In another exciting hack·a·thon event, nine sleep deprived teams will work for 24 hours straight, pushing the limits of technology and human creativity to design and build a robot with only one purpose… to destroy itself in the most spectacular and innovative way possible.

Kicking off Saturday, March 22, 2014 at noon with demonstrations happening Sunday, March 23 at noon.

Sign up here and download the poster here.

Team size and budget is unlimited. A winner will be decided by a vote of other teams and probably some kind of hastily constructed trophy will be awarded. Participants should have a reasonable plan to demonstrate their robot without damaging people or property or otherwise violating the law.

Did you get your first taste of Quadcopter blood at our QUACC event? Are you a seasoned RC veteran, a curious bystander, or a fervent naysayer? Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard about the (semi-)autonomous flying vehicles commonly known as drones. As these vehicles become more popular among hobbyists, and grow into commercial markets, LVL1 is there for you.

On January 23rd (and every 4th Thursday thereafter), we’ll be getting together to talk about drones. Whether you’re interested in building your own, or just have some questions about how these devices work, show up for the meeting. We’ll have hobbyists, start-ups, and professionals talking shop well into the evening, and plenty of fun toys to show off! Meetup RSVP here: http://www.meetup.com/LVL1Hackerspace/events/159276392/

Spacers, I am unbelievably excited to announce that LVL1 has been selected as one of the recipients of a $23,500 award from the community foundation! This is a huge achievement for anyone who is part of the LVL1 community, and we cannot thank you enough for making this space the wonderful community that it is!

This grant program is for “capacity building” upgrades, so we’re exploring paths which will help us better help you make the cool stuff that you want to make! Per the budget submitted to the Community Foundation, we’ll be working on upgrades including: Professional cleaning services (so you don’t have to spend time scrubbing toilets or taking out trash!), Public “Open Hours” (we’re still not sure how this will work, but it will probably include a maker-in-residence being available to help you make stuff), an 80 watt laser (so you can cut through twice as much stuff!), an upgraded precision mill, more A/C upstairs, more storage shelving (and less collapsible), and a wheelchair ramp for the main entry.

We receive the money at an awards ceremony on January 7th. Shortly afterwards, expect to see lots of stuff getting upgraded!

Until then, you can help us get another $2,500 for space upgrades by participating in this Facebook Poll: http://t.co/nAnlVGS9PR

You can vote once a day, so remember to vote early and often! Thanks again for everything you do, LVL1 depends on it!

Come on down to the space Saturday, November 9th at 4pm we will be doing a LAN party with the game Team Fortress 2, which is now free for download. Please install it before you show up as it will take forever to download at the space. Go to Steampowered.com to download it.

If you don’t want to game, but want to work on your rig, bring it down and work on it.
Also, if you have spare PC parts, bring’m and we’ll put them on the swap table.  You might be able to trade for something better, or just sell it (or donate it to someone whose rig is in poor shape).

Are your projects multiplying like rabbits?  Do you have a pile of half-finished project just laying around, waiting for the eventual heat death of the universe?  Does your backlog make you just want to hide in a cozy little hole in the side of a hill?  Does the prospect of finishing anything seem like a distant and epic adventure?  Join us at LVL1 on Friday, October 25th for Finish It Friday! From 6pm on Friday until 8am on Sunday, folks from all over will be gathering at LVL1 for a truly epic quest: Finishing something.  We’ll be watching movies with hobbits, and setting stuff on fire for over 14 hours, so stop by, have a slice of pizza, and get something done!

Seriously, that’s all there is to it: Stop by sometime on Friday Evening/Saturday Morning, eat some pizza, watch some hobbits, try to finish a project, or try to help someone else finish a project. See you all there!

This weekend, LVL1 is hosting ShareLab’s Raspberry Pi Hackathon!  We’ve got seven teams competing to build the coolest Raspberry Pi Project in 2 days.  Stop on by and see what’s cooking, or check out our Flickr Feed for all-day-updates!

This is what the teams are working on:

Spite Jose by Cheating …
Project: Photo Booth w/ the Power of Pi
Members: Aaron, Joe (and Aaron’s parents)

Dirty Rotten Cheaters …
Project: Grunt Master 6000, the general … universal
Members: Jose

Christmas Past …
Project: working with automotive on-board diagnostics, scraping info, detecting information and displaying to a user.
Members: Tim (web development), Barton (perl stuff and shell hacking)

Pi Rookies …
Project: Backup Camera for a car, shared w/ clients via ad-hoc wireless network
Members: Greg

Elephant Tango …
Project: dual server hosting 1) web interface & 2) Node controller (arduino, etc.). The Web app will send commands to node controller to read data and turn on lights, etc.
Members: Barry (Web development), Mark (embedded systems, firmware)

Jose’s Angels …
Project: Sorting Conveyor utilizing visual recognition (OpenCV)
Members: Nathan, Katie (engineer of the streets), John (elec & hardware engineering)

E to the Pi I …
Project: Possibly wireless video casting, computer to Pi, etc.
Members: John, Michael, Kelly

LVL1—your community nonprofit hack space—in partnership with New2Lou—your favorite local social organization—is competing in the National Red Bull Day of Flugtag in Chicago on September 21st as Team New2Flug. Check out the grandeur that is homemade flying contraptions here: at RedBull Flugtag. More importantly, the entire Bluegrass is resting on our “wings” as we are the sole team representing our great state of Kentucky. The plan is to build our own giant Pegasus (the symbol of our greatest sporting event—the Kentucky Derby) complete with a rider and a LVL1-designed wing. This whole thing will get shoved off of a 30-foot runway located on Lake Michigan along the Chicago shoreline with our pilot and wings first doing some gliding and then ending with what we can only hope will be a spectacular crash landing.

So far, we have worked purely with donated material and volunteered engineering and build time. The point is simple: WE NEED YOU!

You have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help represent YOUR state and YOUR city in a contest that will be simulcast live in front of more than five million people. For more information (and to donate!) check out our crowdfunding video which can be found at Louisville Flugtag on Rocket hub. Also, feel free to come by LVL1 and participate in the building every Monday and Thursday at 6pm.

Thank so much for any and all help and support you can give us.

Kentucky’s only and Louisville’s own,

Nu2Flug

Some Key Event Times for Public Participation!

9/9 Nu2Flug Build Day at LVL1

9/11 Nu2Flug send off party at the Garage Bar!

9/16 Nu2Flug Build Day at LVL1

9/21 RedBull Flugtag Competition Live

On August 24th, from 3 to 6 PM, LVL1 will be hosting a health data brainstorming hackathon in association with the Knight Foundation, XLerateHealth, Greater Louisville Enterprise Corp, Louisville Quantified Self, University of Louisville School of Public Health, and University of Louisville Health Sector Management MBA Program!

The focus of this hackathon will be to brainstorm ideas and discover talent associated with completing the Knight Foundation’s Health and Communities challenge.  Food and drink will be provided, so come on down, and talk about ideas that could win Louisville a seat at the table in this competition.  The Knight Foundation is giving $5 million to some of the best ideas nationwide, and this is the start!  Learn more about the competition at https://www.newschallenge.org/challenge/healthdata/brief.html

If you’re interested, sign up here: http://knchealthlouisville.eventbrite.com

Entry is free, and food and drink will be provided.  Got ideas on how Louisville can use data to form a healthier community? Show up on the 24th!

WE have 2 new Fall 2013 Co-ops: Yitzhak (Isaac) Gebru and Caleb Sheehan. They are new LVL1 members! Lets give them a welcome…

Here they are testing out the Seebeck effect.

Friday, August 16, 2013 from 6:30 PM to 9:30 PM
Learn how to assemble and solder your own solarbotics freeduino. The cost of this workshop covers the materials cost for a freeduino microcontroller kit. Your assembled Freeduino is yours to keep! Use the vast open resources of the LVL1 and Arduino community to come up with your own electronic applications.
http://www.eventbrite.com/event/7727732857
Limited Seating! Come for the workshop stay for the horrible movie afterwards.