Open day 2011

On Sunday 29th May 2011 we held the first Big Open Day Event as a celebration of the new Hackspace "2.0" and a publicity/recruitment opportunity. It was a great success, attracting many visitors and new members. Guests were invited to attend from other Hackspaces and the event was widely advertised locally & nationally.

Summary

The day was split into two parts.

The 1st Part: Members, friends and guest of Nottingham Hackspace brought projects/items of interest etc to show to the general public. There were demos, presentations, and tours of the Hackspace.

The 2nd Part The Hackspace Warming Party from 16:00 involved eating drinking & making merry.

What happened?

Talks

• About the Hackspace and the Hackerspace movement -- Dominic
• Knitting with nontraditional items -- Kate

Soldering Area

• Solder Badges -- Matt Little and others
• Drawdio -- Matt Little and others

Drawing with a Drawdio

Bike Area

Matt Little (and others) demonstrated pedal-powered machines, bicycle hacks and unicycling.

Persistence of vision (POV) built into bicycle spokes

The peddle bubble machine

Unicycling in chainmail!

And in the kitchen there were peddle powered smoothies

Interactive Area

In the interactive area visitors had a chance to try lock picking, crochet, and chainmail making, and the knitting machine was on display.

The lock picking table.

Visitors could try on chainmail.

And there was a change make chainmail.

Meet the Hackers/Members Area in Studio

Nottinghack members and others from Northackton demonstrated their projects in the studio.

RepRap 3D Printing -- Lwk

Jake's Props, guns, cameras, books, and instructables

Face casting

Braille Tweeter under construction and tactile rubiks cubes -- Russell and Rocio

Other projects included:

• Kate's Knitting
• Arduino Tank
• TV Out Board
• Cheesiod
• Milk bottle lights by Davidhayward

If you have good photos that were taken on the open day, please upload them and let us know.

Additional credits

The open day gave us the impetus to get lots of things finished off. In addition to all the projects listed above, many people helped with preparation for the event.

Tony's giant H

• Tony_S finished painting the giant H, which has become a distinctive feature of the space. He also painted the signs outside by the Alfred Street door, and ones to point around the corner.
• James got extra drinks to stock up Snackspace.
• We (mostly User:Lwk) tidied up the blue room.
• We tidied the tools and workshop (for once), mopped the floors and cleaned the toilets!
• Lwk mounted the uk map on the pin board by the members window and got some map pins:
  • Green for Nottinghack members
  • Red: Visitors
  • Blue: other Hackspace's friends and places we have visited.
• We installed the cinema seats.
• We got the LED matrix partly working (enough for a demo).
• Energy monitor. Just use the OWL, no time to rig to nanode(which don't have) --Lwk
• Lwk rebuilt a bench.
• Jake made some tags to be worn around necks, reading 'Ask me about membership', complete with the info on the back incase people selling the space forget.
• And Jake lent us his projector, which he later donated to the space.

If you're name is not here then that's just because we didn't keep records. Thank you all!