NorCal Hackerspace Photos From Maker Faire!
Photo by Keith Simmons. Distributed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) license.
HeatSync Labs was at Maker Faire last month, and while we were in the area we visited some hackerspaces and took photos, like we do. Before Maker Faire began, we got a chance to visit Noisebridge for their 15 Minutes of Fame, where our very own Schuyler talked about his Makerbot. We also visited Hacker Dojo in Mountain View and ACE Monster Toys in Oakland too and actually remembered to bring the camera.
This Week: (May 4) Arduino Night and (May 5) Field Trip to K-Zell Metals!
Photo by Brian Bolton. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) license.
Arduino Night (Wed May 4) 7:00 pm|az @ Gangplank – Rear Meeting Room
Come by and hack on Arduino boards with the HeatSync Labs and Gangplank crew this Wednesday night. Whether you’re just getting your feet wet in microcontrollers or build your own Arduino shields, you’ll have the company of a wide skill range of Arduino hackers to collaborate with, as well as a few HSL laptops with the Arduino software preloaded.
K-Zell Metals Tour (Thurs May 5) 7:00 pm|az @ K-Zell Metals
HeatSync Labs is taking a tour of K-Zell metals in Phoenix this Thursday. K-Zell has a wide range of awesome tools for metal working available, including a 4000 Watt (yes, 4000) laser. If metal working is relevant to your interests and you'd like to see how the pros do it, don't miss out!
IMPORTANT: Bring toe-covering shoes (mandatory) and don't be late, tour starts at 7:15pm!
K-Zell Metals is located on Broadway near 18th street at:
1725 E Broadway Rd
Phoenix, Arizona 85040
[Last] Week in Pics Because it Happened
Editor's Note: Your Humble Editor spent a fair chunk of last week in Los Angeles for SCaLE, drinking martinis which looked/tasted like Windex and splenda on Google's dime while being poisoned by the greatest taco truck ever. Thus why this is being posted on a Monday.
HeatSync Labs is now operating at regular hours, with events and activities happening on a near-daily average! Pics because it happened:
2010: The Year We Made Contact
Photo by American Backroom. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic License.
The American southwest is a land of dry heat, rugged individualism, and [usually] tasty salsa, but did you know there's hackerspaces there too? Durr! Did you know, however, that there are also hackerspaces and hacker-esque spaces in New Mexico? Neither did we until Quelab in Albuquerque announced their existence to the hackerspheredomspacesauce this year and opened on August 8th. Needless to say, the news tickled the fancy of some of the more wanderlusting elements of our own hackerspace; Those two guys with the VWs, Your Humble Editor and HeatSync Labs champion Jeremy Leung. Being interested in meeting our hacker neighbors, we decided we should make First Contact in person.
HeatSync Labs Begins its Colonization of Oregon
Photo by Brian Enigma. All rights reserved and enforced with rabid beavers.
Well, sort of. One of HeatSync Labs's founders, SyncFleet director, local maker, veteran Defcon goon, and overall chill dude Rick Oooooo is moving to Eugene, Oregon. There, he will re-unite with his lady and hopefully bring the hackerspace movement to a city which so far just brings up pictures of cheerleaders and models on Flickr. Maybe he'll convince them to put down the pompoms for a bit and pick up a soldering iron! In any case, Rick will be missed by all and Your Humble Editor will be jealous of his new forested home state.
One more thing...
We will have a board position opening up now that Rick will be in the Beaver State (lol). The board is made up of hardcore mofos who work hard for free and have a passion for making HeatSync Labs as awesome as possible. If this sounds like you, we want you in our ranks. E-mail board at heatsynclabs.org with the subject line "Open Board Position" and let us know what l33t skillz you can bring to the table!
Hackers à La Délivrance: The Untold Story of How HeatSync Labs Saved Toronto’s Nuit Blanche Festival
Editor's Note: As part of my position as Editor at HeatSync Labs, I get to put on a reporter hat and take the spotlight of the Information Super Highway on our local Arizona makers, hackers, and tinkerers. If you or anyone you know is building something pretty awesome and they're within driving distance, leave a comment and I'll see if I can follow up on it. This $timeFrame's featured maker is Sean Hillmeyer, who, along with other volunteers, helped build and operate D A Therrein's 4 Letter Word Machine, featured at the 2009 Nuit Blanche festival in Toronto. He also helped me in writing/editing this piece. 
Photo by Sean Hillmeyer. All rights reserved.
HeatSync Labs has been an active participant in the local community since its inception, bringing together crowds of engineers and artists that would never otherwise have met. As early as September, a mere month after our first meeting at the Mesa F.O.P. Lodge, we were visited by Margaret Bruning, a production manager for the Beatiful Light project. She was invited to speak after receiving an email from D A Therrien, a locally based, but globally connected artist who masterminded the 4 Letter Word Machine, which had then only existed as a smaller-but-still-able-to-ruin-your-day-if-it-fell-on-you prototype, making its debut over the Arizona canal in downtown Scottsdale in January 2009.
Having established a successful show in Scottsdale, Therrien was commissioned to build a version of the 4 Letter Word Machine for the Nuit Blanche festival in Toronto, Canada. Nuit Blanche is French for "White Night," an annual all-night art festival that has spread from France to other parts of Europe and Europey countries; Its essentially like First Friday art walks in American cities, but bigger, brighter, and all night long.
The second installation would require a larger, more powerful display that would need to be transported to Toronto and subject to the scrutiny of Canada's CE regulations as well as its seemingly perpetual cold and windy weather. It would have to be bigger, stronger, and more modular. It would also have to be built in time for Toronto's Nuit Blanche festival in October, where it was to be suspended above Toronto city hall. Time was of the essence, and volunteers were urgently needed.
Come See us at Maker Faire in San Mateo this May!
Photo by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic License.
It's official: HeatSync Labs will be joining in on the explosion of inventive madness* that is Maker Faire in San Mateo this year, not only as mere observers, but as super-official mooches exhibitors, with a table and chairs and everything! There will be other hacker spaces representin' too, and we totally want to collaborate on some group shenanigans. This will be the 5th annual Bay Area Maker Faire, which will take place on May 22nd and the 23rd this year, so make sure to add that to your iCal, Evolution, Google Calendar, or whatever the kids use these days. A number of HeatSync Labs kin are interested in attending, and if you are among them, post a shout out on our Google group if you'd like to join us in our trip.
* Not Sparta
Gangplank
Andrea found a place in Chandler called Gangplank (http://gangplankhq.com) that sounded similar to a hackerspace. I just got back from my first visit and I thought I would share my experience.
This place is pretty awesome. From my understanding, it is owned and mainly run by four small businesses. These businesses all have their main offices in this building but have a large space open to anyone that wants a space to work where they can meet like-minded people to share ideas with. Let me walk you through the place as I saw it:
I walk in the door and their entranceway is filled with cans of food. They are having a food drive. There was a woman there re-arranging the cans named Sally, and she took me on a tour of the place.
The next room, is a large open area with several long tables and chairs. Two or three of those areas have workstations at them. From what I understand, that is where the companies work. That space is reserved for them. The rest of the tables have no workstation, but anyone is free to walk in at any time and bring their laptop to start working, hang out, and share ideas.
In the back of this room there is a recreation area containing pool table, air hockey table, I think a couch... memory is getting fuzzy now. It was basically a place to relax, hang out and get away from your work for a bit. There is also this small stage type thing in the middle with a projector screen. I believe they said that sometimes during lunch time they have "brown bag lunches" i think it was called. Where you just eat lunch and listed to someone give a presentation on a topic.
Then there is this hallway that goes around one corner of the main room. In this hallway there is a conference room with a big oval table and about 12-15 chairs. If you want to use the conference room, you just put a post-it note on the door with your name and what time you need it. Across from that room as a pod casting room. It had computers and microphones and whatnot.
Around the corner are the main office rooms. I believe each company has their own office, we didn't go in those rooms, although she did show me the room of a man named Todd Huffman. Everyone there refers to him as this "mad scientist" kind of guy. Apparently he is VERY smart and has showed interest in starting a place like Gangplank only with more electronics and parts everywhere and whatnot. It sounds like he wants to start a hackerspace to me .
Gangplank also had a offers bathroom and a kitchen area... oh and free wifi.
All in all, I wouldn't clasify Gangplank a hackerspace, but it's a great place to get work done, meet like minded people, and to share ideas. Everyone I spoke with there was very friendly. I will be back for sure and I hope I have sparked an interest with a few people with this post. Be sure to at least check out their website at http://gangplankhq.com
So It Begins…
Just got back from my Chicago trip. We visited the wonderful people at "Pumping Station: One" and got to see their version of an active HackerSpace. It was awesome! They were really inviting and gave us a whole bunch of great ideas that we can apply to our own future HackerSpace. For more information about "Pumping Station: One" you should check out their site at:
http://www.pumpingstationone.org/
You can see they're involved in a lot of projects at the moment and have established a great community in just a short time. This trip got me pumped to push forward with our group.
I hope to travel to more HackerSpaces around the world as we continue to develop our own community. One of the best ways to get started on something is to learn from those that already have. Expect more "Travel" posts in the future.
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