Meet the Maker and Learn to Solder

January 27th, 2012 by Paul Sobczak

Adam Wolf of Wayne and Layne, and Twin Cities Maker Member will be hosting a class on how to solder one of his popular kits the blinky POV.

If you’ve never soldered before, this is the class for you! This course teaches through-hole (90% of electronic kits) soldering and is recommended for the beginner. This is a hands-on class where the students learn techniques to help them solder through-hole components. Soldering can be daunting for the first solder joint, then the 2nd solder joint is not so bad, and by the time you’ve assembled the blinky grid, you will be quite confident and proficient in basic soldering skills.

Classes take place at The Hack Factory. We provide all the tools, irons, solder, parts, and seats for up to 8 students.

There is a minimum age requirement of 8 years old, but other than that, anyone is encouraged to sign up. We teach people all the time with no previous soldering experience! You do not need to be a member of Twin Cities Maker to attend.

The class is expected to take around 1.5 hour to complete, there is a buffer built in in case we go a bit longer.

Prerequisites: None! Just bring yourself. The class price includes the cost of the blinky POV kit.

What to bring: TC Maker will provide all the tools, irons and solder.

Proceeds above will go to help keep TC Maker, support the space.

Time and Place: Tuesday Feb 7th 7:00pm to 9:00pm at the Hack Factory

Cost: $16 (This is a great deal, the retail price is also $16, but with out the hack factory to solder at, and no Adam to be taught by.)

Sign up on Event Brite

1/25/12 Open Hack Night and Handmade Music Minneapolis Pictures

January 26th, 2012 by Paul Sobczak


A collection of some of the happenings of the Open Hack at 1/25/12 @ the Hack Factory in Minneapolis. Every Wednesday is open to the public, 7 – ~11pm. Bring project to show, work on your projects, talk about robots or moon shovels…

And pictures from the latest Handmade Music: Minneapolis Introduction to Pure Data

Minnesota 2020: Inside The Maker Movement

January 13th, 2012 by Paul Sobczak

Part I and II are now up from Minnesota 2020.

Links to the full articles here and here.

1/11/12 Open Hack Night in Retrospect

January 12th, 2012 by Paul Sobczak

Pictures from 1/11/12 Open Hack Night, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, Earth.

Between now and next Open Hack Night
Jan 12th DC612 has a meeting
Jan 14 Welding Class – Fun With Metal
Jan 14 Art Shanty open to to public on Medicine Lake.
Jan 16 PyStar Hack Night (EHack Night)
Jan 17 Monthly CAD meeting

Handmade Music: Minneapolis Pure Data Workshop

January 9th, 2012 by Paul Sobczak

Handmade Music: Minneapolis Pure Data Workshop


Pd (aka Pure Data) wikipedia is a real-time graphical programming environment for audio, video, and graphical processing. It is the third major branch of the family of patcher programming languages known as Max (Max/FTS, ISPW Max, Max/MSP, jMax, etc.) originally developed by Miller Puckette and company at IRCAM. The core of Pd is written and maintained by Miller Puckette and includes the work of many developers, making the whole package very much a community effort.

Download Pure Data for free and bring your computer.

Free, open to the public, bring your computer
January 21st• 7pm – 9pm
Hack Factory
3119 East 26th Street

MN2020: Open-Source Learning

January 9th, 2012 by Paul Sobczak

Minnesota 2020 stopped by Twin Cities Maker awhile back and shot this video that features some our members talking and making things.

TCM and Make:Blog, and books and other stuff.

January 7th, 2012 by Paul Sobczak

Some recent happenings of Twin Cities Maker that have made an splash on the outside world. This is not comprehensive but kind of neat to look at none the less.

Riley’s FoshayBuchay 2.0 was featured as the opening photo for this Zero to Maker piece.


Adam Wolf of Wayne and Layne, one of two Twin Cities Maker’s open source kit manufactures, was featured in Meet the Makers


John Baicthal and Adam Wolf wrote a few articles for Make:28, they are not online so you will need to pick up a physical copy. They wrote about making a Van de Graaff generator from a soda can making a wireless arcade-quality joystick-and-button-panel for playing video games.

Matthew Varas put up directions on how to make his chomping Pacman Suit.


We are also featured in John Baicthal’s Hack This! Yep, that is Twin Cities Maker is on the cover. John also has another book out Cult of LEGO, featured in the print edition of Wired!, and if rumors are true it will be on one of those in flight magazines on one of the major airlines, so look out for that.

Join today’s new revolution in creativity and community: hackerspaces. Stop letting other people build everything for you: Do it yourself. Explore, grab the tools, get hands-on, get dirty…and create things you never imagined you could. Hack This is your glorious, full-color passport to the world of hackerspaces: your invitation to share knowledge, master tools, work together, build amazing stuff–and have a flat-out blast doing it.

Twin Cities Maker co-founder John Baichtal explains it all: what hackerspaces are, how they work, who runs them, what they’re building—and how you can join (or start!) one. Next, he walks you through 24 of today’s best hackerspace projects…everything from robotic grilled-cheese sandwich-makers to devices that make music with zaps of electricity. Every project’s packed with color photos, explanations, lists of resources and tools, and instructions for getting started on your own similar project so you can DIY!
- from Amazon.com



Notropic Design, the other favorite open source manufacture of Twin Cites Maker, pushed out a new design, the defusable clock and has gotten an pretty amazing response so far, above is the Christmas Advert.

Matt Mackall, of Twin Cities Maker’s favorite open source code management tool Mercurial, is in the process of getting an Art Shanty built in the space. More on the Art Shanty project here.


And finally here is a short video of Twin Cities Makers Learn Arduino class performing on thier new noise machines.

Update: Twin Cities Maker also loves the kit business Crazy But Able, check out their stella amp.

 

Open Hack Night Photos

January 7th, 2012 by Paul Sobczak

~ 1 months or so of photos taken at Twin Cities Maker’s Open Hack Night, every Wednesday Night. Enjoy!
Orange

2012 Member Dues Updates and More!

December 15th, 2011 by wammie

Dear Community,

The Hack Factory and Twin Cities Maker are announcing an updated dues schedule.

The great news is that we’ve experienced a blossoming of membership numbers over the past two years, and we want to keep the space going strong!

Over the last two years, the organization has been absorbing the cost of sales tax for all membership dues. What we need to do is recover that cost so we can more accurately budget our finances and our member needs.

Going forward, we are going to increase the dues by $5 per month.

Effective January 1st, 2012:

  • Regular membership dues will be $55/month
  • Student memberships dues will be $30/month

For the month of January, 2012 we are going to have a membership special, giving a chance for folks to save on dues:

  • One year membership for $550 – this includes two free classes. This is a savings of $110 to $250.
  • Six month membership for $275 – This is savings of $55.

TC Maker is offering these deals so we can help to increase our membership and have a stronger cash flow. We need your help in spreading the word about TC Maker, and recruit new members.

Important Notes:

  • All memberships are deemed non-refundable, and are kept by the organization.
  • For the classes, if the materials fees exceed $25, we may ask that you pay the difference that would apply to materials fees.

TC Maker will also be offering Rock Star memberships of $75/month.  What does this give you?  A warm place in our heart, and a listing on our Rock Star page.

Want to do a prepaid membership? Send an email to treasurer[-at]tcmaker.org.

If you have questions or comments about these changes, please send an email to info[-at-]tcmaker.org.

Thank you for your continued support and membership in TC Maker. Have a wonderful, productive, and Makerly New Year!

Sincerely,

The Hack Factory & Twin Cites Maker

12/07/11 Open Hack

December 9th, 2011 by Paul Sobczak

Welcome to Seward Arts Fest Crawlers, Dec. 2-3!

December 2nd, 2011 by wammie

Twin Cities Maker’s Hack Factory is open for visitors during the Seward Arts Fest and Frankin Frolic!

Come see some of the art and fun things that are built here at the Hack Factory. We’re showing some movie and tv props, costumes, drawings, paintings, sculptures, and of course our ever-popular Spoonapult and Trebfoshay.

We’re welcoming visitors on Friday, Dec. 2 from 5-7 PM and Saturday, Dec. 3 from noon until 5 PM.

Open Hack Night 11/16/11

November 17th, 2011 by Paul Sobczak

Pictures from the open Hack Night!

Welcome to the 4 new members that signed up on Wednesday! Our total right now is at 91, we update the bar which is currently at 81 at the start of each month so, there is a really good chance next month we will exceed our goal which will be really great. Thanks to all of our new and continuing members, you are TC Maker!

Also our starving hacker fund has been depleted so if you are so inclined to donate some money to help out fellow members that have fallen on tough times you can do so by talking with Brandon our treasurer@tcmaker.org.

Twin Cities Maker Clothes Line Racers in Make: Magazine

November 10th, 2011 by Paul Sobczak

The latest issue of Make:Magazine #28 has a write up about Twin Cities Maker’s clothes line event.

Here is a the full article written by TC Maker’s own John Baitchtal Here are some more pictures of the event in the Flickr. You can see the ferret in real life at the Hack Factory, it’s up in the corner of the classroom.

 

11/9/11 Open Hack Night Photos

November 10th, 2011 by Paul Sobczak

Pictures from the weekly open hack nights at Twin Cities Maker’s Hack Factory.

Welcome to the new members that joined up last night, not sure on the count but I know we had at least one! We updated our number goal for the upcoming month to 90, hopefully we will get there!

11/2/11 Open Hack Night Pictures

November 2nd, 2011 by Paul Sobczak

Pictures from the Open Hack Night at the Hack Factory. Welcome to the 3 new members that signed up tonight!

Open house at the Hack Factory October 26th Style

October 27th, 2011 by Paul Sobczak


Pictures from the shenanigans that occur weekly at the Hack Factory of Minnesota, including but not limited to, robot, welding, (unfortunately not pictures of a robot welding)  pumpkin carving, paracord watches, crystal oscillator testers, people talking in a hallway, archery, and a smiley face drawn in Hack Factory dust.

Every Wednesday Twin Cities Maker opens it’s doors to the public, stop by and meet the makers of Minnesota. Congrats to the new members that signed up as well! We are still in need of about ~15 to 20 members to make this work into the future, so if you are interested is seeing Twin Cities Maker exist in the future it’s worth becoming a member.

 

HACKRONYM, HACKRONYMS

October 21st, 2011 by wammie

I love playing with words and I think I’ve come up with a new, original wordplay idea: HACKRONYMS. I’ve Googled this and not found an instance, so maybe my claim of originality is legit.

Here’s the idea.

Definition of HACKRONYM: a hacked acronym (e.g., butchered, baked, maked) from a commonly known acronym, for its appeal to the hacker and maker communities.

Especially good HACKRONYMS would bear a definition (or definitions) related to the acronym from which it originated, strike immediate accord with the hacker/maker experience, lingo, and ethic, and embrace irony or humor. They would also not be generated from special acronyms already well established in the communities, lest they cause confusion in use.

Examples:

FBI – Fixed, But Inscrutable
NASA – Needs A Space Assessment
IRS – Is Really Sucky
PBJ – Pretty Badly Jammed
UFO – Unidentified “Fixed” Object
BTW – Better This Way
AM – Ante Make
PM – Post Make
TBA – To Be Attacked
TGIF – Thank God It’s Finished

Can you come up with some good HACKRONYMS?

There is a discussion thread on HACKRONYMS in our forum.

Oct 19th Open Hack Night

October 21st, 2011 by Paul Sobczak


Pictures and video from 10/19/2011′s Open Hack night at the one an only Hack Factory in Minneapolis. Lots of interesting and weird stuff going on. Enjoy.

Open Hack Night October 12th 2011

October 12th, 2011 by Paul Sobczak

Pictures from October 12th’s Open House @ the Hack Factory (every Wednesday) and some photos from the E Hack nights (every Monday).

New estimates from the board put us around 90-100 members to be in the black, that meaning we need ~100 to make rent, pay our other bills, and fund some of the routine things the board needs to do. This new estimate takes into account the more than expected amount of members at the student/unemployed rate. Last month we had 71, so we are close but we have a way to go.

If you have been looking at TC Maker for awhile or just found us and are interested, as always, we recommenced you to stop by our Wednesday night open houses, if that doesn’t work shoot the board an email and they can usually give you some good advise on when to stop by. They are @ info@tcmaker.org.

Twin Cities Maker would also like to welcome 3 new members that signed up tonight, welcome!

Here also is a short video that Steve put together for a community access show that may or may not happen, but the intro is made, and here for your viewing pleasure.

and we are on a map!

TC Maker to Appear at King’s Fair, Saturday, Sept. 17 at 12 Noon

September 15th, 2011 by wammie

Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye!

Twin Cities Maker shall be appearing at the illustrious King’s Fair in Minneapolis this coming Saturday!

At the behest of the King, His Court, and a Jester’s mirthful bidding, we beseech thee to join us for fun, food, and game, at the Park of Matthews.

The merriment commences at 12 noon and shall persist until 5 PM. For the goodness and sake of our beloved Sewardship, we plead thee also to partake of the historical makings of our fair affair.

 

 

« Previous Entries

google