Maker Space

We have another Dorkbot on the horizon this November. It will be 6.30pm for a 7.00pm prompt start, same place as usual, Lifelab Welcome Room at the Centre for Life, free entry, pay bar  and entrance is round the back on Central Parkway.

Currently signed up

• Brian Degger – Hackteria – the international Biohacking symposium
• Toni Hammil – Reporting back from the Brighton and New York Maker Faires
• Robyn Taylor – topic to be announced

We are at last getting organised and formalising the organising. We have decided to setup as a not for profit limited company for many reasons and are researching further in to this. We have also have set up a wiki for anything and everything that is at makerspace.pbworks.com. Remember if you want to have some input to the way we set up then come along to a drop in session or join the email list.

We had a full room on the 20th and if this continues we will need to find a larger space. Either way we are continuing with our drop in sessions between 6pm and 8pm every 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month. You can find directions to find us on our directions page. Again if you are working on something, need help with something, or have something to show off then bring it along.

This is a panoramic view of Maker Space. Click and drag with the mouse to pan around.

After lots of procrastinating and prevaricating we have eventually got around to starting regular drop in sessions in Maker Space. To start with we will be opening up Marker Space between 6pm and 8pm every 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month starting on the 20th July 2011. You can find directions to find us on our directions page. If you are working on something, need help with something, or have something to show off then bring it along.

After a but of a break we are back on the 4th of July 2011 in the LifeLab Welcome Room at the Centre for Life.

Doors open at 6:30pm and entry is free.

Alan McLean (Future directions in live coding) is going to show us how live coding has developed over the last decade to become an approach to performance well known within the computer music community, and with increasing exposure outside it. In this dork talk we will describe some of the stranger approaches to live coding, including processed beat boxing, visual languages in game worlds, visuospatial syntax, onomatopoeic identifiers and unusual approaches to time.

Alistair MacDonald and Brian Degger are going to introduce Maker Space, Newcastle’s first hackspace. They will be introducing the concept of a hackspace, giving a few examples of things they are working on, outlining the current plans, and opening to discussion of how to take things forward.

After not quite getting round to organising our planned regular meetings for many months we have eventually got round to setting up a discussion list at http://groups.google.com/group/north-east-makers. Please sign up and join in.

Because of transport problems relating to the the weather conditions tonight’s Dorkbot Newcastle Project Session has been postponed. It will be rearranged for a future date. To keep up to date subscribe to the Dorkbot Newcastle announcement list or check beck here.

Just a quick reminder that you have less than a week to get your submissions in for the Maker Faire UK 2011.

UPDATE: Because of transport problems relating to the snow the session has been postponed.

Following suggestions we are having a project session, a bit like Howduino. Bring along your works in progress, share them with others and see if someone can help you solve that persistent problem you’ve been having.

We will have some soldering irons and basic tools. Let us know if there is anything else you think we need that you can’t bring?

We will be in the Lifelab Junior Lab (same entrance as usual, it’s just upstairs from our usual room), I’ll get the usual beer etc supply lined up as well.

More details on the Centre for Life web site.