Well, it has been one epic month for the Mobile Makerspace. Our Google Plus membership stands at 92 members as of this morning. This is great news and shows how interested the people of Mobile are in our group. This has also been reflected in our physical meetings. Each time we meet we have more and more people and its great to see new faces each time.
We have also attended several events this month including the LoDa Artwalk and Jagfest. We met a lot of great people who showed a lot of interest in what we are doing. One thing we did differently at this artwalk than in the past, was we had the kids make the LED throwies instead of just passing them out. I think they liked that better and it is more in line with our desire to teach people about science and technology. Dana Spisak’s LED sensor board drew a lot of attention and kids couldn’t resist playing with it. Brent Quigley brought by some prints from his Ultimaker 3D printer to display. The quality this printer produces consistently impresses me. Thank you to everyone that came down and participated!
Jagfest was also a huge success and we got a lot of people to sign up for updates and notifications. We had a lot of computer science and engineering students drop by the table. Most of our senior leadership are all University of South Alabama alumni, so we hope to work more closely with the university in the future.
Last, but certainly not least, we completed our first workshop! We had over 20 people attend our Arduino Bootstrap Workshop this Saturday @ Ashland Gallery. Since it was our first workshop, it was a little crazy and we learned a lot, but I think everyone had a lot of fun. We finished a little early (We will plan for more content next time!) and some people began to show off some of their creations. Dana impressed everyone with his drawing machine. It was based on an Arduino Mega with a motor shield. It was a perfect compliment to the workshop since it showed everyone what can be done once you begin to create more complex projects. Some other participants had a foam cutter that they demonstrated. Its really exciting to see all of these talented people getting together to meet and exchange ideas. I had a lot of great conversations and I feel really good about the direction the group is going. At the end of the workshop Dana provided some door prizes and we raffled off some 3D printed objects, a coffee cup, and some prints from the drawing board.
Stay tuned we will have updated meeting and events scheduled soon!