Time for a weekly Makerspace update
Next Meeting:
Topic: TBD: Probably work on Earth Day projects
When: Thursday, April 8, 7pm
Where: Company|Dallas 1701 N Collins Blvd, Richardson, TX 75080
Map: http://www.companydallas.com/?page_id=30
We don’t have a presentation planned for this week’s meeting, so we’ll
probably work on some of our pending projects for the upcoming DPRG /
Makerspace table at Oak Cliff Earth Day. We’ve come up with several
cool ideas to draw attention to the Makerspace and some of these still
need work. Check the wiki for the project list and don’t be surprised
if you end up disassembling old hard drives or ironing plastic bags at
this week’s meeting.
And, of course, we’ll also cover the usual makerspace topics such as
introductions of visitors and progress reports on finding space and
raising money.
News
At April 1 meeting we talked about our goals and discussed two options
1) get space immediately based on the current member count, which is
half our goal or 2) wait it out a little longer and continue
collecting new members. We’re all impatient to get some space so we
can start working more on cool projects and less on startup logistics.
But, since we seem to be gaining one or two new members per week, we
decided it really makes more sense to hold for at least another couple
of weeks. We’re very likely to hit 20 members within that time and
that’s probably good number for an initial space.
Also at the April 1 meeting we talked about plans for our event at Oak
Cliff Earth Day and actually did some experiments with fusing HDPE
plastic into fabric. We got the process to work and several members
planned more experiments on their own. The success inspired us to go
all out and file an entry application for the EPA Earthfest Recycled
Fashion Show on April 22. There’s not much time to get from fused
plastic fabric to a runway model in an outfit so this is undoubtedly
the craziest thing we’ve attempted yet. Should be fun. We talked about
integrating an Arduino Lilypad into the outfit to provide some
electromechanical features. We’ve collected a range of other
interesting member projects to show off at the event. You can find the
full list in the wiki:
http://www.dallasmakerspace.com/wiki/Earth_Day_2010
There’s plenty of other new content in the wiki, so check it out. You
can keep up with all the lastest on the Wiki, twitter, or irc.
Makerspace wiki
http://www.dallasmakerspace.com/
Makerspace twitter
https://twitter.com/dallasmakers
DPRG/Makerspace IRC
irc://irc.freenode.net/#dprg
Membership Update
Current members: 16
Member Goal: 30
Member list: http://www.dallasmakerspace.com/wiki/Members
Come on folks, if you haven’t joined yet, please do so today. We’re
asking for a one-time up front donation of $100 or whatever you can
afford to help us reach our startup fund goal. After that, there will
be a monthly membership fee in the $30-40 range, depending on how many
members we have by the end March. If there’s something you’d like to
see happen before you plunk down your hard earned money to join up,
let us know what is and we’ll try to address it. We’d like to reach 30
members by the end of March to keep our plans for getting office/
warehouse space on track.
Startup Fund Update
DPRG contribution: $1000
Member donations: $2550
Supporter donations: $135
Total: $3685
Goal : $6000
We’re over halfway there! We know these aren’t the best times
financially for non-profits to ask for donations but if you can
squeeze out a few dollars, you’re helping to create a group that could
potentially have a big impact on Dallas and make our city a more
interesting place to live. Any donation will help, however small. To
make a donation, visit the DPRG’s Dallas Makerspace project page:
