, July 22 at 2 pm โ€ข Sun, Aug 2 at 4 pm โ€ข Weds, Aug 5 at 2 pm โ€ข Sun, Aug 16 at 4 pm Sign up at iffybooks.net!

    ๐Ÿ”Š DJ Basixxx with Mixxx

    August 2 @ 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm ๐Ÿ”Š DJ Basixxx with MIXXX
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    If you're curious about DJing but don't have money to drop on equipment, this workshop is for you! You'll learn to use Mixxx, a free and open source DJ program for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Mixxx supports a wide range of DJ controller hardware, but to make it more accessible we're using regular QWERTY keyboards […]

  • Sun 2
    '80s style pink glowing text reading "Homebrew Website Club" with a purple triangle and rainbow and grid receding into the background

    ๐Ÿ  IndieWeb Homebrew Website Club

    August 2 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm ๐Ÿ  IndieWeb Homebrew Website Club
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    Homebrew Website Club is a growing world-wide network of meetups for everyone who wants to take back their web experience from social media silos, and own their online identities & content, or just want support with blogging!

  • Mon 3
    Coffee mug with the trans flag printed on it (pastel blue, pastel pink, and white stripes)

    โ˜•๏ธ Coffee Talk

    August 3 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm โ˜•๏ธ Coffee Talk
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    A social hangout every first and third Monday for trans and non-binary people, their significant others, and allies. We have snacks and coffee.

  • Tue 4
    Flyer with a green background and the following text: The Writing Room @ Iffy Books / Every Tuesday 5-7:30 PM / Come co-work with other writers in three 4-minute units of silent writing. Writers and projects of any type welcome. 10-minute breaks and accountability check-ins between units. BYO coffee, water, computer chargers, notepads, etc.

    โœ๏ธ The Writing Room

    August 4 @ 5:00 pm - 7:30 pm โœ๏ธ The Writing Room
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    Come co-work with other writers in three 40-minute units of silent writing. Writers and projects of any type welcome. 10-minute breaks and accountability check-ins between units. BYO coffee, water, computer chargers, notepads, etc.

  • Wed 5
    A washed-out image of the Sphinx in Egypt, screen captured from an analog video tape

    ๐Ÿ“ผ Analog A/V Session

    August 5 @ 10:30 am - 12:30 pm ๐Ÿ“ผ Analog A/V Session
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    Come experiment with VHS tapes and audio cassettes! We'll have equipment on hand for analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog transfers. Register:

  • Wed 5
    Flyer with a photo of a QWERTY keyboard with stickers on some keys, and the following text: DJ Basixxx with Mixxx Iffy Books โ€ข Sun, July 19 at 4 pm โ€ข Weds, July 22 at 2 pm โ€ข Sun, Aug 2 at 4 pm โ€ข Weds, Aug 5 at 2 pm โ€ข Sun, Aug 16 at 4 pm Sign up at iffybooks.net!

    ๐Ÿ”Š DJ Basixxx with Mixxx

    August 5 @ 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm ๐Ÿ”Š DJ Basixxx with MIXXX
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    If you're curious about DJing but don't have money to drop on equipment, this workshop is for you! You'll learn to use Mixxx, a free and open source DJ program for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Mixxx supports a wide range of DJ controller hardware, but to make it more accessible we're using regular QWERTY keyboards […]

  • Thu 6
    Photo of a purple TP4056 lithium-ion battery connected to a TP4056 charge controller and a PH2.5 connector, which is plugged into a LoRa radio node with the green power light on

    ๐Ÿ”‹ Beginner Soldering: Li-Ion Battery Pack

    August 6 @ 2:30 pm - 3:30 pm ๐Ÿ”‹ Beginner Soldering: Li-Ion Battery Pack
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    Make a rechargeable battery pack for your LoRa node, a microcontroller such as an ESP32 or Pi Pico, or anything that runs on 3โ€“4 Volts. Perfect for folks who've never soldered before! To complete this project you'll need to buy a li-ion battery pack kit for $3.99. Here's what it includes: โ€ข 18650 battery clip […]

  • Fri 7
    Photo of blurry spinning top with colorful LEDs, and the following text: LED Top Soldering Kit Motion-activated spinning top w/ flashing lights! โ†’ Includes two CR2303 coin cell batteries

    โšก๏ธ Beginner Soldering: LED Spinning Top

    August 7 @ 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm โšก๏ธ Beginner Soldering: LED Spinning Top
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    For this class we're building a spinning top toy with LED lights that flash when it spins. No previous soldering experience required! Registration    

  • Fri 7
    The words "Philly 2600" in an old-school digital font

    ๐Ÿ’ป Philly 2600 Meetup

    August 7 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm ๐Ÿ’ป Philly 2600 Meetup
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    > The Philly 2600 meeting is a monthly gathering of local hackers, phreaks, nerds, geeks, activists, tinkerers, developers, infosec professionals, and other interesting people.

  • Sun 9
    Flyer with an illustration of a circle A anarchy symbol made of cross-stitch Xes, with the following text: ANARCHIST SEWING CLUB 2nd Sundays 3โ€“5 pm Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., PHL

    ๐Ÿงต Anarchist Sewing Club

    August 9 @ 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm Anarchist Sewing Club
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    Interested in learning to sew, mend or make clothes? Already know how and wanna hang out with people while sewing? Come and join us! Sewing supplies and a sewing machine will be available for anyone needing them.   Image credit

  • Sun 9
    Illustration of a black flag inside a dark circle, a symbol of the anarchism movement

    ๐Ÿด Anarchy Summer Reading Group: ‘The Utopia of Rules’ by David Graeber (2nd half)

    August 9 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm ๐Ÿด Anarchy Summer Reading Group
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    We're meeting every two weeks to discuss classics of anarchist literature, starting with Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman and The Conquest of Bread by Peter Kropotkin. Stay tuned for more details!

  • Mon 10
    Old-fashioned website screen capture with a repeated picture of a cloud in the background: Welcome To The *Making Your First Website* Workshop Learn HTML and create a home page on Neocities! Total beginners welcome! Iffy Books / Ragman WARNING: this page is under construction

    ๐Ÿšง Make Your First Website

    August 10 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm ๐Ÿšง Make Your First Website
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    Make a home page like it's 1999! Join us at Iffy Books for a new workshop called Make Your First Website, led by Ragman a.k.a. Richard Green. You'll learn the basics of HTML and create a static site on the free hosting service Neocities. No experience necessary! Please bring a laptop if you have one. […]

  • Tue 11
    Flyer with a green background and the following text: The Writing Room @ Iffy Books / Every Tuesday 5-7:30 PM / Come co-work with other writers in three 4-minute units of silent writing. Writers and projects of any type welcome. 10-minute breaks and accountability check-ins between units. BYO coffee, water, computer chargers, notepads, etc.

    โœ๏ธ The Writing Room

    August 11 @ 5:00 pm - 7:30 pm โœ๏ธ The Writing Room
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    Come co-work with other writers in three 40-minute units of silent writing. Writers and projects of any type welcome. 10-minute breaks and accountability check-ins between units. BYO coffee, water, computer chargers, notepads, etc.

  • Wed 12
    Zine cover for "Build a Solar-Powered Music Synth," with the Iffy Books logo in the lower left corner. In the middle of the page there's a black-and-white drawing of cute hamsters assembling electronic components on a breadboard. A spiral sun is overhead, with a curving arrow pointing at a pair of music notes.

    โ˜€๏ธ Solar Music Synth Workshop

    August 12 @ 10:30 am - 12:30 pm โ˜€๏ธ Solar Music Synth Workshop
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    Join us and build a tiny solar-powered square wave generator on a breadboard. No soldering required! The workshop is free to attend, but you'll need to purchase a kit for $12.50 to complete the project. Here's a link to the how-to zine we'll use. And here's a diagram of the oscillator circuit we'll build: Register:

  • Wed 12
    An illustration of an assembled Digital Notebook Kit on a solderless breadboard: a microSD card port, an OLED screen, and an ESP32-C3 microcontroller unit, all connected with purple and orange wires

    ๐Ÿ““ DIY Digital Notebook Workshop

    August 12 @ 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm ๐Ÿ““ DIY Digital Notebook Workshop
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    In this workshop youโ€™ll build a digital notebook, a pocket-sized device for taking notes with a USB keyboard. Weโ€™re using affordable, widely available components: a Seeed XIAO ESP32-S3 microcontroller, a 1-inch OLED display, and a microSD card reader, arranged on a solderless breadboard. The ESP32-S3 connects to the display via the I2C (Inter-Integrated Circuit) protocol, […]

  • Thu 13
    Photo of a purple TP4056 lithium-ion battery connected to a TP4056 charge controller and a PH2.5 connector, which is plugged into a LoRa radio node with the green power light on

    ๐Ÿ”‹ Beginner Soldering: Li-Ion Battery Pack

    August 13 @ 2:30 pm - 3:30 pm ๐Ÿ”‹ Beginner Soldering: Li-Ion Battery Pack
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    Make a rechargeable battery pack for your LoRa node, a microcontroller such as an ESP32 or Pi Pico, or anything that runs on 3โ€“4 Volts. Perfect for folks who've never soldered before! To complete this project you'll need to buy a li-ion battery pack kit for $3.99. Here's what it includes: โ€ข 18650 battery clip […]

  • Thu 13
    Cover of the mass market edition of 'The Technological Society' by Jacques Ellul, with a photo of an IBM reel-to-reel tape machine with the reels colored purple and yellow

    โš™๏ธ Neo-Luddite Reading Group: ‘The Technological Society’ by Jacques Ellul

    August 13 @ 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm โš™๏ธ Neo-Luddite Reading Group
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    โžก๏ธ Virtual Meetup Link Discord: Email neoluddite@victorgom.es for an invite! Full schedule: victorgom.es/neoluddite If you're joining for the first time, I'd suggest you read this before anything else for brief context: What the Luddites Really Fought Against by Richard Conniff.The only expectation is that you read the chapter(s) of the book that's listed for that […]

  • Fri 14
    A Neo-6M GPS device, with a blue microcontroller board connected by a wire to a square metal antenna unit

    ๐Ÿ“ Offline GPS Unit Workshop

    August 14 @ 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm ๐Ÿ“ Offline GPS Unit Workshop
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    In this workshop you'll build a device that displays your GPS coordinates and the current time, without connecting to the internet or transmitting anything. 100% passive and off-grid, no internet or cell connection needed! We'll use theย MicroPython programming language and the Thonny IDE, following the instructions onย this page. You'll need to purchase a kit to […]

  • Sat 15
    Three question marks in an old-fashioned typographical style

    โŠ• Quarterly Bonus Workshop

    August 15 @ 10:00 am - 12:00 pm โŠ• Quarterly Bonus Workshop
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    Our quarterly off-site bonus workshop for Patreon supporters. Check out our Patreon page for details! Questions? Email iffybooks@iffybooks.net

  • Sat 15
    The Meshtastic logo, with the word "Meshtastic" in black

    ๐Ÿ“ก Meshtastic 101

    August 15 @ 10:30 am - 12:00 pm ๐Ÿ“ก Meshtastic 101
    Iffy Books 404 S. 20th St., Philadelphia, United States

    Join us for an introduction to Meshtastic, an application that lets you send private text messages over the air using pocket-sizedย LoRa radio transceivers. Weโ€™ll show you how to flash the latest Meshtastic firmware to the device, customize the settings, and start chatting with your friends. Hereโ€™s a link to our zine on LoRa + Meshtastic. […]

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