Chattlab invitation to Louisville Maker Faire + Crate Hack Challenge

[Amelia Gandara]

Hey all!

I'm with the organizing committee for Louisville Mini Maker Faire and the community builder for FirstBuild. We put together a special offer for makerspaces interested in traveling to our maker faire. I put together all the events that weekend to try to make it easy to see if you could pull a group together. 

I would like to cordially invite you to answer our Call For Makers at the Louisville Mini Maker Faire!  Last year we saw 12,000-17,000 people go through our one block event so this year we’ve decided to go bigger with 2 full blocks of maker fun!  There are numerous hotels nearby to stay at as well as many maker-destinations to visit including the LVL1 Hackerspace, the FirstBuild facility, and Velocity Indiana. We even have a special opportunity for a FREE appliance for makerspaces coming to Louisville. Check out the schedule and details below.

Schedule of Events:

Friday, September 26, 2014 5pm-7pm

FirstBuild Open House + Crate Hack

In honor of Louisville Mini Maker Faire occurring the next day, join us at FirstBuild to tour the space (tours every 30 minutes) and get a taste of the different projects being prototyped to create the next generation of home appliances. Meet our engineers and find out more about bringing your innovative ideas to life either at our micro-factory or online at FirstBuild.com.

Please RSVP to enjoy dinner with us before heading to Maker Mixer.

*Special opportunity for visiting Makerspaces/Hackerspaces - FirstBuild’s Crate Hack

The first 10 maker/hackerspace that enroll to attend Louisville Mini Maker Faire are invited to participate in FirstBuild’s Crate Hack with their newest product, Green Bean, that enables you to access the microcomputer inside specific GE appliances so you can build to control it. Green Bean is only limited by your creativity and programming skills.

The SDK (available on github) is a Node.js-based toolkit for accessing development and diagnostic functions on GE appliances. It operates on Mac, PC and Linux, so you can create apps to run from nearly and computing device - mobile phones, tablets, laptop PCs, or even mini-computers and MicroControllers like the Raspberry Pi.

FirstBuild will give each makerspace one appliance (options available) and a Green Bean. We just ask that you share your creations on the FirstBuild platform.

Please contact ame...@firstbuild.com for details.

Friday, September 26, 2014 7pm-Midnight

Maker Mixer

Maker Mixer is a party for regional makers in preparation for the Louisville Mini Maker Faire, presented by FirstBuild. Join us at Resurfaced in downtown Louisville.

Resurfaced

615-621 West Main Street

Louisville, KY 40202

What is Resurfaced?

As with many cities the size of Louisville, surface parking and underutilized vacant lots have weakened the urban fabric that provides great walkable environments for a good portion of the downtown and surrounding areas. The first initiative in the ReSurfaced movement is to take the currently underutilized space behind the facades of 615-621 West Main Street in downtown Louisville, and create a six week long pop-up beer garden, outdoor cafe, and event space.

Saturday, September 27, 2014

Louisville Mini Maker Faire

Maker Faire Louisville is a “Mini” Maker Faire and is a celebration of everything made in the Louisville, KY area. We aim to bring all the enthusiasm and all the fun on a slightly smaller scale. At Maker Faire Louisville Makers, Crafters, Inventors, Evil Geniuses, Scientists and Artists come together for a day of family-friendly fun and inspiration. From home-made cookies to home-made robots, Maker Faire: Lou promises something for everyone in a showcase of the American creative spirit.

---

Please contact me with any questions. Looking forward to meeting you and your fellow makers!

Amelia Gandara

928-446-5938

[Jeff Johnson]

FYI guys, LVL1 I am intimately familiar with, but FirstBuild and their facility is more of a General Electric effort that is innovating in the spirit of the maker movement.  So tours of the space mentioned here is of FirstBuild, not LVL1, but LVL1 is always open to the public.  They just moved to a bigger space.

[Amelia Gandara]

Yes, the open house from 5pm-7pm is for FirstBuild. LVL1 is also working with Louisville Maker Faire. If there is strong interest, we can get an some open house hours up at LVL1 too, though they are always open as long as a community member is there. LVL1 also plans to have a presence at the Maker Mixer that Friday. 

We can loop in Brad Luyster if you all would like.