Hive’s Valentine Hackshop – February 9th

 

1:00 – 5:00 PM   $10/ at door

Leave a comment below for RSVP 🙂

Got a sweetheart?  Want to meet a sweetheart?  David and Leslie are back to share the Valentine’s love.  Make sweet gifts and  learn about 3D printing and paper circuits at the same time.   For the gamer in your life,  there’s  a Valentine  Creeper.  Got an inspirational do-gooder?  Here’s a movie inspired MockingJay pin.  Just want to show you care?  Well, they’re working on a pixel heart necklace/keychain, that is sure to please.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While your piece prints, make a Valentine card that will illuminate your sweetheart’s soul.  Bring some materials from around your house and combine them with a variety of papers, copper tape, LED and battery to create the perfect paper circuit.  If you love crafting and electronics, you are about to experience  maker heaven.  If you’ve never been here before, you can tour the space and find out more about other member’s projects.  Munchies will be on hand.  Don’t forget to comment below so we know you are coming!

 

Exclusive: Zach Hoeken on leaving MakerBot and his future.

I met Zach Hoeken Smith at one of my first Hive76 events. I donated to the pledge drive to buy a MakerBot Cupcake CNC and extruder. Once the drive was successful and 3DPO built, Hive76 held a workshop to learn how to design and print with SketchUp and the MakerBot. Our instructor was MakerBot co-founder Zach himself. Afterwards, everyone went out to West Philly for some Ethiopian food. It was a nice time. I haven’t seen him since, so I was surprised to hear from fellow member Jordan Miller that Zach had left Makerbot and was living in China. I reached out to Zach for a chat and here’s what I learned about my favorite hardware innovator. Continue reading “Exclusive: Zach Hoeken on leaving MakerBot and his future.”

Show and tell at Hive76

Francis Rabuck from Bentley Systems stopped by with some staff on Wednesday’s open house after seeing the Wall Street Journal article on hackerspaces. They came to see the space and chat about making stuff so we obliged them and showed off our best toys. Mr. Rabuck also brought a promo model of a Golden-i virtual display. Here is a Wired article about the tech and the item’s website.

In short, the Golden-i is a small voice controlled computer with a display that hovers over your eye. It’s odd to see the device perched on someone’s cranium, but saying “My Programs” does indeed go to the appropriate screen and displays a My Photos and My Videos app in a row with others.

I can see this being a neat (expensive) addition to a smartphone interface, but man, it has some prettying up to do. It looks a little 1998 right now. That may be fitting because Golden Eye came out in 1995. I don’t know what I’m saying. My p̶r̶o̶f̶e̶s̶s̶i̶o̶n̶a̶l̶ amateur opinion is clean up the lines, add some new materials like alloy memory wire for the arms, and hide the plastic. But no one asked me.

Bentley and Motorola think this could be used in niche markets. The example Mr. Rabuck gave was construction workers accessing plans on the job site and navigating hands free. In CrunchGear, John Biggs recommends ignoring niches for tablet development. I’d say that’s fine advice for any new tech. It should be launched and then (to paraphrase Burning Chrome) the street will figure out its own use for it. Then you sell them an app for viewing blueprints or a remake of GoldenEye 007.

We appreciate Bentley Systems and associates dropping by for a chat. Feel free to bring your futuristic tech for us to play with any Wednesday night up on the 5th floor.