Good news for London makers/hackers- the London Hackspace just relocated to a newer, bigger venue, and is having a spacewarming party to celebrate the move! Here's the details: The London Hackspace is a non-profit, community-run hacker space in central London. We provide a space where people who make things can come to share tools and knowledge. We've just signed the lease on our new workshop - "Laboratory 24" - in Shoreditch. This larger venue will enable us to provide many more facilities than were possible in our previous space. To celebrate our move we're having a party/open evening on the 1st of August. This is a great chance for interested non-members to have a look at the space, but also for everybody to get to know like-minded hackers with similar or completely different interests, discuss projects and techniques, and generally just hang out and have a beer. Spacewarming party @London Hackspace
Sunday, Aug 1, 2010, 2:00pm +
Laboratory 24
Unit 24, Cremer Business Centre, 37 Cremer Street, London E2 8HD
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I moved to Detroit eleven years ago, in what I thought was a short stay exclusively to attend graduate school. After witnessing the potential to work, educate, and maintain a studio practice here, I never used my ticket home to the East Coast. In just a few years after founding my neckwear design company, The Cyberoptix Tie Lab, I was able to quit the proverbial "day job" and work full-time in my studio without having to worry about the outrageous overhead costs that plague start-ups in many other major cities. This freedom allowed me to quickly grow my business to a level where my work is now
represented by over 200 boutique and museum shops across the country and on five continents. I don't know if I could have done this anywhere else.
Detroit is the freedom to make things, to incubate ideas, and to act as a means of catalyzing social change. Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in Making Detroit | Digg this! 
Born in Ohio in 1885, Ernest "Mooney" Warther took work in a steel mill at age 14. In his spare time, he whittled, and developed great skill. At 28, he built a modest workshop in the backyard of the family home and undertook what would come to be regarded as his masterpiece: A series of 64 carvings, starting with Hero's Engine and ending with the Union Pacific "Big Boy" locomotive, depicting the history and evolution of the steam engine. He was "discovered" in 1923, quit his job at the steel mill and, after touring the country for six months, devoted himself entirely to carving and handiwork. 
During the Second World War, Mr. Warther put aside his personal projects to make commando-style fighting knives for American servicemen. He was not a government contractor and therefore had to scrounge for materials; even so, with the help of the community, he was able to deliver more than 1,100 knives. He was a pacifist, but wanted American servicemen to have access to the best equipment. He was working on the knife pictured above when, in 1945, news reached him that the war had ended. He put the knife down, unfinished, and never picked it up again. The Warther family treasures it to this day. You can read more about Ernest Warther and see his remarkable wood carvings online at the Internet Craftsmanship Museum, or in person at the Warther Family Museum in Dover, Ohio. Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in Makers | Digg this!
 Detroit is my hometown. I grew up here during the 50s and 60s, lived in a neat and homogeneous white, largely Jewish, neighborhood in Northwest Detroit, and walked to the tiny Arthur H. Vandenberg Elementary School every day from kindergarten through eighth grade, coming home for lunch at noon. My world changed when I (along with four 8th grade boys) was invited to attend Cass Technical High School downtown, near Tiger Stadium. Dating back to 1904, Cass Tech in the 60s was a huge place, occupying an entire city block; nine floors high; drawing about 4,000 students from all over the city, who majored in any number of subjects—from science and arts (like me) to design and drafting, chemistry, music, performing arts, and electrical engineering.
My inclination was to opt out of the offer. The prospect of being the only girl in the group (and being labeled "smart" to boot) was not appealing. In fact, it was frightening. But in this case, my mother really 'knew best." She insisted that I give Cass a try, and taking that opportunity changed my life. The world I entered was diverse in every way and full of intellectual and social challenges. My teachers and peers stretched my mind, piqued my curiosity for learning, and set the academic bar high. I was a cub reporter on the Cass Technician, the school rag, interviewed visiting luminaries like Charlton Heston and homegrown talent like The Supremes (Diana Ross went to Cass), and I eventually became editor-in-chief. As a fine arts minor, I made jewelry, tried watercolor and calligraphy, and took my first art history course. Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in Making Detroit | Digg this! 
Live in or near Provo, UT, and want to test your project skills in an online competition? TheTransistor hackerspace is competing in a hackerspace build-off, and is looking for a few good makers to help with an upcoming mystery project. The competition is open to the public: Full details have not been release yet; but this will be open to the public (as long as you fill out the release form). Here are the details so far: - 5 Hackerspaces will compete in a professionally recorded web-only event.
- theTransistor has already been selected as one of these groups.
- The build-off should start the first week of August, the exact dates are still unknown.
- The build-off will last 2-3 Weeks.
- Participants won't be required to be there every day.
- The build-off will revolve around a task that will be announced on day 1 to all participants.
- Each space will be given a budget to complete the task.
- As far as I know there are no prizes / etc for 'winning'. This will be more about learning and doing.
- Participants will not be required to be a member of the hackerspace or pay any entry fees to help.
- Participants appearing on camera will need to sign a basic agreement with the producing company. ( Very basic: you aren't allowed to talk about the results / etc. until after it 'airs', they aren't responsibly if you blow up / melt / etc.)
- You DON'T need any special skills as I understand it; this should be about the community. Anyone who would like to can participate.
If this interests you please stop by this weekend (2010.07.31, 6:00pm)
for more details and to sign up. This will be a great opportunity to
get together and help with a project. Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in Events | Digg this! 
MAKE Volume 23 is on newsstands now! In this special GADGETS issue, we show you how to make a menagerie of delightful machines: a miniature electronic Whac-a-Mole arcade game, a tiny but mighty see-through audio amplifier, a magic mirror that contains an interactive animated soothsayer, a self-balancing one-wheeled Gyrocar, and the Most Useless Machine — the creepy mechanical box whose only purpose is to turn itself off (as seen on The Colbert Report!). Plus: how Intellectual Ventures made their incredible laser targeting mosquito zapper, how to use the industrial-strength microcontrollers called PLCs, and a lot more. Project highlights in MAKE Volume 23 include: - The Most Useless Machine
- Gyrocar
- Squelette, the Bare-Bones Amplifier
- Magic Mirror
- Solar Car Subwoofer
- College Bike Trunk
and much more, of course! 
Don't forget - subscribers can always read the digital edition here.
Subscribe to the MAKE Podcast in iTunes, download the m4v video directly, or watch it on YouTube and Vimeo. Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in MAKE Podcast | Digg this! 
You may have seen this little beauty floating through the interwebs. It's an Altoids Tin-based COSMAC Elf, built around the classic RCA COSMAC 1802 microprocessor. It's the prototype to a kit that Lee Hart has been developing. P. Todd Decker (Overland Park, KS) sent us a link to this video of his build of the kit prototype. He writes: I have completed a build of Lee Hart's "COSMAC Elf Membership Card." The idea behind Lee's design was to create an interesting kit to introduce new people to the classic RCA COSMAC 1802 historic microprocessor. This processor has a long, interesting history and is even still used, due to its unique properties when it comes to power and durability. It was the basis for the famous "Elf" home-built computers from the late 1970s. It still has a strong following. Lee's twist on the old reliable was to rework it into an Arduino-style platform that—best of all for makers—fits into an Altoids can. His design doesn't require any surface-mount or complicated build techniques. Herb Johnston has done an excellent job of documenting Lee's efforts to create this kit (see link below).
Lee Hart's 1802 "Membership Card"
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