(Shirt is actually two sided, contrary to picture)

Only probably available for the next two weeks! Order now or miss out FOREVER!

http://meatandnetworking.com/lvl1shirt2013/  <—- ORDER HERE

For the next two weeks, we’ll be taking orders for LVL1 T-Shirts.  This year’s, “Probably Safe”, was designed by Joseph.  Thanks so much Joseph!

As always, LVL1 is the multicolored hackerspace: You get to pick the color of your shirt! We’ve got four different styles available, with lots of different colors for each.  New this year, we’ll even ship your shirt! Add one “Shipping” item to your cart before you check out, and we’ll even mail it to you (mailed shirts won’t make it to Makerfaire, sorry!)  Most shirts are only $11!

So buy now, and buy often! http://meatandnetworking.com/lvl1shirt2013/

Lots and lots of cool stuff going on at LVL1 lately!  Our very own Todd Welsh will be teaching an Introduction to Beekeeping workshop on May 29th, from 7 to 9pm!  Todd has been beekeeping for several years, but not long enough to lose touch with the challenges of being a beginner.  He’ll help us all get through the initial hump of understanding bees.

This workshop is free, but you should RSVP (there are only 15 seats!) at Eventbrite, located here: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/6817530417

Come down to LVL1 on May 29th and learn how to keep your own army of flying, stinging, honey-producing minions!

As many of you are no doubt aware, after almost two years of paperwork, negotiating, and discussions with the IRS, LVL1 is now a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Organization!  This means LVL1 can now accept tax-deductible donations of money and physical items!

This has been an absolutely huge undertaking, from Joe P., filling out our first application, to Chris C. and Mark E. fighting for us every step and speed bump in the road, to Tim M. putting together a donation form and incorporating the responsibility of keeping 501(c)3 records into the office of the treasurer. Everyone in the LVL1 community owes these fine folks (and many more!) their due.

This goal comes with its fair share of responsibility, though.  Each and every one of us in the LVL1 community are responsible for maintaining the requirements of the 501(c)3 code.  We’ve put together a short page here with some rough guidelines: http://wiki.lvl1.org/501c3  As always, if you have any questions concerning our 501(c)3 status, please feel free to email directors@lvl1.org.  The long and short is this: follow the guidelines on the wiki, fill out the appropriate paperwork, mark items donated with a 501(c)3 receipt as 501(c)3 donations, and DO NOT remove 501(c)3 donated items from LVL1.  These items are now LVL1 property!

Again, HUGE thanks to everyone involved in making this happen over the years.  Let’s use this to our advantage, spacers! I’m looking at you, folks who have an employer match on 501(c)3 donations!

So I fail horribly at scheduling, all the streets leading up to LVL1 are all blocked by the Pegasus Parade. I knew something was wrong when people started calling me to park at my place and walk to LVL1. Consequently the OpenSCAD workshop will need to be rescheduled. I will be here tonight (mostly to avoid going back through the crowd to leave) in case anyone was dead set on learning OpenSCAD tonight but the official workshop will be moved to a later date.

LVL1 is lucky enough to play hosts to the folks at the Kentucky Open Source Society (http://kyoss.org/), and many of them have become hugely involved members of the larger LVL1 community.  Lately, some of the guys from KYOSS have been working on MOSSCon, the Midwest Open Source Conference.  We’re proud that LVL1 could play a small part in getting Louisville’s first open source conference off the ground.  If you’re someone who’s interested in Open Source Software, this is an event to attend.  It’s going to take place May 18th-19th, and early-bird registration is open now!

Here’s the full scoop on MOSSCon:

MOSSCon 2013

There will be another OpenSCAD workshop May 2nd at 8pm. This will be an intro class on how to use OpenSCAD to make functional drawings to print on the 3D printers. For those unfamiliar with OpenSCAD it is a 3D modeling program that uses scripts to define objects so you draw by writing code, not by using your mouse.

There are no signups or cost for this workshop, just show up with a laptop with OpenSCAD pre-installed and be ready to learn.

This weekend, we were lucky enough to have Sonny Mounicou come up from Memphis to teach a workshop on building a Prusa i2 3D printer.  10 people were in attendance, and everyone walked out with a working 3D printer!

The workshop was a grueling 24 hours, running from 8am to Midnight on day one, and 8am to 4pm the next day.  By the end of the workshop, though, everyone was slinging plastic!  Aaron was talented enough to be printing cubed gears after a mere 14 hours!

A big thanks to Jon from SeeMeCNC, who came in to help out with the workshop.  He also managed to sell a couple of printers while he was at the space! And an absolutely huge thanks to Gerrit, who kept us all fed throughout the event.  May no build-off ever go without catering.

Jon from SeeMeCNC (And his huge printer)

Gerrit, Keeping us all alive

Scroll past the break for more pictures of the event, but I’ll wrap it up here by saying that the build was a great event.  10 people in the LVL1 community got to build 3D printers, 2 more people bought 3D printers during the event, and our expertise for printers is growing.  This event even motivated some to start a Louisville-Area Thrug (3D Printer User Group).  If you’re interested in 3D printer, join the conversation here: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/kyin3dprinters

Until then, we’ll be hacking away at our printers.  For those who missed out, don’t despair: Sonny let us know that any time we can get 8-10 people together for a build, he’ll make the drive!

More pictures below the break.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the weekend LVL 1 was host to the Code for America hackathon.  We had a great turnout, there were 18 teams in all.

Everyone was hard at work to produce a working model or prototype of their idea within the time frame.

“The task is to design or prototype an app that helps improve the quality of life in our city,” Mayor Greg Fischer said. “No idea is too strange or too bold. We want to see interesting ideas and innovation at work.”

18 teams offered up some great ideas, from geolocating features in our parks, to a program to manage our power grid by tracking smart phone power usage. The ideas were judged by a 4 person panel and ultimately yielded 3 winners of $5000, $3000 and $2000 for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. The winning ideas and code will be used by the city to bring the ideas to life.

Congratulations to the winning teams:

First Place: Your Mapper

  Who created “Safety Check” an app for the smartphone.  This app allows the user to see the crimes reported in the area around them.  It also give a safety rating.  Other features of the included detail about certain crimes and a way to notify the nearest police station to report a crime.

Team members include Michael Schnuerle and Eric Roland

Second Place: Forest Giants

 Focusing on bike riding and cycling, this team created an app that would allow the user to easily find bike route around Louisville.  With this app the user could also record their time, speed and route. After each ride the user could then share with other riders to challenge or encourage.  Using GPS riders can find the closest bike loops, view details for each loop, and even allows you to take a picture and report loop hazards. The app could eventually help the city’s bike program determine what areas of town are most popular for rides which might determine where more infrastructure is needed for bike lanes and paths.

Team members include Dave Dveand, Chris Hawkins, Adam Richardson, Ryan Stemen and Ashleigh Chape

Third Place: Clean Up Team
Their app focused on cleaning up Louisville’s graffiti and trash by letting the user take a picture of an area they think needs to be cleaned up.  Their example: if you are walking down the street and see graffiti, you can snap a picture with the app, share it with others and using the power of Facebook, form a team and create an event to clean up and remove the graffiti.

Team members include Troy Harvey, Ashley Revlett, Charles Waddell and Steven Trentham

From reporting crime to cleaning the streets to getting out an seeing one or all of Louisville’s parks, one thing is for sure, Louisville has some bright citizens who want nothing but the best for their city and to be able to share it with all.

It is time to leave an official note about my chosen Co-op project. First, my name is Eric, I am a Civil and Environmental Engineering student from Speed School. Immediately, the Hackerspace mainly appears to be electronically driven. A student of structural science may be intimidated, but I look to expand my knowledge.

My project is to construct a Structural Health Monitoring system that uses Arduinos and wireless sensors to transmit measured beam stress and strain. First, the prototype will utilize a laser guided, ultrasonic wave to measure elongation. The laser will also register on a photo-diode. The photo-diode represents laser angle, subsequently relating to possible torsion.  The data will be collected and sent to a regional server.  The regional server converts the transmission into data points for spreadsheet and plotting of stress/strain graph. This regular monitoring can predict deformation of existing structural beams before rupture.

Following a successful read, record and transmission with the Arduino, the next step will be wireless communication (including RF transmission of power). After wireless interface, the system will need to be overhauled for lowest possible power signals. These sensors need to be completely autonomous. This first prototype will act as a base module.  I hope to explore improving wireless capabilities and power supply.  Of the many applications I look to use the base module subterranean and monitor stress found in water mains.

Anyone interested in being apart of this project is welcome.  I can be reached at: ezcutl01@louisville.edu.

Fridays movie night was Ghostbusters and we made ectoplasm.

There was a great turn out and some messy fun.

Making purple ectoplasm

Getting messy with a highlighter to make fluorescent.  As well as some green.

After this incident Garrett was not allowed to touch the ectoplasm any more.

Thanks to everyone that came out and see you next Friday.

For more photos head over to our Flickr page.