Summer is nearly upon us and we’re making plans for events at Workshop 88. We’d like to hear from you! Here’s how you can contact us: On twitter, on meetup, or the mailing list (which is not just for members, anyone can subscribe). If you don’t use any of these services you can always shoot an [...]
Read MoreSummer is nearly upon us and we’re making plans for events at Workshop 88. We’d like to hear from you! Here’s how you can contact us:
On twitter, on meetup, or the mailing list (which is not just for members, anyone can subscribe).
If you don’t use any of these services you can always shoot an email to info@workshop88.com and we’ll get back to you.
Drop in our Public Meetings every Thursday night at 7:00 pm in downtown Glen Ellyn, IL.
We had a great time at the recent Mini Maker Faire in Chicago this past weekend. It was so great to see so many awesome projects going on and all the excitement for making and building things in the Chicago area. We can’t wait to participate in another event like this one!
Are you a maker/hacker/tinkerer/crafter or otherwise curious about learning more about doing things with us?
Check out our public meetings: they are always free and open to all on Thursday evenings. We start officially at 7:30 pm, but there is almost always a member at the space by 6:30 if you’d like to come early and get to know us. Bring a project and show us what you’re making!
Workshop88 is happy to announce a new meeting schedule staring February 2012. Meetings will be at 7 pm Thursday evenings every week, and the open hack night will be Monday nights. Class schedules and the meetup schedule will be updated to reflect these changes. Board meetings will be scheduled once a month.
We look forward to seeing you at our new weekly meetings.
We are not the only hackerspace in the Chicago area that is working on a kickstarter campaign. After you’ve signed up for the Hackerspaces in Space Challenge and pledged to the kicketarter, you should check this out:
Some of the guys over at nearby Pumping Station: One have a kickstarter that is a about halfway done. They call their project the “Power Wheels Racing Series”. What they do is encourage makers to trick out Power Wheelst toys into souped up racing machines. Then, the makers all get together and race them for pride and glory. Support our neighbors to the east!
We’ve been trying to reach out online and connect with makers and hackers in the suburbs of Chicago for the last 2 years or more. Here is a sampling of all the places where you can get information on what is happening at Workshop 88.
First, if you’re reading this, congrats. You’ve found the blog. Also note that the blog has an RSS feed. (Yay, RSS!)
Every post that goes up on the blog is also sent out on the Workshop 88 twitter feed. Announcements are made there on occasion. We reply to people when they send us messages on twitter, as well.
We have had great success with our meetup group. A majority of our newest members and guests have found us through meetup.
So there you go. All of the information that we post online can be found in these places. We post events to all of the places above at the same time, so no matter how you follow us, you should always get the details.
One last thing: it can be a little tricky to find Workshop 88 the first time you come to the space. Fortunately, Fredo made a video showing how to get to the space.
Our Hackerspaces in Space project has been posted to Hack-a-Day!
Thanks to the increased traffic from the Hack-a-Day readers, our kickstarter is starting to grow closer to being funded. It’s great to see that the post on HaD really emphasized the educational component of the HSIS challenge. Every time we get a $100 pledge, a kit that will go to a school somewhere in the country is 1/3 funded.
What can you do to help us engage kids in science exploration?
A few days ago we launched (no pun intended) Hackerspaces in Space: Year 2. HSIS (as we like to refer to it) is a challenge that we extend to other hackerspaces (and like-minded groups of people) to design, build and launch a weather balloon equipped with cameras to take photos at near-space altitudes. The HSIS website has all the rules regarding the contest which you can check out if you’re interested.
Last time we ran the challenge, we had a great response from the makerspace and hackerspace community. We’re hoping to make HSIS better this year. We want to use HSIS to promote science exploration and discovery in schools. We want to take whatever best designs come out of this year’s challenge and send kits based on the winning designs to schools, so that student can launch their own balloons to near-space.
To make that happen, we’ve set up a kickstarter project. (You may have seen the banner at the top of the page.) Take a look at some of the prizes we’re offering and consider becoming a backer to this project so that we can get kits into schools!
Also, we need your help spreading the word about HSIS. Please link to the page, tweet it, facebook it, retweet, upvote it on reddit, or just post it wherever you share your information online. We can’t make this happen without your help!
Workshop 88 member Fredo, who records his podcasts at Workshop 88 is looking for participation in his upcoming podcast. Here’s his idea, in his own words:
Hi guys, as some of you know I do a weekly movie podcast called Film Yarn.
I want to try something, it’s short notice but I think it will work. I want you to call the Film Yarn line and tell us what movie you watched during the incessant covering of 9/11 to escape or help you conceptualize the new reality. It could be emotional or funny, I just want to know what you watched while the news were going 24/7 and there was nothing else on TV.
Please introduce yourself and then tell us what you watched and why. (931) 516 9276. The phone is a google voice mailbox.
Responses will be stitched together in an episode by Saturday, and published Sunday. I’ll add a commentary to the beginning of the show and reveal what movie I watched.
Please repost and forward as you see fit. I want as many varied opinions on the matter as possible.
For more on the podcast the URL is http://filmyarn.com/
Fredo.
Jim Williams, one of our members, has been learning quite a bit about the ATTiny85 and writing it up on his blog. He recently found that he could use an old Palm device as a serial terminal for debug display from the ATTiny85. Very cool!
Image credit: Jim Williams
Image Credit: makezine.com
Workshop 88′s own Doug Bradbury wrote a great article for Make about his treadmill desk project. He is profiled on the Make Magazine blog, where he gave a nice shout out to Workshop 88.
Congratulations, Doug!
