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!
The public meeting schedule on our events page expired after last night’s meeting. It should now be up to date. Also, you can connect with us on meetup, if you prefer.
General meetings are always open to the public. We encourage everyone to bring ideas to improve Workshop 88. If you can’t make it to the meeting but still want to share your ideas, just email info@workshop88.com and we’ll be happy to bring it to the table for you. Hope to see you all there!
Feel free to come early to the meetings. We run the “business” meeting from 6:30pm to just before 7:30pm, then we break off and dive into whatever interesting projects people are working on.
Workshop 88 is offering our introduction to the Arduino platform at our new space in Glen Ellyn. Class attendees will learn how to configure their arduino programming environment, how to design simple circuits for interfacing with the arduino and how to write simple programs to control the arduino. What is Arduino, you ask? From their home page:
Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.
You can order Arduino systems from several places, including Adafruit and Sparkfun. Both companies have lots of tutorials and howtos to get you started with Arduinos. If you choose the tuition + materials option, we will have an arduino and assortment of electronics components for you to take home after the class.
You should bring: a laptop with the Arduino environment installed.
Please contact us (info@workshop88.com) if you have any questions.
Workshop 88 is thrilled to be offering an introduction to the Arduino platform at our space in Glen Ellyn. Class attendees will learn how to configure their arduino programming environment, how to design simple circuits for interfacing with the arduino and how to write simple programs to control the arduino. What is Arduino, you ask? From their home page:
Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.
You can order Arduino systems from several places, including Adafruit and Sparkfun. Both companies have lots of tutorials and howtos to get you started with Arduinos. If you choose the tuition + materials option, we will have an arduino and assortment of electronics components for you to take home after the class.
Dale and Dwayne from 2DKits (get it? 2 Ds: Dale and Dwayne…) are bringing their blinkie building kits to Workshop 88 for a night of blinkie building fun!
They have 15 different kits that they will be bringing. Many of the kits have several different options to choose from to customize the kit.
The folks at MuseCon are sponsoring their 6-LED circle kit for attendees for FREE! All other kits will have a materials charge, but the build night event itself is a FREE event, open to the public.
Jim has volunteered to come in and show off what he knows about EAGLE and continue working on the LED scrolling sign this Thursday (8-25) at 6:30 pm at the space. EAGLE is a PCB (printed circuit board) layout design software package. It’s useful for designing your own circuit boards for whatever you want to do with them.
If time (and interest) permits, we’ll continue hacking on our scrolling LED sign that we started working on last month.
This event is FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. Come and bring your friends.
Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/maurymccown/1122213940/
Get started exploring electronics with our Introduction to Electronics class. We’ll cover some of the most basic concepts that you’ll need to understand in order to build, modify and design simple circuits.
This class will have a textbook included in the “supplies”. The textbook will be used in followup electronics classes at Workshop 88.
Remember the ShapeOko project that we linked to a few weeks ago? Ed is going to be coming to Workshop 88 on Tuesday, August 16th at 6:30 pm. He’ll be bringing the latest revision of his ShapeOko as well as telling us what he learned about running a successful project on Kickstarter.
But that’s not all! We recently learned about a really cool DIY laser cutter/engraver project. The brains behind that project belong to Bart Dring, a maker from the Chicago area. Ed invited Bart to come along and tell us about his project on the same night!
If you have any questions about this event, please email us: info@workshop88.com
See you on the 16th!
Image credit:MJN123
Have you been dabbling in electronics and building all your circuits on breadboards? Maybe it’s time you learn how to solder with Workshop 88! Want to improve your soldering skills? Come to our soldering class and see what you can do to make you soldering better. We’ve got some great new soldering irons that you’ll get to make use of during the class.
Linux gives us the power we need to crush those who oppose us. Learn how to being to use the hundreds of tiny utilities contained in *nix systems to create simple solutions that you may think require writing a program, script, or complex system. Forget spending countless hours designing, writing ,and debugging code in the cloud. See the methods taught in this class to begin to understand how to quickly link Linux commands together to create quick solutions to what may seem like a complex task. Spend more time on world domination and less time learning the sexy programming language of the day. What you will learn:
- Learn to navigate the shell quickly saving keystrokes, sparing yourself from the scourge of carpal tunnel syndrome.
- What the hell do all those funky symbols mean? Amaze your significant other with the ability to read shell scripts like a Chinese newspaper.
- Learn a few quick tips to automate your system administration and audit it for weaknesses.
- Create a simple command to notify yourself of changes to your favorite web pages. Never miss out on those Deltron 3030 tickets again!
- Create parsers to crunch the data needed to map pig genomes. Win the Nobel prize!!
- Stand up a poor man’s web server to serve content in a pinch.
We’ll only touch the tip of the iceberg but you’ll walk away with the understanding and methodology to search the UNIX tool set to create your very own solutions to life’s problems. What you should know ahead of time: Basic Linux commands and how to navigate the file system: Are cd, rm, mv, cp man, and ~ Greek to you? Learn this first at home: http://code.google.com/edu/tools101/linux/basics.html What you need to bring: A laptop running your favorite flavor of Linux or vm-ware player. The utilities we will review are available on 90% of *nix flavor system. You can also download Linux appliances, but please come to class with your system ready.
