Never let it be said that we do not know how to lose gracefully…

Back in July Milwaukee Makerspace was selected to take part in the Hackerspace Challenge put on by Popular Mechanics and RadioShack. We assembled a team, got working, and created the Milwaukee Makerspace Morgifying Marble Manipulation Machine (aka: M6) in about 30 days.

We asked for your votes, and we got a lot of them, but in the end, the folks at Inspiration Labs got more. But hey, they built a TARDIS, so we love their project too!

Our team here in Milwaukee had a blast working on the M6, and it’ll probably be an ongoing project, so if you stop by the space, ask to see it in action!

As we mentioned back in July, Milwaukee Makerspace was selected to take part in the 2013 Hackerspace Challenge put on by RadioShack and Popular Mechanics, and now we can reveal it all, and we’re also asking for your vote!

Head on over to www.popmechnow.com/radioshack, watch the videos, and vote for the best project. I mean, we’re pretty confident you’ll prefer our project, but check out the awesome stuff that the guys from Inspiration Labs did. Hey, it’s got a TARDIS so those guys must be alright! ;)

I know you really want to see the Milwaukee Makerspace Morgifying Marble Manipulation Machine (aka: M⁶) mark your calendar for October 19th, 2013 because Milwaukee MakerFest will feature the M⁶ as for you experience in person!

(Oh yeah, we’re also running a Kickstarter Campaign to help make Milwaukee MakerFest ever more awesome. Help us out if you can!)

Last year it was East vs. West, and this year it’s Milwaukee Makerspace vs. some unsuspecting challenger! That’s right, we’ve been chosen to take part in this year’s Hackerspace Challenge put on by Popular Mechanics and RadioShack!

During the month of July our team will be busy building, uh, something, and we may be a bit hush-hush about it until it’s done, but don’t worry, once completed you’ll see and hear all about it! :)

Oh, and this year’s theme is “Turn something old into something new” which you can imagine we’re going to have quite a bit of fun with…

Thanks to our friends at Adafruit Industries, we’ve got an awesome Raspberry Pi Starter Pack (and a few other goodies) and we decided that rather than fight over who gets to play with it, we’d issue a challenge to our members: Tell us what you’d build with the kit.

The results are in, and we’ve got a bunch of entries to look at before we decided who will be chosen take on the challenge. Hopefully in the next week or so we can reveal what the winning entry is.

But don’t worry, we’re going to share a bunch of the ideas right here on the blog. We may not get to build them all, but we’ll do our best to highlight some of the ideas that our members have come up with.

(If you’re looking to get into using the Raspberry Pi in your projects, you’d do well to check out the Adafruit Learning System’s category on the topic.)

If you don’t have enough to do this weekend (or you really love space and consider yourself a citizen scientist) you might want to join the International Space Apps Challenge.

On Saturday, April 21st, and Sunday, April 22nd, 2012 hacker and makers around the world will be joining together to work on software, hardware, data visualizations, and other projects to solve current challenges relevant to both space exploration and social need. Even the folks on the International Space Station will be taking part!

Learn more about it here, browse the list of challenges, and if you want to get involved, register!

As we’ve mentioned in some previous posts, a few of our members took part in The Tool at Hand Milwaukee Challenge recently at Sweet Water Organics, so I figured I’d add just one more post to tell you about the event.

First of all, I should state that Milwaukee’s Art Community is one of those things that makes this city special. We’re lucky to have such talented artists here, and we at Milwaukee Makerspace are honored to be a part of it. That said, the show itself was well put together, and the variety of pieces shown was fascinating. I’d suggest a big round of applause for the Chipstone Foundation for making this all happen. But, hey, we’re here to talk about our makers! :)

On the left we’ve got Kevin’s piece, which includes a table and a set of “rocks” he created with an angle grinder. Kevin was unable to make it to the show, so I tried my best to answer questions about his piece. People were definitely interested in it, but alas, it did not rise to the challenge of being selected for the Milwaukee Art Museum. I think that’s fine though, as Kevin already has a spot in his home picked out for it.

On the right we’ve got a door with laser-etched glass courtesy of Jason H. (with a little help from his partner Dena.) This too is a piece that belongs in a home, and by that I mean it’s beautiful and should be on display. I get the feeling Jason may be etching more glass for people in the future…

And here we have Shane’s piece titled “A Dream Half-Remembered” which was created with the chopsaw and a lot of wood. Shane put a many hours into this thing, and it shows. There were challenges along the way, but in the end we got it there in one piece, and got it attached to a concrete wall, so I call it a success!

Last, and maybe least, is my piece, titled “Plastic Sun” which was created with a heat gun, and about 200 plastic grocery bags. I won’t go into too many details, but if you want to see more photos, or the video I produced, head over to my project page for it.

While none of our pieces were selected for inclusion into the exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum, that’s just fine. We all had fun doing this, and we met a lot of great people at the event, from artists to art-enthusiasts, some of whom were interested in the Makerspace.

The One Tool Challenge is a great concept, and who knows, maybe it’s something we might want to see happen as a Milwaukee Makerspace event, either restricted just to the members, or opened up to the public as well.

So what tool would you choose?