posts tagged with the keyword ‘barcamp’

2012.10.03

BarCampMilwaukee7

BarCampMilwaukee7

Whew! It’s BarCampMilwaukee time! This weekend, October 6th and 7th, 2012 is BarCampMilwaukee7… that’s the seventh BarCamp here in Milwaukee, for those of you keeping track.

I’ve got a few things I’ll highlight, the first of which is the Raspberry Pi Roundtable, where people who have Pis, or want to use a Pi for a project can get together and talk about them. Having a super-cheap Linux-powered computer opens up some new possibilities, so we’ll talk about what those are.

The session I’ve got planned is titled Money. Maker. Business. and I’ll talk about how I started up my making business. At Milwaukee Makerspace (and other hackerspaces) members often talk about potential business ideas, so my talk will outline the process I went through, including touching on my Maker Business posts.

Thirdly, we’ll be doing our own Midwest version of the Nerdy Derby race. If you haven’t made a car yet, make one now! If you can’t make one now, Milwaukee Makerspace will be providing miscellaneous parts during BarCamp so you can try to build one. And it’s not just all speed and aerodynamics, and there will be style points awarded as well. (We might even call them “Moxie” points as an homage to the Power Racing Series.)

(And yeah, I’m sure I’ll also bring the RepRaster 5000 and enjoy some 3D printing hijinx as well.)

So yeah, barcampmilwaukee.org has all the details. I hope you’ve already registered, because if not, we may not be able to feed you. Come anyway! We’ll figure something out, there are restaurants nearby, it’ll all work out, somehow, as it always does. :)

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2012.07.24

3D Printing Camp ReCap

3D Printing Camp Wisconsin

It all happened pretty fast… I think it was the beginning of May when Bob Waldron floated the idea of a BarCamp-like event focused on 3D printing past me, and of course I couldn’t ignore it. I helped set up the web site and did some promotion and sponsor-wrangling, because I figured if he was throwing such an event, I wanted to see it happen so I could go to it. :)

3D Printing Camp

Getting sponsors took a lot of time, but in the end (and I mean very end!) we got what we needed, and were able to cover most of what we wanted for the event. People got fed, Sector67 got a few bucks for use of their space all day, and nothing went wrong… well, almost nothing.

If you attended 3D Printing Camp you owe a big round of applause to Bob Waldron, but you couldn’t give him one on Saturday because he was not there! Despite all the comforts of our modern world, if your plane gets delayed, and you get stuck, you miss things… and Bob missed the event. (Don’t worry, this will just ensure he does it again next year.)

3DPrintingCampWisconsin

So what did we do? Well, we printed. A lot. And we also had a few sessions related to 3D printing, modeling, security, repairing things, and we just generally got to meet everyone else who is into 3D printing. Remember back when you were the only person you know (not counting online) who was really into something, and if you got to hang out with others who were into the same thing, how awesome that was? Well, yeah, that was it. I think we had about 20 printers, and saw over 60 people come through the door throughout the day. Not a bad turnout at all.

3DPrintingCamp

For me one of the highlight was learning more about Sketchup. Kemper Smith led an amazing sessions showing tips & tricks for 3D modeling and I took plenty of notes.

And then there was Tony Warren, who showed up with a partially done RepRap and got it printing by the end of the day. I can certainly attest to the fact that having an unfinished printer is something no on wants, so getting it running is pretty awesome.

3DPCWI

The event was pretty laid back, and plenty of people just spent most of the day (and evening!) printing, which is cool. There could have been more sessions, but when you’ve got all those printers in a room, you want to talk about them, and trade tips, and melt some plastic. It’s all good.

As for the RepRaster 5000, it started a little shaky because I could not get my bed up to temperature, then I noticed a ceiling fan above me! I moved and all was well, for a while. I printed a few things, and then I did a print that failed, then the next one failed, and then it was time to just give up. I had managed to knock things out of alignment earlier and I think things just went pear-shaped from there. Too much printing I guess. Once I got home I got everything back to normal, leveled the bed, and it’s back to normal. (It’s always a RepRap adventure somewhere…)

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2012.07.05

3D Printing Camp

3DPCWI

For me, this story starts back in October 2011 at BarCampMilwaukee6. A few of us stayed up the entire night with a MakerBot CupCake printing things. I’d pretty much caught the 3D printing bug at that point.

So when Bob Waldron pitched the idea of “3DPrintingCamp” I was interested. I helped launch the web site, and have contributed (at little bit) to organizing and attempting to get sponsors (I’ve got none yet) there’s still a lot of work to do before July 21st, 2012.

Yes, the date is July 21st, 2012. The location is Sector67 in Madison, Wisconsin. All the other details are at 3dprintingcampwi.com.

And what is 3DPrintingCamp? Well, it’s a participant-driven unconference focused on the emerging technology of 3D printing. You may be interested in 3D printing for personal fabrication of functional parts, or maybe you want to create beautiful objects that would fit in the “art” category. Perhaps you want to produce organs to save lives. The people involved in this event believe that 3D printing will change the world.

If this is all a bit above your head, that’s OK. Join us and learn about 3D printing technology. Find out what a spool of plastic and an open source bot can do for you.

Oh, this event is FREE, but you do need to register. As of my writing this we’ve got 41 people registered and we’re limited to 125 people max, so sign up now.

And if you’re interested in sponsoring, we could really use the help to make this event even more awesome… thanks!

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2012.04.04

DamCamp ReCap

DamCamp

DamCamp (aka BarCamp Beaver Dam) happened on Saturday, March 24th, 2012 and this is my review…

First off, I will shout out a big thanks to Jason Gullickson, his wife, Wayland Academy, the Beaver Dam Makerspace Project, and anyone else who helped organize the event and made it happen.

Wayland

The Venue
DamCamp was held at Wayland Academy, which is a coeducational college preparatory boarding and day school in Beaver Dam. The main room was an auditorium, which was full of seats, a stage, large screen, and projector. There were two other rooms we were going to use, but we really ended up just using one other room, the lab, where the 3D printers were set up. The venue was easy to get to, and there was plenty of free parking! :)

The People
This was the smallest BarCamp I had ever been to… and that isn’t a bad thing. I remember times in BarCampMilwaukee history when some people were very focused on the numbers, and personally, I prefer quality over quantity. If the right people are there, that’s better than more people being there.

I saw people I knew who I haven’t seen in a while, met some new people, and met people IRL that I’d only met online before. What more could you ask for?

Time Lapse Bot 3

My Junk
If you’ve been to a BarCamp with me, you know I tend to bring a lot of stuff. I’ve been known to bring a photo booth, cameras, tripods, audio recording gear, tables, 200 feet of extension cords, power strips, and on and on. This time I brought Time Lapse Bot, the Egg-Bot, Friday Night Drawbot, my still camera, and not much else. It only took me about 3 trips to load in! (And I found it quite refreshing.)

Friday Night Drawbot

The Sessions
After the opening and introductions we launched into the first session… which happened to be my session. I gave a quick talk about some art robots that I like, and my take on what an art robot is (and isn’t) and then did a demo of the Friday Night Drawbot and the Egg-Bot. (Slides are here.)

I did not keep track of all the sessions, but we did one on 3D printing (there were 3 RepRaps there) and one on creating hackerspaces/makerspaces, and one on making noise with electronics. I ended up getting a lot of good info from the 3D printing session, and I’m a bit more motivated to find the time to finish my RepRap build. (Less sleep is the obvious answer!)

In conclusion, I had a good time, and I learned things. It was a small event, but I don’t think that detracted from it at all. In fact, I wouldn’t mind seeing more smaller events. BarCampMilwaukee is big, and it’s awesome, but it’s also a lot of work, involving a lot of people. Perhaps both ends of the spectrum can co-exist.

If you haven’t been to a BarCamp event yet… why not!? Maybe you’re more into food than technology. Well, you should consider attending Madison Food Camp which is coming up April 7th, 2012! (Yes, I said “Food” not “FOO”, just to be clear.)

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2012.03.18

Art Robots at DamCamp

Make Zine Egg

DamCamp is coming up on Saturday, March 24th, 2012 in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin… and I’ll be there talking about Art Robots, machines that draw, and other various nerdy things.

So besides the Egg-Bot, I’ll also have the Friday Night Drawbot there, and talk about a number of other art robots I’ve seen, and would like to someday build.

There’s been so much intersection between art and technology lately (at least in the groups I’m involved with) that I’m really hoping for a lively discussion. Of course we’ll also have a fun demo too.

Since the event is being put on by Beaver Dam’s fledgling makerspace project, I thought printing a Make Magazine egg would be a good introduction to the magazine and blog for those who might not be familiar with it yet… :)

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