It’s official- Twin Cities Maker has been selected to field an entry into the Great Global Hackerspace Challenge sponsored by Element-14 and curated by Mitch Altman!
In a nutshell-
– Your hackerspace will create a project to help with education, using US$900 (or equivalent) provided by Element14. The project must use a microcontroller and a portable power source.
– You have 6 weeks to complete your project, documenting your project as you go. All spaces that complete their project will receive 10 soldering setups.
– Three hackerspaces’ projects will be chosen as finalists to present at the Grand Finale at the San Francisco Maker Faire. All three of these spaces will receive some really nice electronic test equipment. One person from each space will be flown out to present their project at the San Francisco Maker Faire over the weekend of 21-May & 22-May.
Week 1
– Introduce your team (video would be a great way to do this), explain your hackerspace’s philosophy, and provide a top level summary of your first week
Week 2
– Provide a basic outline of the materials you will be using in your build and any key challenges you anticipate
Week 3
– Provide an update on the status of your build and quick summary of obstacles encountered and how they are being addressed
Week 4
– Is everything going to plan? Perhaps provide footage of a visit to an educational institution you’re working with
Week 5
– In your penultimate week provide a review of the challenge to date. Is the pressure on? What have you learned?
Week 6
– This is the time to really showcase your build, why it works and what features make it stand out.
So, time to kick it in gear. The project that has been selected is the 10x scale breadboard that Jude and I have been talking about. Jude, John B and myself are all excited to be involved with this- anyone else who wants to contribute ideas, time, and anything else is welcome to do so. Because of the short timetable we need to get started post haste and probably have multiple work events per week- with the first meeting being tonight at 8pm.
There’s a post for this in the “Group projects” section of the forum; we’ll talk tonight about how we want to coordinate our efforts (new Google group, new forum category, or something else) for this project.
Let’s show ’em what we can do!
Huzzah!
This is super, as in super dooper! I want in!
Who’s running and coordinating our team?
Do we have any ideas yet?
Who wants to make a remote control robot with a display screen and a video camera so kids can sign on by a computer to take a real time tour of a remote location?
I’m coordinating this one- our project is the 10x breadboard that Jude and I have been kicking around for a few weeks along with a small analog/digital “training bench” to get people building circuits.
http://tinyurl.com/4pamxlq is an example of the functionality I’d like to (in part) duplicate, but I want the price point to be much more like $50 than $500.
The goal is to provide a training environment that can be sent to an environment where computers, projectors, and other fancy 21st century teaching aids just don’t exist, and get people excited about electronics in a way that might just make them want to make a career out of it.
@uptown I love those things
This sounds like a really interesting project, I would like to know more about it. When you say 10x breadboard to you mean physically 10x bigger, or 10 regular breadboards put together? How will this be better to help with education, than existing an 500 in 1 electronics training kits (ie http://robotickits.stores.yahoo.net/500in1eltr.html)?
I don’t mean to be critical, I just enjoy thinking about learning and how objects influence our experiences and ideas. I am an educator at The Bakken Museum and Science Museum, would love to be able to contribute in some way to the project.
10 times bigger.
We would very much like to have you guys be involved, if you have the time why don’t you sign up for the google group and say hello.