Fw: StudentRND

[Justin Burns]

Sorry to those of you getting this twice - we'll be consolidating all mailing-list type activities in the very near future!

I wanted to forward along this experience from one of our members. StudentRND is a new Makerspace in Bellevue, with some impressive projects already under its belt. They have "open hours" on Saturdays from 12pm-7pm, this seems like the perfect time to plan a visit. If anyone is interested in taking a field trip up there, drop me a line!

Forwarded message:

From: Bob Spafford <bobsp...@gmail.com>
To: Justin Burns <just...@gmail.com>
Date: Friday, November 18, 2011 2:27:22 PM
Subject: StudentRND

Justin,
I have had several very positive interactions with a maker space on the
East Side called StudentRND. As far as creation of an Oly maker space
is concerned, I highly recommend picking the brains of this group. They
have created a large maker space on the basis of donations alone. There
is no membership required, or payment expected, to use this space. I
find that to be pretty amazing in this day and age. The $2000+ per
month rent (It is a large, two story space) is covered by Microsoft.
Electronic gear has come their way from various high tech businesses.
They have put up a proposal on Kickstarter which immediately went to a
status of 850% oversubscribed. Therefore, full funding of a proposed
laser cutter has been assured. I was privy to conversations about how
much labor needs to be donated for the manufacture of the unexpectedly
large number of assembled units pledged. It sounded like an excess of
soldering iron time has already been promised by the lucky kids who
frequent this amazing maker place. StudentRND will end up with a new
laser cutter and a considerable pile of money after completion of this
Kickstarter project!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/studentrnd/plasma-speaker?ref=live

The founder and "CEO" is a young kid named Edward Jiang. He looks to be
barely out of high school! I think that it would be worthwhile for the
Oly group leaders to gather detailed info on how he pulled off creating
this amazing outfit. I attach a scan of their card. I have found my
visits to StudentRND do indeed Inspire. The Eastside Makers just did a
build meetup with 16 out of 16 Freeduinos built working first time.
Huzza! http://www.makeseattle.net/ StudentRND has hosted several of
our meetings now, at no charge. Everybody loves free! It's downright
Communistic! A recommended Go See.

Justin, feel free to forward this note to whomever you please.

Regards,
Bob Spafford