Hello everyone,
I don't know how to come about this, but does anyone actually work on projects at the hackfactory? I came by a couple of weeks ago and signed up, but didn't see people working on anything other than a catapult. Maybe I am spoiled to have been with the Dallas Makerspace for a while and have 40+ people working on projects, throwing ideas around, and socializing. I didn't see anything of that nature and felt like I was given a cold shoulder. To top it off, the wiki is practically empty. Why aren't people using it to show off their projects, to share information, to plan things? Why isn't anyone on the irc? How can I find out about cool things happening? I don't want to pilfer through the forums to find out what's going on.

Concerned member,
Bryan

It is what it is There are people working on things on wednesdays and a lot of socializing as well. We haven't had a strong presence on IRC, but we have the channel. There are a lot of projects going on behind the scenes that people haven't uploaded any information on, but you are free to use the wiki to do so if you would like.

The funny thing is that I have heard the exact opposite said about Twin Cities Maker, that people here are actually working on things, so perhaps your space was more active, who knows.

I think that many projects get worked on there, but since we are open to members 24/7 much of the is unseen.

I had stopped down Sunday at 5pm, and Riley was still working at ways to get others to chase his balls ( or other projectiles)

Tonight I got there just before 9, and saw that McSteve, Otto_PM and others had spent time working on the Optical scanner Assembly that as Mettis pointed out sat idle since Sept of last year. (nice work guys).

One of our practicing metal workers has a very nice sculpture in progress, I love to see what has been added each time I stop in there.

JRSphoto was setting up his Ham Radio, the clean up had made inroads to the massive space cleanup that needs to happen, tools had been moved and wired.

I will agree that we have yet to regularly do a larger group project, but much happens in the space every week. Not the least of which is socialization, Idea exchanges, collaboration

Wed nights seem to be the time to interface with folks. Some people are more social about things than others. I don't know that the wiki has as much traction as the forum, and there are a lot of folks that are not that active on the forum. But I'd say from my experience, its far from just talk. We just have a very broad and diverse group of folks. I know I tend to post a lot, but I'm also usually too busy doing to be to noisy about *what* I'm doing online.

Oddly, I'm almost come to see Wed nights at the Space as time off. Rather bummed I missed things tonight.

I used to try and get projects done on wednesday nights.

I always found myself getting distracted by conversations with people I really like.

Now I come early on wednesday if I want to get anything done, so that when it's open house time, I can drink, grill, eat, give tours, meet new people, and most importantly, have some quality time with the people who really matter to me.

I come other days during the week to get stuff done, but wednesday nights are special; that's when y'all are there.

Riley

Bryan, I'd also like to add, if you got some cold shoulder, I'm very sorry.

That's the exception rather than the rule.

I was the guy working on the catapult, I hope I at least found time to say Hi to you.

Riley

I find that Wednesdays tend to not be a very productive time for me at least, because there's simply too much going on. It does tend to be more of a social time, and I generally spend more time talking to people than actually working on anything. It also tends to be fairly crowded, which can also make it hard to work.

I absolutely love the Wednesday night gatherings, because so many people are there to talk to and brainstorm with. But my favorite time to actually work on stuff is still usually at night on the weekends.

Great comments guys! I hope to get involved more; maybe by teaching some classes on microcontrollers/embedded systems, programming, etc. I guess I expected coming in and getting all rolled up in the space as I was at my previous space, but I do realize it wont be the same. Maybe I'm just getting home sick.

Thank you for an update on the various things going on; that kind of information adds to the excitement of being part of the TC Maker.

When are the "popular" times? Being new here, I feel kinda awkward just coming in and doing whatever; there's a kind of social culture one must pick up to start to belong.

As far as the cold shoulder, the people I met were very friendly and we shared some great conversations. I'm thinking a small group was just preoccupied with the conference call that night.

One question though, is there provisioning for subcommittees? I think it would be useful to have small groups that focus on particular aspects of the hackerspace like a cleaning committee, acquisition committee, marketing and welcoming committee, etc.

-b

there's starting to be some committees for various things, but like many things there needs to be a formal task that folks need to take ownership of. as volunteers things often slide. otto is the point person for the "infrastructure" committee focused on getting core systems running, and soldiersquared is the point person for cleaning i believe. (iirc there's recurring cleaning sessions before open house nights)

like ork, i have all but given up on building things on wed, too many folks want to chat about this or that, although if you look closely you'll see a few folks gathered around a tool refurbishing it, or trying to coax a cnc widget to life. i've been quite busy with other things in july, but prior to that there has almost always been someone in the space working on a project from noonish through late evening every day of the week.

the skype thing was the tail end of our monthly board meeting, which everyone is welcome to sit in on, and give feed back on. if we made you feel unwelcome, i'm sorry, the intent was more to bang out business stuff to get back to being social rather than to ignore folks.

Makership at the Hack Factory also tends to drop during summer as people are spending more time outdoors. And certainly the excessive heat in the last couple of weeks would account for some lack of activity.