Why a party? Why not a party! It’s almost Valentine’s Day, there’s fresh snow, it’s Friday, it’s Blair’s birthday, Stevie Nukes didn’t burn the shop down… pick your own reason, and come celebrate it at the shop. This party is a potluck, so bring something tasty to share with everyone. It’s also BYOB, so bring your tasty beverage(s) of choice for yourself. Although if you want to share your tasty beverages I’m sure you’ll make new friends. There will be music of various types, maybe some games (if you bring ’em along), yakking, and various randomness. I hope to see lots of people there!
Category: Events and meetups
Quarterly Cleanup tomorrow (12/27)
Hope everyone had a good holiday! But now, it is time once again to clean up the shop. We’ll be doing our winter Quarterly Cleanup tomorrow (Saturday 12/27), from 10AM to 6PM. If you’re available, please stop by for an hour or two, or more, and help get everything nice and shiny again. You’re probably tired of hearing me say it, but more hands really do make for less work. There are also rumors of delicious food, for those who help…
And a reminder: The shop is closed during Quarterly Cleanup. So no project work, just cleaning!
Time to make a Shapeoko!
If you haven’t heard yet, the kind folks at Inventables have donated a Shapeoko desktop CNC kit to Twin Cities Maker. The kit arrived Thursday afternoon — time to put it together!
We’ll be starting out at 5pm tomorrow, Saturday 6/21. If you’re interested in helping out, please come on by. There will be something for everyone to do. Of course if you just want to hang out, that’s cool too. The more the merrier!
WE WON!
Our team has won the Ultimate Maker Vehicle Challenge sponsored by Make and Ford!
Not only did all your support get us #1 in popularity, but the wonderful, wise, and generous sponsors chose our design as the Grand Prize Winner, AND Ford is intending to build and showcase our design! Our humblest and heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported us in the voting process, we couldn’t have won without you. Competition was stiff, and the show of support from all over the world for our design and the community we’ve built is really appreciated.
A **HUGE** “Thank You!” to the sponsors for the honor they’ve bestowed upon us, along with the giant novelty check. We’ve got a few great plans in the works on how to spend the funds to improve our facility and outreach programs.
We’re intending on having a minor celebration at the weekly open house on the 1st of the year, and would love to see all of you there.
Update: And a follow up post!
Seward Winter Art Frolic
ATTENTION EVERYONE: The Hack Factory will be a stop on the Seward Winter Frolic Art Crawl. We want YOU to come display your cool projects, teach people skills as you work on a project, etc.
The Winter Art Crawl is THIS WEEKEND, December 7 & 8 (Sat, 10am-5pm and Sun, 12-5pm). We advertised our stop in City Pages so we can expect a good turnout. This is an important opportunity for us to show off the space and to promote Twin Cities Maker.
To learn more about the Art Crawl, go to sewardarts.org. To participate in or volunteer for the event email Susan at slsolarz@gmail.com.
Make Magazine and Ford Motor Company’s Ultimate Maker Vehicle Challenge
Ask not what TC Maker can do for you, but what you can do for TC Maker!
“What can I do for TC Maker?” you ask….
VOTE!
Here is the link:
http://makezine.com/maker-vehicle-challenge/#view/19038/1651376
I need for each and every one of you to go give this awesome design all 5’s, every single day, from now until December 12th. Yes, you can (and should) vote every day.
Here is the link, again:
http://makezine.com/maker-vehicle-challenge/#view/19038/1651376
People put in a lot of hours on this. I make a complete fool of myself. At the end of the day, none of us are making any money on this. What more do you want?
What you want is for us to win the grand prize of $10,000, with all money being donated to Twin Cities Maker. This is your maker space and you want some new toys in it! Think of all the stuff that 10 G-notes could buy! A few of us did this challenge as labor of love for a shot at giving back to a community that has given each of us so much. It is your turn to help us out. Go vote.
Love,
Madame President
Give to the Max Day Update #2
Is it noon already? Wow, time flies when you’re sleep-deprived…
Donations are coming in, slowly but surely. If you haven’t already, please click on the lovely green logo and give us a donation. Everything you give through Give.MN today is being matched, so even a small gift grows almost like magic. Or if you prefer, like sufficiently advanced technology.
Fox 9 News did a story about Give to the Max Day, and it features TCMaker. Go take a look! Riley was also interviewed on KSTP’s midday news; we’ll put a link up to that as soon as we can.
Our big project, the skeeball machine, is proceeding along. We’ve got the target area pieces cut, sanded and stained. Electronics are basically working, but will need to be installed so that the IR sensors can be calibrated. The playfield pieces still need to be cut on the CNC machine, and somehow I’ve got to make a gigantic gauge to show your score…
No sleep ’til skeeball!
Musical PVC Bench in the News!
Hey thanks for checking out my blog!
MPR aired a nice story today on the bench but cut out all 3 of my mentions of Twin Cities Maker at the Hack Factory. Kind of a bummer.
At least in this short TPT piece you can see the back of my Twin Cities Maker T-shirt!
Help build a musical PVC bench, improve a St. Paul community and learn how to solvent weld
Hey, thanks very much for checking out my blog!
Last week I promised to discuss the influence of Chuck Taylor shoes on my chair design. However, I need to take a short break from my rocker to create a bench for a block-improvement effort in the Dayton’s Bluff Community.
In this post, I will describe the bench design and invite you to help build it! Interested? Shoot me an email at slsolarz@gmail.com!
All participants will learn how to solvent weld PVC. The skill is used to build many exciting maker projects from potato launchers to musical instruments like the ones played by the Blue Man Group. In fact, the bench that we build can be used both for rest and to play a few tunes while waiting for the bus!
To make construction easier, I designed the bench in 6 sections. Each section is 39 inches long and 19 inches wide. Five of the sections are identical (just oriented differently) and one section is unique. Once I have all of the sections on site, I will bolt 3 pipes from each section to 3 pipes in an adjacent section.
The design uses PVC pipes of 5 different lengths with the longest pipes serving as the legs of the bench. Standard bench height is 18 inches and each section of the bench has four 18 inch-long pipes. Placement of these bench legs will be important for balance and stability.
Please contact me at slsolarz@gmail.com to help build a bench for a better block in the Dayton’s Bluff community!
WOMEN HOST DIY CAMPING GEAR @ THE HACK FACTORY
Hey, Everyone! Camping season is upon us (well, when it isn’t busy raining). Many of us love camping, but we do not love spending $$$ on gear. There are a lot of easy and inexpensive do-it-yourself options for camping and backpacking gear.
This month at the Hack Factory, Women Host (a group of super-awesome TC Maker ladies) is having a DIY camping gear skill share. Everyone is welcome to attend (though we do ask that you register on Eventbrite). We’d love to have you bring your ideas, knowledge, questions, and camping related projects to share! There will also be discussion, demonstration, and construction of alcohol-burning stoves (the DIY camper’s best friend).
Feel free to bring your own brew.
Order tickets via Eventbrite:
http://www.eventbrite.com/event/7107244961/efbevent A note about Women Host at the Hack Factory: This event takes place the last Tuesday of every month. It is a night that is open to everyone in our community, regardless of sex or gender, but we especially love for the women in our community to demonstrate, share and connect. We believe everyone should have access to our resources and open exchange of information. Future events will continue to be posted here or on the Women Host at The Hack Factory Facebook page – please like us! This event is free of charge and open to the public, thanks to the support of Twin Cities Maker and the Hack Factory.