What is LVL1?

LVL1 is a hackerspace in Louisville. A hackerspace is an open community lab and workshop democratically operated by it’s membership. We are friendly community of tinkerers, makers, engineers, educators, scientists, artists, hackers and overall geeks. Anyone who is, aspires to be, or just wants to hang around smart, creative, friendly mad scientist maker/hacker Louisvillians is welcome at LVL1! We’ve got lots of cool tools and equipment. We’ve got a lot of really bright and creative people. We like to work on (and show off) fun and challenging technical projects.

LVL1 Press

• The Hacktory a feature article about LVL1 in LEO Weekly, January 2011.
• ‘The can’t bottle this’: Could LVL1′s geek clubhouse turn into Louisville’s high-tech biz incubator? Insider Louisville, July 5th 2011
• ‘Maker movement’ expands to Louisville: Area gadget builders open workshop Courier-Journal July 19th, 2010
• Hack a Day visits LVL1 July 21, 2011
• LVL1 and White Star featured in the book Hack This!
• DIYLouisville interview with Chris C. from LVL1

How to get involved with LVL1

Does this sound like an endeavor you want to be a part of? … Great! Come and join us!

We highly recommend you show up for one of our Tuesday open meeting and open build nights! We briefly go through some membership agenda items. We tell you what’s currently going on at the space. We tell you about any challenges the space is facing (technical or otherwise). People are free to talk about projects they are working on or planning. Then once the meeting is adjourned, free-for-all making continues. Everyone is free to work on projects, socialize and geek out. It’s a great time to hang out with fellow geeks working on cool DIY tech projects. You’ll probably get inspired!

Again, we highly recommend you come to a meeting. There’s a common misperception that you should be a member before coming to these meetings. This is not true! At least 50% of our meeting attendees are ”not” dues paying members and ”all of them are welcome”. Most of those non-members have no intention of becoming dues paying members. That’s fine! There’s no pressure to become an official member! Official membership has some awesome benefits and we’d love to have you, but it’s cool if you just want to hang out and geek out.

You want to ease into LVL1 via the internets first? That’s cool too. We’ve got this wiki, mailing lists, blogs, twitters, etc. We especially recommend joining the Google Group. That’s where most of your discussion happens. Note: this can generate a lot of emails per day. Set up your filters, use the daily digest or use the RSS feed. Put us in your social network.

More Info

• FAQ
• LVL1 Flickr Group for Photos
• LVL1 Twitter
• LVL1 on Facebook

Interest Groups and Projects

• White Star Balloon – High Altitude Ballooning focused on Open Science and record breaking attempts
• Louisville Soundbuilders – Synthesizers and Circuitbending, DIY electronic noisemaking
• KYOSS Kentucky Open Source Society
• Kentucky-Indiana PC Users Group
• AND MUCH MORE! These are just the things that have gotten big enough that they want their own sub-group.