http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/06/us/worries-over-defense-dept-money-...

*Colonel Wiedenman is managing both the grant for the high school program
and a $3.5 million grant to the retail start-up TechShop<http://www.techshop.ws/> (it
is a bit like a Kinko’s, but instead of copiers, members pay to use laser
cutters). As part of that contract, Darpa employees will have access to
TechShop’s tools after midnight, when the doors are closed to the public,
since Darpa has no lab space of its own.*
*
*
That is funny as hell. The DARPA kids don't have their own toys to play
with so they made arrangements to use the hackerspaces'.

Ok. So here is a lovely hypothetical for us - DARPA comes a callin with
cash on hand. Do we accept it? And for arguments sake lets say they have no
influence on whatever projects are being worked on, but they do ask for at
least access to whatever it is we come up with.

I was just talking to the friend who has some first hand knowledge of DARPA
and this sort of program is to; 1) Encourage lateral thinking in the more
conventional design groups.  Stuck on a problem?  Some high school kids in
Moline solved a similar problem so go and look at their solution. 2)
Discover, who are the people who have the skills we need but don't show up
on the conventional education radar. How many of us were not the most
exemplary students? 3) Encourage science, math engineering skills while
bypassing the conventional education structure.  Trig is
BOOOOOORRRIIINNNGG!!!  But, it is fun to make a robot that uses trig
functions.

And then blow shit up.. I kid I kid. I'd actually be ok with a gig at DARPA.

When you make gunpowder at ten and nitro at eleven blowing things up has
great appeal.

      "Jamie want big boom."

On 10/7/2012 6:42 PM, Kevin Crowley wrote:

Remind me to tell you about my freshman year of high school and 60 grams of strontium nitrate and magnesium powder... Good times.

On 10/7/2012 8:45 PM, Ed Hagopian wrote:

3lbs of sodium, a storm sewer and a light rain.

--
-jason

I know DARPA doesn't give a damn about my artwork, but if they made it
a stipulation that they get access to anything the 'Space does, does
that apply to every member?  Or would it be the case that only certain
member projects that interest them get direct funding?  If that's the
case, wouldn't they just use the Makerspace to funnel grants to things
that interest them, as opposed to funding the Makerspace as a whole?

To simplify, though it seems like a stupid question, if they gave us
funding, would all of us be affected by any blanket-stipulations put
on said funding?  Without wanting to start a war of words here, that
would be enough for me to leave.

On Oct 7, 10:57 pm, jason gessner <ja...@multiply.org> wrote:

Some random comments about government funding:

For several decades after WWII, the only way to get *anything* funded
was to attach the word "Defense" to it, regardless of whether that made
any sense or not. For example, the Interstate Highway System was
officially called the "Defense Interstate Highway System", but I don't
think anyone outside the Washington beltway ever actually believed it
had anything to do with defense (it was more about "Autobahn Envy").

Also, Arpa (later renamed Darpa) was established to do research that the
private sector wasn't interested in financing. Again, attaching it to
the Pentagon was a handy way of getting it past Congress. It had all
kinds of civilian applications, because anything that's not actually a
weapon will have both civilian and military uses. (This proves that
Government is evil. Or something.)

IMHO, any kind of grant money (government or otherwise) should only be
used for one-time expenses, and never for ongoing expenses (eg, rent).

There's also the idea of how far this extends.  If DARPA financed our
acquisition of computer programs and those were used to create
something which was then manufactured outside of the 'Space, what
"access" would they have?

In short, there are far too many questions that we would be unable to
answer without reading a contract...but speculation can be fun sport,
occassionally.  :)

On Oct 8, 3:24 pm, Ron Bean <makersp...@rbean.users.panix.com> wrote:

*TechShop <http://www.techshop.ws/>* memberships are $125/mo with discounts
for paying yearly.  They say they have plans for more locations.  I didn't
see a complete listing of equipment offered for these premium priced
memberships

Buggs