Sorry for the diarrhea of topics this morning, I just got really excited about the meetup yesterday, and I want to move forward w/ some of the things discussed/ideas that I was pondering afterward.

We were discussing doing a project as a group, to develop a float that we could have in one of the many (MANY) parades/events that occur in the cities over the course of the summer (May Day Parade, 4th of July Parade, Grand Ol' Days, Nordeast Parade, etc, etc etc). I think that would be a good way to help coalesce the group and bring our talents to the fore so we can get a bearing on what we're dealing with in terms of tool supply/interests.

Also, I think it would be good to get a set of business cards together that we can collectively pass out to people. These would have the forum URL on them, and a brief description of who we are and what we'd offer (Brief and general to the group, not any specific individual). Pyrodog brought in some cool miniature business cards which had his photography on them. I looked at the site, and they seem fairly reasonable (19.95 for 100). Would anyone be interested in getting some of these?

that sounds like a good idea - but now you got me thinking of what sort of cool "business" cards we could make.
laser-cut business cards would probly be out of budget, but we could make them REALLY cool.. (i was thinking maybe they could interlock to make some sort of lego/erector set of business cards)

die-cut (cookie cutter, ala kinkos) would be fine too, more for getting the word out and creating an image and a community... i doesnt exists unless it has business cards!

or some kind of thin stamped sheetmetal "card"? Rounded corners, edges de-burred with a polishing wheel?

Heh, that'd be awesome. What if we did something that you could pop-out and then assemble? Like what they do for the "Pirates of the Spanish Main" CCG?

http://www.wizkidsgames.com/PIRATES/cardgallery.asp

-Dave T

i just thought of something super simple. (and cheap).

have instructions for origami on the back. with the lines and step numbers.
Could be justification to go with a lighter card stock (which is cheaper). for easier folding.

if youre gonna give people something, at least let them have fun with it?

The only issue I foresee w/ that is that the cards would have to be larger in order to accommodate the folding. This could be problematic for general passing, but it would be cool as heck to give out to kids at a parade (say, if we make a float). Also, we could have a bunch of different designs, the world of Papercraft is huge:

http://papercraft-world.blogspot.com/
http://paperforest.blogspot.com/

Deburred sheet metal with stencil-painted TCMakers on one side and the URL on the other would be hot. But also time-consuming.

I've been having this vision of a bunch of hand-built-from-refuse boats/rafts out somewhere central like Lake Calhoun as an outreach/publicity event. It could be showcasing the maker community and up/re-cycling and drawing attention to the proliferation of trash, etc. I don't really know how plausible that is, but I get these weird ideas and they nag at me.

Ohhhhh yeah.
Check out this one, too.

Sounds like a good tie-in to the Aquatenial (sp?) and the milk carton boat races.

I've done the milk-carton boat "race" a few times. The last time I did was 3-5 years ago; our team finally got some kind of trophy for creativity (it was a dragon) and prize money, which became a pizza party. My parts were technical and logistical -- making sure they were valid boats (well, rafts) which could carry inexperienced little-league crews in life jackets, transporting the boats, designing & building them so that they could be transported, launching, etc.

I would consider doing it again, but must say... I'm really, really, really tired of milk cartons. I'm much rather learn how to work with carbon fiber.