Summary of last night’s meeting

The meeting was attended by approximately dozen persons. With representatives from Portland Machinist Guild and Mid-Michigan Woodworkers Guild attended, along with some persons from TechSmith and several teachers from the area’s public K-12 schools.

All parties are interested in the formation of a Lansing area public fabrication studio, also called a Maker Space or Hackerspace, similar to others such as; I3-Detriot, MakerWorks (Ann Arbor) TechShop (Dearborn), www.shoprat.org(Jackson) and All-Hand-Active (Ann Arbor). Links can be found at http://www.highimpedanceairgap.com/other-maker-pages-1

In short this meeting became the incubation of newborn “Lansing Maker’s Network”. With a goal of coalescing the different greater Lansing maker type groups.

We can shortly expect to see a (this) email group and from there group discussions on who, what, where, when and how we can coalesce, and proceed with the goal of providing a community, that can bridge the different area’s and multi-generational gaps.

Our take-a-way action items were:
Create the email Group
o http://groups.google.com/group/lansing-makers-network
Next Meeting
o http://whenisgood.net/wkw22pm
Interest Survey
For representatives of other groups to solicit and gage support by their group.
Solicit support by other groups not attended
o There are quite a few arts and crafts groups that fall in with our goals.
o Is there a match with org’s:
§ K-12 STEM’s “Project Lead the Way” www.pltw.org.
§ ITEC
§ YMCA
§ Boy/Girl Scouts/Club
§ I5
§ Lansing Parks and Recreation
§ Home School Groups
o Along with other that may be interested in just a meeting space.
§ GLLUG
§ Ruby/Phython Group
Possible group road trip to MakerWorks
Preliminary look for any grants or corporate sponsorships
o Discover what their requirements are.
o Micro Grant SOUP Events (like http://www.detroitsoup.com/home/about/)
Define a common workspaces requirements as a tenant.
Preliminary look for any projects either inter-discipline or not, that our new “Lansing Maker’s Network”, can mentor.
o Hosting a PineCar Derby, (similar but not too be confused with Boy Scout’s Pinewood Derby) with possible competition against other hackerspaces, such as I3’s recent Pine Car Derby.
o Host a Rube Goldberg contest. http://www.rubegoldberg.com
o Hosting other Cub Scout/BSA
§ http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/CubScouts/Activities/Adults/derbies.aspx
§ “Space Derby” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_derby
(Wow - I remember doing this.)
§ Rain gutter Regatta
(Again – I remember doing this. lost memories)
o Intro Classes
§ Home Electronic Repair
§ Beginning Soldering, make your own blinking LED badge (9th grade and up, great parent/kid projects)
§ Micro-Computers for beginners, Arduino projects (9th grade and up, great parent/kid projects)

Michael P. Flaga, michael@flaga.net