We are holding our first Hackathon at the Lomira Library.  Bring projects to work on, whatever you want.

A Hackathon is a wonderful thing, you can work on your projects non-stop for the whole day and through the night if you so choose.  Not only can you focus on your projects but you can also get inspiration and input from the hackers around you.  Stuck on a problem? Put it to the group.  It’s also a great way to get ideas for future projects or maybe get excited enough about something that you change direction on the spot.

Make sure you bring everything you need and perhaps some stuff you’re not sure if you’ll need. You might be the hero of someone else’s project.

It will be a blast. Get excited!

We will start at noon on June 1st at Lomira QuadGraphics Community Library, 427 South Water Street, Lomira, WI.

Josh Cowles is organizing BarCamp FDL.  Check out the Facebook group page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/BarCampFDL. Read his copy below to see what it’s all about and please participate, it will be awesome.

We’re going to have a BarCamp in Fond du Lac this year! Keep tabs on our progress here, or join our Google Group to help out!
https://groups.google.com/d/forum/barcampfdl

What is BarCamp?
BarCamps are community-organized events *loosely* centered around technology and creativity. Instead of expensive conferences with exclusive speakers, BarCamps are typically free to attend and the speakers are the attendees themselves!

FDL BarCamp will strive to be inclusive of many interests – the acronym STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, math) is a good start, and we’re open to a very expansive definition of any of those items.

Last Saturday I attended Make Lomira, hosted at the Lomira Quadgraphics Community Library by Directory Shannon Barniskis.  There were about 10 total exhibitors including an electronic music demo, 2 different 3d printers, an Arduino demo, fly fishing, wool spinning, a “learn to solder” session and an artist.  I was there with my pile of noise toys.

It was a great event, many young faces excited about the things on display.

We had another great meetup at the Lomira QuadGraphics Community Library last night.  Shannon Barniskis (Directory of the Lomira Library) is hosting daily activities all this week as part of Make Lomira.  The evening kicked off with Mark Baltzley’s terrific demonstration of screen printing, everybody there got to pull a print.  Josh Cowles and Tim Bertram made it down from Fond du lac.  Josh works in the Fond du Lac library so he and Shannon had some great conversations.  Josh is also organizing Barcamp FDL, check out his facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/BarCampFDL/.

The Maker Meetup community now has a faithful core of awesome makers but we need to keep growing.  If you have been thinking about checking it out but haven’t made it yet, now is the time.  If you have tapped some people that you think would be interested but they haven’t come to a meetup, please send them a reminder.  I’ll be posting the event for the next meeting today.

I apologize for neglecting the blog for anyone that is reading, as is often the case these days it took a second seat to the social media venues.  In any case we’ve had a few meetups since the last post and things are starting to roll.

The next meetup is at our default venue, Beaver Dam Culvers, 1601 N. Spring Street.  We’ve built enough of a group to start talking about future activities, come out and share your ideas for the community.

We now have a presence on both Facebook(fb.me/MakerMeetup) and Google+((http://goo.gl/YHq9n ), so pick your social media poison.

We had a great meetup last Thursday at Beaver Dam Culver’s. Four of us had a  terrific chat about all things hacker.  Jim Lind spoke about his fascinating Telecine project for capturing 8mm film.  Check out some of the details on his blog.  Also in attendance: Megan Sheridan from the Beaver Dam Citizen and Mike Seeley.  It was an awesome time and I can hardly wait until the next.

Speaking of which, the next meetup is scheduled for this coming Wednesday, January 27th at Beaver Dam Culver’s (1601 N Spring St.).

Also click on the SCHEDULE link above to see future scheduled meetups.

I’m on vacation this coming week so the next meetup with be after I get back.  We’ll be meeting at 7pm in the Beaver Dam Culver’s at 1601 N Spring St.

Check in on Google+.

Please help spread the word.  Download the flyer and post it everywhere.

This is your community so we need everyone’s help to make it happen.

Our first meetup with be at 7pm on Wednesday, February 6th in Beaver Dam.  We will be gathering at the Seippel Arts Center.  The address is 1605 N Spring Street.

Bring something to share, I’ll be bringing a couple of my noise toys.