Archive for October, 2013

Five (5)

Thursday, October 31st, 2013

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Courtesy of the Colorado Coalition of Artists

The Hackerspace in Longmont

Thursday, October 17th, 2013

It’s in one of those half empty Longmont mall store areas next to the UA Twin Peaks 10 Movie Theater. Calling themselves the Longmont TinkerMill, it is part of a growing trend happening around the country as happy hackers get their organization on and unite in geekdom glory. The ‘movement’ appears to be going in the direction of the  Northern Colorado Foothills as groups have set up shop in Denver (The ‘DenHac’), Boulder (The ‘Solid State Depot’), and now Longmont (The ‘TinkerMill’). Could a space be ready for Loveland and Fort Collins soon?

IT’S A THREE DEE PRINTER !

It is called a Rostock 3 D printer designed by a guy who was born in Rostock, Germany. You may have heard about 3-D printers in the news when some UT law student wondered if it was possible to print a working gun using this kind of machine. Whatever! If you want to prototype a physical object, you just gotta have one of these. And if you want to see one in action, get ye to a HACKERSPACE.

Recording and PodCasting Station

I heard that there was an open house on Tuesday night, but I happened to be in Longmont a bit early, so I stopped in to look around. This is their first real space in a shopping mall (for now) and it is expected to expand as more of the user’s needs develop. Right now there is no place to have a welding station or large metal fabricating machines, but from the looks of things they are well on their way to getting all of their wish lists fulfilled.

Project storage

Ok, this looks like the East wall of my basement. Members pay some nominal amount per month to use the HackerSpace and it seems that volunteers are open to teach other members how to use the equipment.

Play time area

While waiting for the 3-D printer to finish building your masterpiece, I guess you could go shop in the mall, but why not stick around the shop and play some pool. Maybe you will get hustled by a pool playing robot?

Biz Start-up developers area

I didn’t ask, but I’m guessing that the hackerspace has some kind of business membership arrangement and will have areas set aside for small tech start-ups to get some work done while bouncing ideas off the hacker membership. Maybe even hire some of them later why not?

An Art Gallery begins in the hallway

Hmmm. Geek art. I would love to see something on the order of Nam June Paik but I think a hallway wouldn’t do.  Back in 1970 when I first met Mr. Paik, he was using standard iron magnets to bend the electron beams in his work TV Bra for Living Sculpture with my friend Charlotte Moorman.

Data Center

There’s a server rack on the side. I would estimate that at least 50% of the Tinkermill’s membership can install a Linux server with one hand tied behind their back. That’s just a guess.

Textile Workstation

This is good. I usually might use a sewing machine in October for Halloween costumes but I think this station may also use computers for embroidery pattern design (I think). I saw in the Makers Playbook that this area is also given the term ‘Soft Circuits’ or maybe ‘e-Textiles’ , a term used in the context of gender diversity (i.e., Buechley and Eisenberg felt that women were more engaged in electronics in the context of textiles rather than robots?)


Solder Station

Soldering is a useful skill. De-soldering is even more useful.


Small Tools

Well, ya gotta have these!

DIY: The Faire

Sunday, October 6th, 2013

Near the FEMA Disaster Recovery Area:

Or was it the Rocky Mountain Center for Innovation and Technology ?

The RMCIT, located in South Loveland Colorado is a beautiful but empty research facility formerly occupied by Agilent Technologies. The eastern part of the campus temporarily holds the great Colorado flood recovery teams, donation centers, and Red Cross emergency management stations. On this weekend in October, the nerds took over the western part of the building for something called The NoCo Mini Makers Faire.

Things like this Banana Keyboard were on display

It’s interesting to note that there is a device available that can make anything into a computer keyboard called the Makey Makey. Watch this video to see how it works– get one of these today for fun on Halloween! Also, check out the open source Arduino products for even more fun.


Even this guy got into the act

Sorry, the pictures taken with the iPad are not that great. We are blaming the latest iOS 7 upgrade for that. Anyhoo, the Circuit Bending demos went off without a hitch, and we were bribed by one of the candy makers NOT to play so loud and as often. It’s important to make an impression at the faire, good or bad.

How about a Hookah?

It seems that there were many representatives from Boulder County at this year’s faire. Many were actual companies who paid a fee to have a booth (individuals like myself got in free). The major attractions were the 3-D printers and anything Sci-Fi.

R2 Builders were there!

Some people can’t get enough of that garbage can shaped robot from the Star Wars franchise. If you were a C3PO unit, you would understand.

Yes, paper airplanes are so 1953

Oh, and maybe CNC technology is so 1980, but there is still an interest. In this case, this company likes to take your design concept and make it fly.  Also, this Snowboard company was on hand to make a few flying objects as well.

Weaving? Yes, represented here

Since I was busy with my own booth, I didn’t have time to see all the things that were going on at the show. Actually some of the photos were taken the day before the show during set-up.

Chemisty Monkey Bar Art

Wow, I remember getting rid of my basement chemistry set back in 2008. Remember the little Soxhlet I sold on EBAY, or how about the FriedleBitch ? Again, no time to talk to this artist.  Perhaps I’ll catch this guy next year in Denver.

Dancin’ Robots Here