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May 03 2012
Hackerspace intros: Null Space Labs in Los Angeles California
[Charlie] from Null Space Labs in Los Angeles, California sent in this fun little video as an introduction to their hackerspace. Going a bit askew from the traditional “walk through” method of a tour, they decide to first attempt semi-successfully to fly a quadcopter, film some police commotion, then show off some projects in progress. Don’t worry, you do get to see a fair bit of the space and the copious piles of parts as well.
You may recall seeing some of the previous projects coming from this hackerspace such as the time red bull sent them a mystery object and how they salvaged a pick and place machine.
Remember, we want to promote all the hackerspaces we can! We don’t care if you’re just 3 hackers in a basement with a single project, a multimillion dollar facility, or anything in between. Send us those video tours!
Filed under: Hackerspaces
April 27 2012
Hackerspace Intro: The Geek Group in Grand Rapids, Michigan
We’re happy to see some links rolling in from our call for Hackerspace introductions. This is sort of a reintroduction of The Geek Group. They’ve been around for a while and we’ve featured several interesting projects coming out of the collective (check out this pulse capacitor autopsy). You may remember some tax woes they ran into when the home base was located in Kalamazoo, but they’ve moved past the issue and moved out of town. This is their new location in Grand Rapids, MI and you can get a peek at the tour starting about 4:45 into the video after the break. Be warned, there is some mildly vulgar language in the video in the form of the ‘S’ word (you’re welcome cubicle dwellers).
We hope you’ll look at the video and see that we don’t need to you spend a week in post-production. Give us a tour by video as if we were there in person. Show us what you’re up to and we’ll be eternally grateful.
Filed under: Hackerspaces
April 26 2012
Hackerspace Intro: Hackerspace.gr in Athens Greece
This is a fitting video to be the first of our Hackerspace introductions. After our call for hackerspace tours yesterday, [Nikos] emailed us to let us know that their hackerspace already had a video ready. While this is more of a general video, explaining the idea behind hackerspaces, we do get to see a little bit of what is going on there. You can catch the video after the break (english subtitled), or head on over to their site to see what is going on at Hackerspace.gr in Athens Greece.
Though this video is very well made, yours doesn’t have to be. We don’t care if you are filming in your basement with 2 other members, showing off a couple projects, we want to see it! If you’re making a video for us, remember that we already know what a hackerspace is, so show us what you are doing!
Filed under: Hackerspaces
April 25 2012
Hackerspaces and Hackaday
It should really go without saying that Hackday LOVES hackerspaces. We want to support hackerspaces to the best of our ability. There have been many ideas tossed around, like a hackerspace directory, or hackerspace calendar of events, project lists, tool exchange programs, etc. For the short term, we can’t implement either of those in a smooth enough fashion that we think it would beneficial. There are several Hackerspace directories out there, with hackerspaces.org seeming to be the most up-to-date. We even have an “events” area in our forums, though we feel there could be a much better format or delivery device than a forum for that kind of information.
So what can Hackaday do to start helping? Well, the first small step could be to share more information about hackerspaces. We would like to do video tours of your hackerspace. Unfortunately, we don’t have a budget to travel around with a film crew and visit you all. I really wish we did, since I would probably be the one doing the traveling. So what we can offer for now is that you film a tour, showing off some cool projects going on in your hackerspace, and we’ll share the video. Contact me directly at Caleb@hackaday.com to work out the details. Your hackerspace doesn’t have to be a huge one in a big city. We want to help everyone here. If you have a few people gathered and a couple cool projects, we don’t care if you meet in someone’s basement. We want to see what the hacker community is doing!
Toward the end of May I will be spending a few days in Huntsville Al, then a few days in Hilton Head Island SC. I’d love to visit a hackerspace or two while I’m there to do a quick video tour. Again, contact me directly if you’re in those areas.
Filed under: Hackerspaces, news
April 24 2012
CoolBot keeps your laser cutter from overheating
[Charles] wrote in to share the project he just built for the London Hackerspace. He calls it CoolBot, and as the name indicates it’s responsible for keeping the laser cutter from overheating.
At its heart the system is a water pump. It uses a plastic storage container as a reservoir, with an outfeed from the laser tube coming in the top of the lid. [Charles] mounted a temperature sensor using a 3D printed part to anchor it in the center of the return stream. An Arduino clone uses this sensor, as well as ambient room temperature and laser tube temperature sensors to decide when to switch on the cooling pump. As with any hackerspace add-on, this wouldn’t be complete without Internet connectivity so he included an Ethernet shield in the project box. Speaking of, that box uses panel-mount connectors to keep dust and water away from the electronics. But the lid of the controller box also includes a character LCD for quick reference.
Don’t miss [Charles'] explanation of the system in the video after the break.
Filed under: Hackerspaces, laser hacks
April 23 2012
Kits to fund Hackerspaces
[Overflo] recently tipped us about HackerspaceShop; her plan to help fund the Viennese and European hackerspaces by creating a marketplace for electronic kits. The idea is to not only sell kits, but to also create an easy way for others to sell their own kits through the platform, which is pretty awesome if you ask us.
Their kit they sent us to play with is a sun tracking flower developed by [daniel schatzmayr] in the metalab hackerspace. All and all, it’s a pretty awesome kit that’d be perfect for any geeky girlfriend, and of course, it’s arduino controlled. Whether or not that is a good or a bad thing is up to the hackaday trolls to decide, but it does have an FDTI header; something we’d personally like to see on a lot more of these electronic kits.
Currently there’s not to big a catalog on their site but hey, wickedlasers started out as a guy selling modified laser pointers and Hewett Packard started out as two guys selling a better function generator. It’s always awesome when a hacker uses their skills to become an entrepreneur, especially for a good cause.
Good luck [overflo]!
Filed under: Hackerspaces, news
April 17 2012
Free Hacker-Themed Embroidery Machine Designs
Niamh O’Connor at Urban Threads has an interesting angle on the recent phenomenon of skill badges. Rather than selling the badges, they’re selling (licensing?) the designs, enabling anyone with access to an embroidery machine to embroider their own badge or garment. She’s especially interested in targeting hackerspaces and is prepared to offer free designs to these groups. (Apparently the above designs are not necessarily included in their offer…)
Any space that gets an embroidery machine can get in contact with us at support@urbanthreads.com and we’ll offer some free designs of their choice to get their collection started! In general, we’re just looking at supporting the community in any way we can, I think hackerspaces are a totally rad idea and we think we can offer designs that would appeal to the hacker demographic.
These spaces you guys are creating seem like a perfect place to kickstart the more specialized areas of crafting… sergers, quilting machines, knitting machines, all kinds of stuff that normal folk sometimes don’t have the money to get their hands on, not just areas for knitting and the like, but really a place they can grab tools they can’t usually access. We ourselves have worked with two local designers who said they would love to use machine embroidery on their designs if only they could get access to a machine. We love what we do, but we understand that the cost of machines can sometimes be prohibitive for some people to try it out.
So, if your group has one of these machines and would like to play around with Urban Threads’ designs, be sure to drop Niamh a line.
LVL1′s Boneyard Hackathon
So awesome! Every hackerspace should do this.
For 24 hours this June, it’s an all-out hacker brawl to see who can build the coolest thing from a big pile of junk. Think of it as the home version of Junk Yard Wars. There are no rules, buy a ticket for your team, show up with your friends, and compete over tools and junk for 24 hours to build something incredible.
Announcing the first annual LVL1 Boneyard Hackathon. This will be a 24 hour, adrenaline-and-caffeine fueled race to create something awesome. Form a team, and you’ll be given an Arduino and a breadboard. You’ll have to do the rest using your brain, and all the resources of LVL1, including tools, boneyard parts, and hookup wire.
What is the Boneyard? The Boneyard is LVL1’s Island of Misfit electronics. A place where the broken and downtrodden collects, and awaits a reawakening. Each and every one of you will be having a hand in the zombificiation of some electronic device. Everything from oil-filled capacitors, to surplus mil-spec electronics lies in the Boneyard, waiting for your tender soldering iron.
April 16 2012
Shocking use of ice cube trays
Looks like ice-cube trays are once again proving their versatility as this one is serving as the vessel for a home made lead-acid battery. With a collection of uniformly sized non-conductive containers, it makes the perfect base for a set of small cells. This project is the culmination of a Hackerspace class about batteries, and was put together to turn theoretical knowledge into a hands-on lab.
This is a captured image from the low-quality video found after the break. [Carpespasm] describes the setup; the black pieces are lead plates which are bent into a U-shape to straddle two ice-cube compartments. The each end of the plate is dipping into the acid to make the connection. Once assembled the battery was connected to a charger for about two hours. It puts out 8.5V and is tested by powering an LED cube. This works for just a short period and really drives home the lesson that battery concepts are easy to understand, but reliable battery technology is a bit harder to achieve.
[via Reddit]
Filed under: chemistry hacks, Hackerspaces
April 12 2012
Hackerspace Happenings for April 11
Are you a hackerspace member with an event you’d like to publicize? Send it to johnb@makezine.com or tweet me at @johnbaichtal and I’ll post it. Also feel free to subscribe to my hackerspaces Twitter list. Hackerspace Happenings runs weekly(ish).
Minne Faire This Saturday
Twin Citians, be sure to visit the Hack Factory this Saturday from 12-5pm and check out the Minne Faire, a Mini Maker Faire put on by Twin Cities Maker.
Mothership HackerMoms Open Shop
Congrats to the HackerMoms on renting a space!
I started this creative group of moms, Mothership HackerMoms, last year amidst Sean’s cancer and Magenta’s birth as a way to stay sane in a crazy time. Now, 9 months later, this group has opened a sweet little hackerspace at 3288 Adeline, Berkeley 94703, around the corner from Scarlett’s preschool.
(…)
The 1,000 hackerspaces across the world are awesome techy guy spaces. But as the first women’s hackerspace ever, we’re making history. We are here to support moms who are creative or want to be. I know personally how mothers like us are especially starved for time, freedom, community. So we offer $5 childcare and a kid-friendly 24/7 member space where little ones can learn and witness their incredible, hacking, entrepreneurial moms in full glory.Are you a HackerMom or know one? If you’re local, visit our weekly open house on Wed mornings 10am-12pm or Thurs nights 6-8pm or during workshops. You’re also invited to our bubblicious, hula hooping Grand Opening Benefit happening May 26-27, where you can come chat, play or just stuff our donation bra! If you’re not local, we’d love to hear what you think of this venture.
Denhac’s GeekShow Variety Act Extravaganza
denhac is proud to announce GeekShow – a geek/nerd art, music, and variety act extravaganza held at 3 Kings Tavern, May 12th.
Call for Artists/Musicians/Variety-Acts/Performers now open!
Do you have a MacGyver-like penchant for creating art and science projects out of LEDs, beer bottles, and rubber bands? Can someone look at your photography or paintings and instantly tell that you were a child of the 80s? Do things that glow in the dark, light up, shoot electricity, and scare your neighbors titillate your senses? Does the macabre spectacle of a circus sideshow entice you? If so, denhac has an event for you…
Hot Pants-Making Night at Vancouver’s VHS
Some people have round asses and some people have flat asses. If you’ve never been able to find a pair of hot pants to fit your very special ass, this hot pants party is your chance to learn how to customise some hot pants!
WHAT: Bring a pair of your own booty shorts / tighty whities / underwear to use as a pattern. If you own large scissors, bring ‘em. We’ve got fabric for up to 10 ten people, so please RSVP to cnorberg at makerfaire.ca to secure your spot, or bring your own fabric.
The event is Monday, April 18th at 7:30pm.
Pumping Station: One Celebrates its 3rd Birthday
Ok, three years ago in a coffee shop not far from here, Pumping Station: One was just a dream in the heads of a bunch of DIYers who had no idea what they were in for. Come celebrate our 3 year anniversary!
Date: April 14
Time: 7pm – Demos and Reception; 10pm – Circuit bent music
Place: Pumping Station: One, 3354 N. Elston (near Belmont and California)Come check out the awesome hackerspace we’ve built and some of the cool projects we’ve made there.
The cost is $20.
LVL1′s White Star Project Update
Louisville hackerspace LVL1 hosts the White Star Balloon Project, a huge undertaking that aims to float a balloon across the Atlantic jet stream. In a project update from late last month,
We have been fairly quiet publicly, but many subsystems are coming to completion rapidly, including the helium gas overflow vent valve. Completion of anything flying on a ballon means it’s time to do some science! Tests must be done, data must be noted, hypotheses checked. Gary Flispart and I put together a detailed technical video explanation of the vacuum leak test system we’ve made.
Hackito Ergo Sum Hacker Conference
The HES Conference is being held April 12-14 in Paris, France:
Hackito Ergo Sum will try to anticipate the short term global challenges of 2012 by taking a deep dive into the findings of security researchers around the globe. Previous editions featured entirely new talks such as hacking Scada networks (including satellites!) using X25, new kernel pool overflow exploitation techniques (Tarjei Mandt won the pwnie award 2011 at Blackhat for this amazing research he first presented at Hackito Ergo Sum 2011), reverse engineering of FPGA firmwares, dynamic forensic analysis of malware using either direct RAM access or using emulation (PandoraBochs), fuzzing of virtual machine monitors at interrupt level, hacking Telco Operators at the scale of a country using the SS7 protocol, and GSM security through femtocells for instance.
April 05 2012
China’s First Maker Faire This Saturday in Shenzhen
Eric Pan at his SEEED Technology studios in Shenzhen.
Eric Pan, the founder and CEO of Seeed Technology and co-founder of Chaihuo makerspace, describes himself an Open Source Hardware Facilitator. Not surprising, then, that he’s the person behind the first Maker Faire in China, this Saturday’s Shenzhen Mini Maker Faire.
Pan says he has about 40 local and another 30 foreign makers signed up to exhibit at the festival, with a good customary Maker Faire range from tech through craft. Local makers include an RF engineer who makes cool toys out of wood and piano parts in his off-time, as well as a security guard who makes 3D printers. There will be robots and scrap metal sculptures and workshops, and even a sous vide cooking demo. Mitch Altman will be one of the foreign makers, with others coming from Japan and Beijing. And the publishers of the Chinese edition of MAKE, RADIO, will also be on hand.
A former engineer for Intel, Pan has traveled to the U.S. for three Maker Faires, and met with me last September at World Maker Faire New York about bringing one to Shenzhen.
Pan feels strongly that “not only Shenzhen but China needs independent thinking. Not just following mainstream ideas, but more independent, using humor and turning ideas into reality. This is a thing that Maker Faire can bring; it’s about being more open and more collaborative.”
Shenzhen was China’s first Special Economic Zones, and has become the world’s most well-known center of hardware and consumer electronics production. Lead Apple manufacturer Foxconn alone employs somewhere around 300,000 people here, and it’s likely if you’re in hardware development, you or someone you work with has made a trip to Shenzhen.
Shenzhen is also known in the US as the geographic center of consumer guilt for questionable labor practices tied up in making all our beloved electronic devices. (Listen to these two very recent This America Life stories Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory and then Retraction to get caught up.)
Chinese MAKE Magazine publisher RADIO co-hosted promotional hands-on workshops this week at Nanshan Book Mall for Shenzhen Mini Make Faire.
This is another of the reasons why Eric Pan wanted to make a Maker Faire in Shenzhen: “To go against this stereotype. Shenzhen is the most advanced city for technology and science in China, the best place for startups in China. There are two universities here, and just about every university including Beijing University has branches here. ”
According to Wikipedia, in 2007, Shenzhen was the home of over 20% of China’s PhDs. That’s a lot of well educated people in the middle of the world’s hardware supply chain—-a perfect breeding ground for innovation. The kind of community not only prime for a Maker Faire, but also for a hackerspace!
Shenzhen’s first hackerspace opened in August. It is called Chaihuo, which means fireplace or bonfire or hearth. “A Chinese metaphor that everyone brings some wood and the fire will burn higher,” explains Pan.
Pan describes Chaihuo’s organizing premise a bit different from the US or European makerspace models. It’s a bit more of a startup incubator. “It’s not really for hacking as a hobby. In Shenzhen, people are more straightforward and trying to create something first to make a living.”
A recent Arduino workshop at Shenzhen's Chaihuo hackerspace.
Chaihuo has 3 physical areas: meeting rooms for Ideas, a workshop for Hack, and desks for Startup. There are 30-40 part-time members, and 8 startup members who are there focused full-time on their projects. “These are people who want to not just work day and night, but have their own dream of making things and turning it into reality.”
Pan says some Chaihuo members will represent this weekend at the Shenzhen Mini Maker Faire.
If you or anyone you know is nearby in China or Hong Kong, by all means take the opportunity to witness this moment in history and get to the Shenzhen Mini Maker Faire this weekend. Pan is committed to a location in the center of town for next year’s Faire, so it’s guaranteed to never again to be as intimate as it will be this weekend.
And of course, if you just can’t make it to China, check back to makezine.com for coverage.
The calm before the storm: a scout shot of the Shenzhen Mini Maker Faire venue.
April 04 2012
Makerspaces in Education and DARPA
Recently, Mitch Altman announced publicly that he’s not participating in Maker Faire this year because MAKE received a DARPA award for education. I have talked to Mitch and shared in detail our proposed work. I have listened to him express his concerns about the DARPA award. I don’t agree with Mitch, but I respect his opinion. I believe that Mitch’s public statements do not fairly characterize the program and have caused confusion about DARPA’s role. I’d like to explain what we’re doing and why.
In 2011, Saul Griffith and I, representing Otherlab and O’Reilly Media’s MAKE division, respectively, learned that DARPA selected our MENTOR proposal to bring the practices of making into education and extend the maker movement into schools. The new tools and methods of collaboration that are shared within the maker community need to be brought to schools, and it was going to take a major effort to make this happen. Our program would encourage schools to engage more kids in making by creating makerspaces and providing access to these tools for student projects, and use Maker Faire to showcase more work from students. We announced the program early in 2012 on makerspace.com.
The DARPA award challenges us to establish the practices of making in high schools, reaching 1000 schools over four years. (Those schools need not be limited to the United States.) By creating makerspaces in an educational context, students can have access to tools and equipment that they might not have otherwise; they can collaborate on projects that are driven by their own interests, and by doing so, develop the capacity and confidence to innovate. We see making as a gateway to deeper engagement in science and engineering but also art and design.
Here are the major areas of work we have under development as part of the Makerspace program:
1) Work with engineering and science educators to develop teacher’s guides for MAKE projects that will help educators integrate making into their own curriculum. All materials that we develop under the program will be made available for free under a Creative Commons license.
2) Develop modular specifications for low-cost makerspaces in educational settings. We want to encourage schools to establish makerspaces, so we are providing some basic guidelines on the costs of getting started. You can find a draft of these specifications on makerspace.com.
3) Write an overall guide to teaching the practices of making for educators, mentors, and others who help coach students to become makers. This is similar to the guide we’ve written for the Young Makers program. (see youngmakers.org)
4) Build a collaborative online platform that can be used by teachers and students to select projects, monitor progress, and generate student documentation for the work. This platform will allow students to work beyond their own classroom with other students and mentors.
5) Integrate new design tools for CAD and CAM that help students become familiar with 3D design and personal fabrication.
6) Prototype a low-cost, open-source CNC machine that can be affordable for schools to use.
7) Over three years, build a network of up to 1000 participating high schools.
8) Showcase the work of students at Maker Faires and bring students together to meet each other and other makers in the community.
All the software we develop as part of the program will be made open source. All material developed for the program will be made available online under Creative Commons. Neither DARPA nor O’Reilly is placing any claim on student work.
Saul Griffith of Otherlab, our partner in Makerspace, wrote the following summary:
The Makerspace program aims to build literacy in design, science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics, by combining what O’Reilly Media, MAKE magazine, and Otherlab have learned about the maker community. We wish to do this with as much engagement as possible with the broader maker community to leverage the fantastic energy and talents of everyone doing beautiful things.
Our emphasis will be threefold:
1) Self-directed learning (building your own project as a better motivator to engage in engineering).
2) Lower the cost of building and realizing dream projects through lower cost tools (software and hardware.)
3) Making making more social and engaging.
Creating models for makerspaces at schools is the heart of our approach. In some of our pilot work, we are seeing that having a place to make things creates new opportunities. We are re-thinking the shop class and re-inventing the computer lab, and combining both of them. The makerspace should be like a library, available for use by anyone in the school to make things for a variety of purposes.
Insight into DARPA
We were motivated to apply for the DARPA grant by the following statement that was part of the MENTOR program: “One of the biggest challenges we face as a nation is the decline in our ability to make things,” Dr. Regina Dugan, then Director of DARPA. The MENTOR (Manufacturing Experimentation and Outreach) program, we believe, gives us a framework to develop educational materials for high schools and to promote the practice of making inside of school.
I can’t speak for DARPA, but if you want more insight into their rationale for funding, you can find a talk by former Director, Dr. Regina Dugan, on this page:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/darpa-manufacturing-event-1214.html
This video also points out that DARPA has relationships with lots of organizations including many top universities. The article opens with: “The connection between MIT and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) over the decades has been a strong one.” MIT has been known to produce more than a few hackers. MIT also produces engineers who work in a variety of fields, including the military. This is true of every university that trains scientists and engineers in the US.
Clarifications
I have been following the conversations on Facebook, Slashdot, and Twitter. I am troubled by speculations that others might accept on face value.
- All software we develop under the DARPA program will be available as open source. That’s a DARPA requirement and we’re glad that they have it. This also applies to content and other materials that we develop for the program.
- Student work is not owned by DARPA. Any assertion that DARPA is providing funding to access student work or its intellectual property is just not true. DARPA does not have any claim on student work. Our program encourages students to *make* and share. It is up to the students and educators what to build. We are building infrastructure for project sharing, which we believe engages more students in the process of making.
- We had the military participate at Maker Faire in Detroit, representing TARDEC, one of the area’s largest employers. (RDECOM, the Army’s research and development group, employs something like 30,000 civilian scientists and engineers worldwide.) We published a story, Code 72, on the makers who work at the Detroit facility.
- We’ve engaged with NASA, the Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, and other federal agencies. More importantly, we’ve supported others in education who are seeking funding from these agencies to develop programs or research about making. If you want to work in education, you need to work in the government.
- We are one of several groups to receive funding under the MENTOR program. Our funding is up for review and renewal each year. DARPA has been a good partner that understands the long-term benefits of this kind of work.
- DARPA funding is only part of the picture of what we are doing in education. I am working to set up a non-profit that will raise funds for promoting making in lots of community contexts, both in school and out. Already, we have almost a year’s experience with a program such as Project Make at a local high school. We are in the third year of the Young Maker’s program, which supports kids building projects to bring to Maker Faire.
MAKE magazine and Maker Faire have helped establish a worldwide community of good will. This maker community has created amazing new opportunities for lots of people to develop their potential as creators, builders, and innovators. I’m proud of that, but I’m also disturbed by who is not in that community. I believe that one of the reasons for such inequity is our education system, which is broken in so many ways. My work in education is predicated on the idea that exposing more kids to making will create more makers and those kids will have better lives as a result. We can reach more young people through our school system than we can otherwise. I also believe that we have teachers in education who already value making and are already introducing the practices of making. I’ve heard from many of them and I know they need our support. They want to work together with the maker community to bring about change in education. I know it’s a difficult challenge, but I am personally dedicated to making it happen.
By helping young people develop the ability to make new things and inviting them to become makers, we connect them to a global community of experts and amateurs. I hope many of them will choose to be scientists and engineers but I hope that they do so because they have discovered that this is what they love doing. I hope that they come to understand how to use these abilities to tackle important problems and find creative solutions that benefits all of us. The goals of Make and DARPA align in this instance because we have a mutual interest in seeing a more diverse pool of young people become scientists, engineers, programmers.
For me, the DARPA funding signifies that a revitalized manufacturing capacity is a national priority, and fostering interest among young people in making things is how we can take concrete steps to address that issue. Makerspace is not a DARPA program; it is a program that DARPA helped with their funding, which ultimately comes from the US taxpayer. Our Makerspace program is designed to learn from what we see happening in the maker community and work closely with the intersection of the communities of makers and educators to spread these ideas, technologies, and innovation more broadly across our country and the world.
March 30 2012
Open Hack at Six Dutch Hackerspaces This Saturday
@Lurwah from Hack42 wrote in to share a cool thing happening in the Netherlands this weekend: six Dutch hackerspaces will be holding simultaneous open houses.
This Saturday, 31st of March, Dutch hackerspaces will open their doors. We invite all those who are interested to come take a look at what hackers really are and do. Of course, we expect visitors to participate as well. Each hackerspace has prepared quite a lot of fun activities, everything from LED-throwies and mini-arduino-workshops to security lectures.
See a Google Translated version of the press release or check out the Dutch version to learn more. Sounds amazing!
March 09 2012
G33k Xmas – Tech Swap in NYC
For the past eight years, NYC artist/designer Chris Jordan, aka CJ (seej.net) has been organizing a tech swap with the NYC tech arts community. It’s lovingly called “G33k Xmas,” and every one of them has been recorded in timelapse at seej.net/create/geek-xmas/
Here’s CJ on how it G33k Xmas works:
People bring tech, then going around the table, everyone offers their stuff to the group with a brief intro if necessary, or just holds it up. If anyone wants it, they get it. If more than one person wants it, each party has to tell the group what they’ll be using it for, and the group decides which need is greater. If no one wants something you’re offering, you take it back. This really keeps useful things in the mix, vs “dumping” old stuff. This of course is just incredible fun, and gets pretty raucous.
The last one was on Feb 20th, and as always, it was… just wonderful. The photo (above) shows a fun moment when Josh Goldberg got a haptic interface from Josh Ott. To the left of Josh is Sean McIntyre, who’s in the current MAKE. Also pictured are Noodle-truck Mark; Ethan Voit, who started Bring to Light; Benton-C Bainbridge, the Beastie Boys visualist; Josh Ott who wrote the iOS app Thicket… and on and on… crazy people, hehehe.
It would be so cool if more people did this. A couple of people who were there on Feb 20th were talking about doing it again soonish, not sure when/where though. Also, some people might do one in SF.
Along with being fun, G33K Xmas is an education in hardware and its usefulness, it keeps people’s knowledge broad, and of course it reduces materialism– keeps gear in use and out of landfill.
Hackerspace Happenings: Spring Classes at TX/RX
Are you a hackerspace member with an event you’d like to publicize? Send it to johnb@makezine.com or tweet me at @johnbaichtal and I’ll post it. Also feel free to subscribe to my hackerspaces Twitter list. Hackerspace Happenings runs weekly(ish).
Spring Classes at Houston’s TX/RX Labs
Our lineup of informative, innovative, hands-on classes is geared towards people who are seeking to increase their skills, broaden their horizons, and try exciting new things. Expert community members and professionals will provide attendees with an exciting and informal learning atmosphere, with plenty of opportunity for creativity and collaboration with lab members and other students. We hope you will come out and be part of the experience.
Sew a Tote Bag at the Mill in Minneapolis
Minneapolis’ hot new tech shop, the Mill, is offering a class on the use of their industrial sewing machine:
Join us for an introduction or refresher in the basics of sewing and learn to make a tote bag.
At the end of this class you will be certified to use The Mill’s industrial sewing machine and serger. As a member of The Mill you can reserve time on and use this equipment for your own projects.
There are no prerequisites or skills needed to take this class.
See the class page for more information and a signup link.
Call For Makers: Vancouver Mini Maker Faire
Vancouver MMF have issued a call for makers for their 2012 show:
Maker Faire is the Greatest Show (and Tell) on Earth – a family-friendly showcase of invention, creativity, and resourcefulness, and a celebration of the Maker movement. It’s a place where people show what they are making, and share what they are learning.
Makers range from tech enthusiasts to crafters, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, engineers, artists, science clubs, students, authors, and commercial exhibitors. They are of all ages and backgrounds. Maker Faire’s mission is to entertain, inform, connect, and inspire these thousands of Makers and aspiring Makers.
Vancouver Mini Maker Faire 2012 will be held June 23rd-24th at the Pacific National Exhibition.
Box-ing Contest at Seattle’s Metrix Create: Space
We have cool boxes that need a new life and you have awesome ideas about how to do that.
Come up with the best idea, make it happen, show it to us, and WIN a super awesome prize that will be announced at a later date.
Fill them up with anything, cut them, paint them, distress them in any way you want, add electronics, make them part of a larger project…anything goes.
Each box is $5 and you can enter more than one in the contest. The deadline for submitting your design either in person or by photo is March 31. You can come down to Metrix Create: Space and pick up your box any time up to the deadline. Limited quantity available.
Soft Circuit Saturday at Philly’s Hactory
Here’s some pics of projects people worked on at our last Soft Circuit Day. We have another one coming up this Saturday from 1-4, so stop by with a project you have already started, or come to test out some conductive fibers and paint. Read our first post about this event here. It’s a low-key event to play with new materials and meet others interested in e-textiles and electronics. We suggest a $5 donation if you use some materials, but if you just bring your project to work on, it’s free!
CT Hackerspace at Open Cockpit Sunday at New England Air Museum
Join CT Hackerspace at the New England Air Museum for Open Cockpit Sunday, March 18th Visitors will be permitted to climb into the cockpits of up to 12 vintage aircraft, a full-motion flight simulator and two static flight simulators.The aircraft to be open include the famous Vought Corsair of WWII, the North American F-100 Super Sabre, a DC-3 airliner, several helicopters and more. We will be there along with other additional hands on activities for the enjoyment of visitors during the event. For the convenience of all, a food vendor will be on site all day
Discovering Unreported Malware Workshop at HackMiami
Alexander Heid will go over different ways to find ‘zero day binaries’ in the wild. ZDB’s are malware payloads that have not yet been reported or analyzed by antivirus providers.
Once we have obtained a few binaries from the wild, we will reverse the communications to find out exactly what they are doing and who they are talking to. Bring your laptop and get your VM’s ready because we are going to get our hands dirty in this digital biohazard environment.
Speaker Bio: Alexander Heid is local security researcher, board member of HackMiami, and co-chair of South Florida OWASP. Heid has worked within the defense and financial industries providing information security consultation services.
The workshop will be held at 1pm, March 17th at Planet Linux Caffe, 1430 Ponce De Leon Boulevard, Coral Gables 33134.
March 07 2012
TX/RX Visits HackBo, the Bogota Hackerspace
Rex Baker of Houston’s TX/RX Labs visited his wife’s relatives in Bogotá, Colombia, and decided to check out the local hackerspace action:
Just a short walk away from Universidad de los Andes, in the Candelaria district of the Colombian capital, is HackBo: Bogotá’s hackerspace. My wife and I had the good fortune to find the HackBo members during their weekly meeting, which they hold each Saturday from 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm. There they gather to discuss, well, hackerspace stuff: distributed computing, Python, counterculture and network security. One member offered that his specialty was open-source hardware. I immediately chimed in with an enthusiastic, “Arduino?” But he just shook his head and said, “No… Arduino es demasiado fácil.” Arduino’s too easy. Clearly, I had come to the right place.
(Unfortunately, Rex didn’t have his Hackerspace Passport on hand…)
March 06 2012
What’s So Awesome About Makerspaces?
Witnessing the collaboration and hands-on learning that happens at makerspaces is nothing short of inspirational. Seeing a community come together to create such a positive space for all members is thrilling. Mt. Elliott Makerspace in Detroit has been featured before on the blog, but they recently created this video titled “What Is the Mt. Elliott Makerspace” that really captures the essence and magic of what makes makerspaces so awesome.
Check it out:
The Mt Elliott Makerspace is a community workshop that serves as an environment for knowledge exchange and entrepreneurial experimentation through “making.” The intention of the Mt Elliott Makerspace is to pool the talents and tools of creative makers by serving as a gathering space for learning, sharing and doing. By concentrating this maker spirit, the Makerspace may begin to effectively address community challenges related to education, economic development, and well-being.
March 02 2012
Diyode CodeShield Helps Arduino Fans Skip the Hardware
The Diyode hackerspace in Guelph, ON, has a neat twist on the Arduino scene. Rather than teach people the basics by giving them a bare board, they have created a prototyping shield, the Diyode CodeShield, which allows them to learn software first:
We came to the conclusion a while ago that for the sake of keeping people, especially kids, enthusiastic, they should get their feet wet with code first. Once they are comfortable with that, then tackle the hardware. To provide the shortest possible route to the first moment of glory, we developed a new arduino shield built specifically for the process of teaching arduino code. By initially bypassing the electronics theory and postponing the breadboarding stage, it takes much of the frustration out of the learning process. Those things can come later, once they’ve already got a pocket full of victories.
Inputs include a switch, button, pot, rotary encoder, thermistor, photocell, and hall effect sensor. Outputs are a piezo buzzer, servo, RGB LED, Yellow LED, and a relay with screw terminals.
It sounds like Diyode is thinking about selling the boards and/or kits.
February 29 2012
Map of African Tech Hubs and Hackerspaces
ActivSpaces in Cameroon, an "open collaboration space, innovation hub, and startup incubator."
Crowdmap was originally designed as a platform to crowd-source “crisis information,” such as civilian deaths in recent African and Middle Eastern uprisings. BongoHive, a non-profit company based in Lusaka, Zambia, has extended the capability of Crowdmap and have started sourcing location and information on technology hubs, university labs, business incubators, and hackerspaces throughout the African continent. They’re placing these on this map. Begun earlier this month, over 30 sites have already been added to their database, including the Cairo Hackerspace (Egypt), Hive Colab (Uganda), and ActivSpaces (Cameroon, pictured above). A little shy of their target goal of 50 for the month, I look forward to seeing this list and map grow, to include all sectors of inclusive technology in Africa!
click the map to interact with Crowd Map's Hubs in Africa
[via Vice Motherboard]
Sketch and Print in 3D from Android
Folks over at House4Hack in Johannesburg are developing an app, called Paint3D, that will allow you to sketch and print directly to a 3D printer from your Android device. Their app allows you to create an extruded polygon mesh that’s then converted to GCode, stored on an SD card, and fed to the printer. Their goal is to create an easy to use 3D tool that does everything from the Android device. [Thanks, Daniel!]
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