CT Hackerspace - Our 29th Hackerspace Visit

In a town where the sidewalks get rolled up at 10pm, sometimes the local hackerspace is more than just a hackerspace. It serves as a focal point for the creative community in the area. When we arrived in Watertown, Connecticut, we found the hackerspace. No one was home, so we went out in search of coffee. Later on in the day, we received a phone call from our host, and met him at the hackerspace.

They were excited for our arrival, and had left us a "Welcome" message on their chalkboard. Upon entering the large warehouse building, we saw a gallery of old photographs hanging in the lobby. 

Unable to get the elevator working, we used the stairs. The hackerspace was located on the 2nd floor, which they shared with a very large empty space.

We continued into the hackerspace. They were getting ready for their first Open House, so everything was clearly labeled and displayed. We were given a brief tour of their amenities. Their 3D printer was unique and noteworthy. They had constructed a "home brew" 3D printer, which is a pretty impressive feat.

Their snackerspace was large and well-stocked. In fact, one could survive off of their supply of stone-ground mustard for several months. They had a very well-equipped woodworking area. We usually have all of our bottlecaps pre-drilled for the workshops, but since this hackerspace had a drill press conveniently available, we had the workshop attendees drill their own caps. The workshop was well-attended by an enthusiastic group of hackers. 

One of the hackers brought in an acoustic instrument that he was building. He dried out gourds, and sliced them in half. The halves were then reinforced with wooden braces, and used as the body of a stringed instrument. Notice the hand-made fret board in the picture..

The hackers we met that night were impressively creative, and perhaps our most enthusiastic group to date. We performed a full rock set for the attendees. We were probably the loudest thing in Watertown that evening. After the gig, we were unable to find any restaurants that were open that late, so we dined on gas station fare. 

CT Hackerspace is an indispensable organization for the town of Watertown. Besides being very well equipped, their community is strong and intelligent. We hope to return to this hackerspace many times in the future, and wish them continued success.

You can find out more about CT Hackerspace here: http://www.cthackerspace.com/

And check out our various websites:  https://sites.google.com/site/cmktfour/ 

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Columbus Idea Foundry: Our 5th Hackerspace Visit

We were out on our first hackerspace tour, and had visited a few hackerspaces already. We taught very successful contact mic workshops at LVL1 (Louisville), Collexion (Lexington, KY), and Hive13 (Cincinnati), and were ready for our final stop on the tour. We rolled into an industrial neighborhood on the North side of Columbus. The city's skyline loomed in the distance. We turned down a street named Corrugated Way, and arrived at the hackerspace. This would be our first of many visits to the Columbus Idea Foundry.

On our first visit, CIF only occupied about 1/3 of the warehouse that it is in. However, each time we returned, they had annexed another section of the warehouse. Presently, they occupy the entire 25,000 Sq. ft. building. But back to their "humble" beginnings in this space- their second physical location- even at that point, they were very well equipped, organized, and had the most enthusiastic crowd we had seen to date.

They had a large classroom area, a room with 3D printers, an office, bathrooms and a break room. This space was formerly the office area of an electronics supply company. Through the door at the end of the hallway was a large warehouse space. Our visit happened to coincide with the day they were moving most of their equipment into the warehouse area. They later subdivided the warehouse into private office/work spaces, available for rent to the hackerspace members.

We taught our 5th Contact Mic Workshop in their classroom. After the performance, we played some live rock music to entertain the workshop attendees. Despite the cavernous reverb of the warehouse, we got our message across; ROCK.

On subsequent visits to the Idea Foundry, we were amazed at the rate of progress. They had subdivided the warehouse (as I previously mentioned) and annexed the 2nd section of the warehouse. Elaborate projects now filled the space. One of the projects on display was a phonograph style satellite radio. A Victrola style sound horn amplified small speakers inside in a fusion of technology, past and present.

Another project, the Digital Piano-mo-phone, was set up in the main room. This device consisted of a player piano, controlled by an arduino that was measuring density of people in the room via motion sensors. When people walked around the room, the arduino triggered different notes and chords on the piano.

One of the office spaces was rented by CIF member John, of Highly Liquid Midi. He had built a giant MIDI controller into the outside wall of his office. The various arcade style buttons, knobs, and even a photocell, controlled various notes on a synthesizer. The synth was hooked up to speakers on top of the wall. His project was called the Living Schematic. Schematic representations of the circuit were painted on the wall.

We got a little video on one of our phones of us playing the wall with Australian Circuit-Benders Toydeath.

On our most recent visit, CIF occupied the whole warehouse. I jokingly asked if they were going to take over the whole block. They replied that, in fact, they had been looking at an adjacent building. And still more member projects. The most notable was an electric car, prototyped in fiberglass. They built this with the intent of achieving a new record for electric car speed.

The Fuse Factory, a digital arts group, had set us up with Transit Arts, and we were teaching circuit bending to a group of primarily High School aged students. They had us in a new classroom, in the most recently acquired section of the building.

The Columbus Idea Foundry remains one of our favorite hackerspaces that we've visited. They had new
surprises for us each time we returned, and their community is friendly and enthusiastic. If you live in Columbus, don't take this amazing organization for granted- not every city has a place like this. If you don't live in Columbus, we recommend taking the trip- the Columbus Idea Foundry is an ever-changing community of some very creative and very smart hackers, definitely worth checking out.

First visit: 10/25/10

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Milwaukee Makerspace- Our 33rd Hackerspace Visit

It was an unusually warm January as we loaded up the Ol' Honda once again. We had just wrapped up a month long recording session in Austin's living room, and were ready to hit the hackerspaces once again. Our destination this time was Milwaukee Makerspace. We loaded up the gear and hit the road.

When we arrived in the large gated industrial complex, we could tell there was a hackerspace nearby. We found unit 34 and saw the Milwaukee Makerspace logo adorning a steel door. We were greeted by a member of the space, and unloaded our gear. Directly inside the garage door was a large warehouse space filled with cars, trucks, sculptures and machinery. Just past a few of the hackerspace members fixing a truck was perhaps the largest wind chime I have ever seen, the "Giant Ominous Wind Chime".

There were at least 2 modified Power Wheels race cars, which they had built for hackerspace competitions at recent Maker Faires. There were smaller rooms sectioned off towards the back of the warehouse space. The larger of the rooms was their fabrication area.

They had pretty impressive equipment, including a very large CNC, a laser cutter, a lathe, tablesaws, drill presses, pinball machines, and an overturned home theater system. The home theater system was a project that some of the members were working on. They call it the Humorously Maniacal Milwaukee Makerspace Multi-Media Machine, or hmmmmmm for short. Powered by a 2100 watt amplifier, the user must wear earplugs in order to use the machine safely. Once inside the box, the user is immersed in a multi-media environment, thus allowing them to experience the media in a ridiculously unsafe environment.

We moved on to the next room- the "Library". Though there were a few books, most likely waiting to be scanned in their book scanning rig, the library's primary focus seemed to be on technology. This is where they keep their 3D printer, and other such things. Shelves were filled not with books, but instead with components. There was an interesting photo rig which they seemed to be using for archiving books. A book was placed on top of the plexi-glass "roof" of a house-like structure, with cameras aimed at the books pages. The user then photographs the pages, and moves on to the next set of pages.

The next room was a multi-purpose room. It seemed that this room was primarily used as a classroom/meeting room, but was also home to one of the finest snackerspaces in the midwest.

Guarded by a wooden Pig-Chef sculpture (Oinky), the snackerspace was adequately stocked with beer, pop, and other refreshments, thus ensuring proper Hacker-Hydration-Levels (HHL).

The classroom was well equipped with 3D printers, soldering irons, spare electronics free for the hacking, computers, and large tables for working on. We taught our Contact Mic Workshop to a small, enthusiastic group of hackers. After everyone had finished their microphones, it was time to rock.

We set up our band equipment in the warehouse area. The hackers gathered 'round as we sang songs of Bourbon and Alien Conspiracy. Having sufficiently rocked the hackerspace, it was time to pack up, and get ready for a gig across town (at Quarter's Rock and Roll Palace). When we returned to the car, we noticed we had a flat tire. A few weeks earlier, we had jokingly remarked that the best place to have car trouble would be a hackerspace. The hackers were glad to help, and brought us tools to facilitate the tire change. a few minutes later, we were on the road, with our 33rd hackerspace under our belt.

(January 28th, 2012) - CMKT 4

Pumping Station One- Our 32nd Hackerspace Visit

It was strange, perhaps a bit lazy, that we had waited so long to visit our "Hometown" hackerspace. Since CMKT 4 is based out of DeKalb, IL, Chicago's hackerspace, Pumping Station One, is the closest hackerspace. We somehow managed to visit 31 other hackerspaces before PS1.

Upon entering this light-industrial building, we realized we were standing in a hair salon. The hackerspace apparently rents the back section of the building, while the landlord maintains control of the front half. Through the salon, we were greeted by a group of hackers. They had just finished a programming workshop and were glad to give us the grand tour. They had a permanent contact mic installation, in which a Slinky had been suspended from the ceiling. Give the Slinky a little tap, and listen to the resulting "laser" noises.

Behind the Slinky was a very well-stocked Electronics corner. Hard at work, hackers soldered their various projects. Along the wall, there were sections designated for various types of material fabrication; a sewing area, 3D printing, woodworking tools.

Then there was the phone booth. An old Police Call Box sat next to the entryway. They seemed to be using it for storage. Unfortunately, my photo didn't turn out very well, but I found this one on Flickr (thanks to Flickr user Rubin 110):

We had fun with their LED wall in the classroom. This was a wall that was painted with magnetic paint. The strips of paint were supplied voltage. Then, LEDs could be placed between the strips of paint, thus lighting the LED.

After a very fun tour of PS1, we taught a room full of hackers our Contact Mic Workshop. And so concludes our 32nd hackerspace visit. (January 14, 2012)

List of Hackerspaces we have visited

OmniCorp Detroit
LVL1
Collexion
Hive13
CIF
Makerspace Urbana
Sector 67
I3
Hack Nashville
Bloominglabs
Cleveland Makerspace
Hack Pittsburgh
Music Market
Arch Reactor
GumboLabs
Makers Local 256
Nashville Hacker Consortium
QCCOLAB
Ames Makerspace
Denhac
Make SLC
Transistor
Ace Monster Toys
Noisebridge
Crash Space
Ink People
Metrix
Reuseum
Hack Factory
Studio 2091
CT Hackerspace
NESIT
AS220
Betascape (baltimore node)
PS1
Milwaukee Makerspace
TechCo Knoxville Makers
Mojo Coworking
Fablocker
Splatspace
MakeLab Charleston
FamiLAB
Brick Factory Nashville
Freeside Atlanta
JaxHax
Omaha Maker Group
Solid State Depot
BoCoup Loft

OmniCorp Detroit: Our First Hackerspace Visit

We first learned of the growing hackerspace movement when we attended the 2010 Detroit Maker Faire. Hackerspaces are community workshops where members have access to the equipment and the space. This, we thought, was the perfect type of venue to teach our workshop, "Build a Bottlecap Contact Mic with CMKT 4". The first hackerspace we taught at was OmniCorp Detroit. This hackerspace is located on the 2nd floor of an old produce warehouse in Detroit's East Market neighborhood. Initially, upon arrival, we could not find the entrance to the hackerspace. We even asked some people on the street, and they knew nothing of OmniCorp. Upon closer inspection, we saw a door marked with a small sticker with the hackerspace logo. This, we would eventually learn, is not uncommon for a hackerspace. If you aren't looking for it, you might not even know it's there.

The building was suffering from many years of disuse. Walking through the main entryway, you would not know that you are about to enter into a realm of technology, ideas, and resources. We were given the grand tour, and were very impressed by the projects we saw.

The hackers began to arrive, and we started teaching our first workshop.

The workshop attendees finished their microphones, and enjoyed CMKT4's first hackerspace rock performance while the Plasti-Dip dried.

CMKT 4: The World's First Hackerspace Rock Band

CMKT 4 (from DeKalb, IL), the makers of Creme DeMentia Contact Microphones, have traveled the US teaching their workshops. In July of 2010, they attended the Detroit Maker Faire, which gave them a glimpse of the growing hackerspace movement. Shortly after, they had developed a kit for building their contact microphones in a workshop setting. They introduced their workshop at OmniCorpDetroit. Since then, CMKT 4 has taught workshops at 40 hackerspaces across the US, as well as several galleries and other venues. From Crash Space in LA, to As220 Labs in Providence, RI, the band has been canvasing the country in an effort to leave no hackerspace behind. CMKT 4 now offers a second workshop (Circuit Bending 101: Build a Bending Buddy), and has made return visits to several hackerspaces. The workshops are intended to provide a unique perspective on DIY electronics, while encouraging the creative use of recycled materials. Make sure not to miss CMKT 4 next time they come to your town!