First meeting / event.

[Adam Bachman]

We're looking to have a first event sometime in the late May, early
June time frame, I wanted to throw a few ideas into the mix.

## Possible events:

1. Ambient Orb workshop. Come work on your own hardware/software based
ambient orb related project. Might involve cost if we decided to
provide hardware ($10 - $40 based on kit and qty). (original at
http://www.ambientdevices.com/cat/orb/orborder.html)

2. Stuff swap. Come trade your spare parts, unused computer equipment,
tools, kits, whatever. OR, if no one wants it, maybe we could add it
to a centralized box (or bin) of community equipment. A local version
of "The Great Internet Migratory Box Of Electronics Junk"
(http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/junkbox) perhaps.

3. Meet & greet + show & tell. Beer (or soda), food (potluck), and
tech projects. Bring your art, wires, and code and be ready to talk
about them. Or come out and check out what everyone else is doing and
get inspired for your own projects.

4. Hackerspace @ BarCamp. Set up in a corner of the UB event space and
engage as many people as possible in conversation.

A: What are you working on?
B: I'm writing code to control this robot from my ipod touch.
A: Why?
B: Why not?
A: Sign me up!

or something like that. (a la
http://wiki.thelasthope.org/index.php/TLH_Hackerspace_Village That
event was put on in part by some folks from HacDC, maybe we could
invite them up and get some support at BarCamp?)

## Possible Dates:

Either of the last two weekends in May (20, 21 and 27, 28) are good
for me. Weeknights are not out of the question, but make it harder
with folks with families and kids to bring them along if the format is
family-friendly (i.e. potluck picnic-style in a park, or something).
BarCamp is early enough in June that maybe we could run a happy hour
show and tell in May (or everyone could just come out to dorkbot on
May 19) and then focus on running a temporary hackerspace at barcamp.

## Notes

All or none of these would be possible, maybe something else
altogether. #3 is already a lot like dorkbot, except I'm adding the
potluck because I like potlucks. Does anyone have experience with any
of these? I've been doing parts of #3 with dorkbot and [helping my
wife with] foodmake.org, but would like to actually get my hands
dirty, which is why 1, 2, and 4 are attractive.

NOTE: this does not preclude the necessity for an actual official
planning meeting, like with voting and minutes and stuff. If there's
going to be a space and going to be $$ changing hands, we need to go
about it formally. I'm just suggesting we move on an event to drum up
interest, get people involved, and figure out exactly what we want
this to be.


- Adam

[Jon Lesser]

Hi Adam and everyone else,

I don't think I've met any of you in person, but I live in Charles
Village and came across some of mehuman's tweets by way of
hackerspaces.org. I got interested in hackerspaces after chatting with
the people from HacDC and the Harford Hackerspace at Robotfest last
weekend.

All of those event ideas sound great, Adam. I like #1 plus a little #3
for a first event. Make something, talk about projects,and share some
food! Teas and cookies, perhaps?

The orb is really simple to put together and has a lot of nice
elements: network connectivity, tangibility, pretty colors. If people
brought their own arduino's, the rest of the materials could be bought
or improvised cheaply (tissue paper?) and we could have fun coming up
with interesting data sources to drive the colors. Alternatively,
people could come with pre-made orbs and we could focus more on
discussing ideas and food. In either case, several orbs, each changing
color to a different stimulus would be nice decoration for a future
baltimore hacker space.

Any of the dates you mentioned could work for me. A weekend afternoon
sounds nice.

Cheers,
Jon

On Apr 29, 11:26 am, Adam Bachman <adam.bach...@gmail.com> wrote:
> We're looking to have a first event sometime in the late May, early
> June time frame, I wanted to throw a few ideas into the mix.
>
> ## Possible events:
>
> 1. Ambient Orb workshop. Come work on your own hardware/software based
> ambient orb related project. Might involve cost if we decided to

> provide hardware ($10 - $40 based on kit and qty). (original athttp://www.ambientdevices.com/cat/orb/orborder.html)