Why Maker Faire may be Silicon Valley’s most important export @ – latimes.com.

This weekend I attended the eighth annual Maker Faire with my son in San Mateo, Calif. The Maker Faire and the Maker Movement have gotten so large, it’s easy to take them for granted. In fact, after going four straight years, I almost skipped this year until my son begged me to go.

I’m glad he talked me into it. From the moment we walked into the Maker Faire and saw an art car covered with robotic fish and lobsters moving to the sounds of punk rock, I was glad to be there. 

There was no one, jaw-dropping thing that struck me this year. Rather, what hit me was how much I see and hear about these things when I’m not at the Maker Faire. The greatest marvel this year may be the broader impact the event is having around the country, and indeed, around the world. 

Flickr: Maker Media’s Photostream. Some great ones in there!

Hanging out with “We the Geeks” @ The White House.

On May 16th, the White House is kicking off “We the Geeks,” a new series of Google+ Hangouts to highlight the future of science, technology, and innovation here in the United States. Topics such as commercial space exploration, science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, turning science fiction to science fact, and others will be discussed with Administration officials and key private sector contributors.

The first “We the Geeks” Hangout will focus on Grand Challenges, ambitious goals on a national or global scale that capture the imagination and demand advances in innovation and breakthroughs in science and technology. Grand Challenges are an important element of President Obama’s Strategy for American Innovation. On April 2nd, the President called on companies, research universities, foundations, and philanthropists to join with him in identifying and pursuing the Grand Challenges of the 21st century.

You can watch it on the Whitehouse G+ page.

FITC presents Spotlight: Hardware

June 8 • Toronto

We’ve lined up 10 creative technologists to cover the hottest platforms impacting the tech world: Google Glass, Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Leap Motion, 3D Printing, Drones, Depth Cameras and more!

http://fitc.ca/hd

Save 20% off any ticket with discount code: ‘adafruit’

FITC stands for ‘Future. Innovation. Technology. Creativity.’ – four words that capture the essence of what our company and events are all about. We produce design and technology focused events worldwide which inspire, educate and challenge attendees. Since 2002, FITC has brought together like-minded professionals and students in Toronto, Amsterdam, Tokyo, San Francisco, Chicago, Seoul, New York, Los Angeles and many other cities. FITC produces a number of events internally and in collaboration with other event organizations throughout the year.

What is it all about?
It starts with the presentations which are both technical and creative in nature and led by hand-picked experts from around the world who are eager to share and meet you. For our larger events, there are often multiple tracks to choose from which include content catered to a specific audience. It’s also about the networking. FITC provides the platform for people who share a passion to meet and interact, whether it’s at the presentations, in the exhibitor hall or at one of the evening parties.

Who goes to an FITC event?
Digital Creators of all kinds…designers, developers, motion graphics artists, digital artists and everyone and anyone who creates things in the digital space. From technical to inspirational sessions, there’s always something to choose from, regardless of what stage of your career you’re in.

MAKE’s Hardware Innovation Workshop explores the culture, tools, technologies and trends that are shaping the newly emerging businesses that makers are creating. And, it’s happening right now! Find out what leaders at the forefront of the maker movement have to say about trends like:

• Bia Sport
• Blossom Coffee
• Circuits.io
• Dash Robotics
• Dynamo Development Labs
• Electric Imp
• Fonly Insitute
• LumiGeek LED
• Lumio
• MakieLab
• NanoSatisfi
• Nomiku
• OnNom Project
• OpenXC, Ford Motor Company’s Silicon Valley Lab
• Otherfab
• Pebble
• Pinoccio
• Robot Garden
• SandBox 3DP
• Scout
• Skinth Solutions
• Skycatch
• Solar Pocket Factory
• Spark Devices
• Tesseract Industrial

National Day of Civic Hacking.

On the first weekend in June, civic activists, technology experts, and entrepreneurs around the country will gather together for the National Day of Civic Hacking. By combining their expertise with new technologies and publicly released data, participants hope to build tools that help others in their own neighborhoods and across the United States.

It’s a great cause and we’re excited to take part. On June 1, we’ll welcome developers and tech experts to the White House for our second hackathon. 

Raspberry Pi as a Robotics Platform by Patrick Forringer:

We’ll be going over different robotics packages and shields available to the pi, and
implementing code to control servos using Adafruit’s 16 channel PWM driver. I’ll be
demoing the code with my mecanum platform, which was built for the raspberry pi.
Time permitting we will also cover communicating with an Ardunio over a serial usb
connection.

Adafruit is a sponsor and we’ll be giving away 16-Channel 12-bit PWM/Servo Driver – I2C interfaces at the
end of the talk!

Register today!

View the full schedule here!

Featured Adafruit Products

Adafruit 16-Channel 12-bit PWM/Servo Driver – I2C interface – PCA9685 – You want to make a cool robot, maybe a hexapod walker, or maybe just a piece of art with a lot of moving parts. Or maybe you want to drive a lot of LEDs with precise PWM output. Then you realize that your microcontroller has a limited number of PWM outputs! What now? You could give up OR you could just get this handy PWM and Servo driver breakout. (read more)

Adafruit is a sponsor of CodeChix:

CodeChix is a CA non-profit public benefit organization for local women developers run by local women developers in a non-alpha, language/os agnostic, supportive environment with an emphasis on face-to-face communication. It is the first group of its kind and started in 2009 in San Jose, CA.

On Thursday, May 23rd from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (PDT), CodeChix Seattle and Digital Eve Seattle will present Women’s Career at Seattle Tech Startups:

CodeChix Seattle and Digital Eve Seattle invite you to a special evening with lively discussions about Women’s Career in Seattle Tech Startups. We have a great panel of women currently working at some of Seattle’s hottest tech startups, with different educational background, training, experience and career levels. We will explore topics around career planning and development, work/life issues, mentoring and support. You will also have a chance to ask the panelists questions and get their insight and advice on career issues on your mind.

Event tickets and information here!

The eTextiles Summer Camp 2013 Call for eTextiles Practitioners!

The eTextiles Summer Camp (eTextile-summercamp.org) is a five day event that brings together expert practitioners of eTextiles and Soft Circuitry in one place to share their knowledge and skills through hands-on workshops, and facilitate discussions around their practices. We are looking for makers, designers, engineers and artists, who work in the field of eTextiles and soft circuitry to participate.

The first Summer Camp was held in 2011 in Borås Sweden, with 20 experts (http://stdl.se/summercamp/). This year, we are planning the second edition of the eTextiles Summer Camp from 17th to 21st of July in Poncé sur le Loir, France, hosted by Paillard Centre d’Art Contemporain & Résidence d’Artistes (http://moulinsdepaillard.com/).

The E-textile Summer Camp’s 2013 theme will be “Soft + Slow Electronics”. Many of us as engineers, designers and artists are working with soft materials such as textiles and paper, exploring the potential of soft, malleable and flexible electronics. Our practices often involve techniques that require intensive hand work, often resulting in long production processes. Some of the techniques we employ are almost archaic, but because we see value in making our own materials in our own ways, old-fashioned and slow techniques often come into play. We propose to see these practices as “slow”, rather than “time consuming”.

In today’s society “slowness” has gained positive connotation and acknowledgement through movements like Slow Food, Slow Cities and Slow Design Principles. These movements not only embrace the amounts of physical time consumed in a process, but also the social and cultural impacts resulting from slow processes.

Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!

On Wednesday Becky Stern (Adafruit’s Director of Wearable Electronics) spoke at Eyebeam about wearable electronics/smart textiles. We both wore our FLORA sparkle skirts which where a big hit with the crowd.

Bryce Beamer, Prototyping and Garment Development, Adidas Wearable Sport Electronics

Juan Hinestroza, Associate Professor of Fiber Science and Director of Textiles Nanotechnology Lab, Cornell University

Genevieve Dion, Assistant Professor and Director of Shima Seiki Haute Technology Lab, Drexel University

Plans for a Memorial to Honor Nikola Tesla – NYTimes.com.

Supporters of Nikola Tesla, who lighted the planet with alternating current but died penniless, announced on Thursday that they had completed the purchase of his decaying laboratory on Long Island and begun raising $10 million for its restoration and the establishment of a museum and educational memorial.

Summer of Code 2013 – Beagle Bone.

BeagleBoard.org is a volunteer organization that seeks to advance the state of open-source software on open-source hardware platforms capable of running high-level languages and operating systems (primarily Linux) in embedded environments. Born from taking mobile phone processors and putting them on low-cost boards to build affordable desktop computers, BeagleBoard.org has evolved to focus on the needs of the “maker” community with greater focus

on the I/O needed for controlling motors and reading sensors to build things like robots, 3d printers, flying drones, in-car computer systems and much more. Past BeagleBoard.org GSoC projects included an RPC framework for heterogeneous processor communication, a transparent USB packet sniffer,ARM optimizations for XBMC, ARM optimizations for FFTs, make-shift pulse-width-modulation and RPC optimizations for OpenCV. BeagleBoard.org has benefited from sponsorship from Texas Instruments, CircuitCo, Digi-Key and others, but avoids any dependence on that sponsorship for sustaining the effort. The project has evolved over the past few years with

over 100,000 boards in circulation with developers worldwide and strong roots in the Linaro, Yocto Project, Angstrom Distribution and Linux communities—and support for running most major Linux distributions including Ubuntu, Android, Fedora, Debian, ArchLinux, Gentoo, Buildroot and many more.

Read more and apply!

Nerdy Derby 2013.

Nerdy Derby Denver is a non-regulation miniature car building and racing competition inspired by the Cub Scouts’ Pinewood Derby and the first ever Nerdy Derby in NYC. With a larger, more undulating track and no restrictions on the size of the cars (as long as they fit on the track) or materials participants can use (as long as they are safe), the Nerdy Derby rewards creativity, cleverness and ingenuity.

The inaugural Nerdy Derby Denver will take place at the Emmanuel Gallery on Tuesday April 30on the Auraria Campus as part of Performance Art Week. Visitors can bring their own cars to race and stick around to watch.

Tickets are now available for the next Computational Fashion event at Eyebeam Art & Technology Center in NYC, all about smart textiles:

Presenting a diverse group of designers and scientists working in cutting edge textile research and production. From nanoparticles to circuit boards, technology is becoming embedded in the very fabric of the things we wear, creating clothing that’s more responsive to changing needs and conditions. Spurred in part by collaborations between academic and industry partners, “smart textiles” are beginning to enter the consumer market to enhance the properties of a garment whether it is heating, vitamin dissemination through the fabric, or weather proofing. These emerging developments are reshaping both materials and electronics for the human body. Join us as we explore possibilities within this growing area of creative and scientific innovation.

Presenters
Juan Hinestroza, Associate Professor of Fiber Science and Director of Textiles Nanotechnology Lab, Cornell University
Genevieve Dion, Assistant Professor and Director of Shima Seiki Haute Technology Lab, Drexel University
Becky Stern, Director of Wearable Electronics, Adafruit Industries
Moderated by Dr. Sabine Seymour, Computational Fashion lead advisor and founder of Moondial

Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!

If you are in the Philadelphia area this Saturday, check out HACK Philly 2.0!

HACK 2.0 is a technology based design and art exhibition featuring hackers, artists, and designers from Philadelphia and beyond. After last years premiere event, HACK Philly returns again for Philly Tech Week 2013 with HACK 2.0. This year features a wider range of work. From installation, performance, and wearable technology to experimental and cutting edge art and design.

For more information, visit: HACKPHILLY.com or email info@hackphilly.com

Read more.

MIT Hexacon 2013 World’s First Hexapod Conference (includes dance-off!).

The world’s first Hexapod Conference and Convention will be held on May 4th, 2013, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and we are accepting proposals for talks, workshops, and demonstrations.

The aim of this conference is to foster relationships between academics and non-academics working on hexapod (six-legged robot)-related topics. Additionally, a major aim of this convention is to have a lot of fun, especially since this conference is made possible by the DeFlorez Humor Fund.

Hexacon will take place at the MIT International Design Center on the third floor of building N52, right next to the MIT Museum.

Scholarships to cover travel and lodging of up to $100 will be awarded on a needs-based basis. To apply, please fill out this form: http://hexacon2013.mit.edu/?page_id=8. Additionally, if you seek lodging and are willing to couch-surf, we may be able to match you with an MIT student host for the duration of the event. Please fill out: http://hexacon2013.mit.edu/?page_id=29

There will be a prize for the most humorous hexapod demonstration as well as the best presenter.

The conference website may be found at http://hexacon2013.mit.edu

Call For Entries: Announcing The Adafruit 6 second electronics film festival! Share your cool project in 6 seconds of video and win up to $600 at the Adafruit store, with six runners up winning $60 store credit each.In a 6 second video, we want you to share the best project you’ve made.  Be sure not to use any copyrighted music, video, etc.  This should be all your project, all by you. The Adafruit team will be looking on Twitter, G+/youtube and beyond for Vines, 6 second videos and more tagged with #adafruit6secs. The deadline is 6pm ET, 5/6/13. The Adafruit team of judges will pick their favorites and announce the winner on May, 12th at 6pm ET.

tl;dr – Post a 6 second video of your electronic project(s) using Vine on Twitter and tag it #adafruit6secs !

Keep reading for all the details!

STEP ONE: MAKE A 6 SECOND VIDEO, PLEASE USE VINE!

The easiest way to make a 6 second video for The Adafruit 6 second electronics film festival is to use Vine. If you don’t have an iOS device, no big deal – most everything can take 6 second videos and upload. With Vine and looping a 6 second video you can make cool videos that repeat what you’ve made that’s blinking, moving or making noise – get creative, and enter as often as you’d like. Make sure you do not use any copyrighted music, video, etc. This should be your cool project you are sharing, in 6 seconds.

STEP TWO: TAG THE VIDEO with #adafruit6secs

The most important thing is to tag the video with #adafruit6secs . We’ll be mostly using Twitter to find most of these, you can also send a link to your video via the contact form (do not email us video files!).

STEP THREE: POST TO TWITTER, G+, YOUTUBE, ETC.

Post your tagged 6 second video from Vine or on Youtube, Google+, Flickr, Twitter (Vine can post to Twitter) just make sure it’s easily searchable on those services by tagging it with #adafruit6secs .

STEP FOUR: THERE IS NO STEP 4!

That’s it!

PRIZES: $600 GRAND PRIZE, SIX $60 PRIZES (ADAFRUIT STORE)

The team of Adafruit judges will pick our favorites. Grand prize is a $600 gift certificate in the Adafruit store and six runners-up will receive $60 in store credit each. THE DEADLINE IS 6:00 PM ON MONDAY 5/6/13!

Make sure to tag & upload by 6pm ET, Monday, May 6th, 2013, that’s the deadline.

WINNERS ANNOUNCED LIVE ON ASK AN ENGINEER: 5/12/13!

We will play the videos on ASK AN ENGINEER Saturday night 10pm ET on May 12th, 2013. The judges from Adafruit John De Cristofaro, Becky Stern, Matt Griffin, Molly Rae Thorkelson & Ladyada. Adafruit staff & partners may make entries but cannot win

Future belongs to makers.
3 days of talks and intensive workshops on Arduino, Raspberry Pi, 3D Printing and robots.
Learn, share and have fun.
No matter if you’re pro or just starting – we will havesomething for everyone.
More details soon.

Sounds like a mini-maker faire, not a permanent theme park, still very cool. We’re looking forward to Makerland being something like Disney World one day… complete with a “Circuit Playground”.

Bottleneck Gallery’s WHEN THE LIGHTS GO OUT Celebrates Glow-in-The-Dark Via New Prints @ Collider.

For the past year or so, Limited Paper’s been wondering which gallery would be the first to announce an “all Glow-in-The-Dark” show.  Indeed, if we consider GID’s rise in popularity over the past year or two, such a showcase seems inevitable.   But just because the idea’s an obvious one doesn’t guarantee that it’d result in success: more than any other factor, an all-GID show would almost certainly live or die based on the artists hired to participate.

Turns out, there was nothing to worry about: our friends at NYC’s Bottleneck Gallery have pulled the trigger on an all-GID showcase, and–based on the preview images we’ve been cleared to share with you today—Bottleneck understood just how crucial hiring the right artists would be.  Wanna see new (and GID-infused!) posters from Craig Drake, Godmachine, Bruce Yan, and a slew of others?  Meet me after the jump, folks.

Bruce Yan’s work is there, he is Adafruit’s creative director!

Shenzhen Mini Maker Faire 2013: Kid friendly projects @ Dangerous Prototypes.

Maker Faire is a hands-on experience, and there’s something for all ages. Here’s a few kid friendly projects we spotted.

Check back on the Dangerous Prototypes site as they post more photos from Shenzhen Mini Maker Faire 2013.

Maker Faire Rome.

Maker Faire Rome, Fablab Torino and Officine Arduino invite you to get involved – in the areas of the Fuori Salone and Salone Satellite – with the world of Makers and the Maker Faire, the largest exhibition in the world dedicated to inventiveness, creativity and initiative, aimed at families and lovers of technology applied in all forms.

• Chris Anderson, CEO of 3D Robotics and founder of DIY Drones
• Massimo Banzi, co-founder of Arduino
• Robert Faludi, co-creator of LilyPad XBee and Botanicalls
• Bunnie Huang, co-founder of Chumby
• Ben Kaufman, founder and CEO of Quirky
• Dave Merrill, co-founder and president of Sifteo
• Scott Miller, co-founder and CEO of Dragon Innovation
• Peter Weijmarshausen, co-founder and CEO of Shapeways
• Robert Stephens, founder of Geek Squad
• David Lang, co-founder of OpenROV
• Lisa Qui, co-founder of Nomiku
• Jay Silver, founder of Makey Makey
• Jeremy Conrad, co-founder of Lemnos Labs
• Eric Jennings & Sally Carson, co-founders of Pinoccio
• John Dimatos, Kickstarter
• Zach Smith, program director of HAXLR8R
• Zach Kaplan, CEO of Inventables
• John Park, chief marketing officer, AQS
• Nick Pinkston, founder of Plethora
• Kai Backman, co-founder of Airstone Labs
• Tim Chang, managing director of Mayfield Fund
• Eric Klein, entrepreneur-in-residence, Lemnos Labs

I’m participating in an art show with the fellow members of Free Art & Technology (FAT):

F.A.T. GOLD: Five Years of Free Art & Technology At Eyebeam – Curated by Lindsay Howard

Opening: Monday April 1, 2013 from 7:00pm–9:00pm Panel discussion with artists from 6:00pm–7:00pm

Organized by Eyebeam Curatorial Fellow Lindsay Howard, F.A.T. GOLD brings together an international group of twenty-five collaborators comprised of artists, hackers, engineers, musicians, and graffiti writers, many of whom have been involved with the organization as residents, fellows, or collaborators, for a week-long residency and retrospective, which will run through April 20.

RSVP on Facebook

Eyebeam 540 W 21st St New York, NY 10011

See you punks there!

I will be exhibiting my Laptop Compbody Sock (for the first time in a physical gallery!) and last night I whipped up a tape mannequin to wear it (Thanks to Haley for posing).

Technical Textiles show in Berlin:

technical textiles is a mini event here in Berlin on April 11-13, 2013 at http://etib.org located at Koloniestrasse 10 in the neighborhood of Wedding. April 11 and April 12 technical textiles will be an art gallery show located at Electronic+Textile Institute Berlin. April 13th, technical textiles will have talks and hands-on workshops from the artists, also located at http://etib.org. A closing party for technical textiles will take place on the evening of April 13th where the works can once again be viewed, once again at http://etib.org. Please join us and revel in our love for textiles and digital processes.

White House Hangout: The Maker Movement.

This week, the White House will continue a series of conversations with Administration officials on Google+. On Thursday, March 28th at 3:00 pm ET, White House innovation advisor Tom Kalil will join a Google+ Hangout to discuss the Maker Movement with leading innovators and Makers from around the country.

More and more Americans are becoming Makers, a growing community of young people and adults who are designing and building things on their own time. For example, 120,000 people participated in the May 2012 Maker Faire in San Mateo, California, sharing projects such as a flame-powered pipe organ, a fully automated ragtime band, and a 12-foot-tall aluminum robotic face controlled by 12 joysticks. 

President Obama believes we need to give more young people the ability to become Makers. As the President said at the launch of his Educate To Innovate campaign to improve science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, “I want us all to think about new and creative ways to engage young people in science and engineering, whether it’s science festivals, robotics competitions, fairs that encourage young people to create and build and invent—to be makers of things, not just consumers of things.” The Maker Movement can also promote innovation in manufacturing, one of President Obama’s top priorities. 

And for the laser geeks out there, 100 power / 60% speed (on a 35W CO2 laser).

Limor Fried is one of the world’s best-known “Makers.” She has created one of the largest collections of free electronics tutorials, open-source hardware and software in the world. And she founded Adafruit Industries to create products for makers of all ages & skill levels.

Pi Day @ Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Pi Day is an annual celebration commemorating the mathematical constant π (pi). Pi Day is observed on March 14 (or 3/14 in month/day date format), since 3, 1 and 4 are the three most significant digitsof π in the decimal form. In 2009, the United States House of Representatives supported the designation of Pi Day

Pi Blanket @ Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. Happy Pi day!

To celebrate, our friend Samantha brought in her knitted Pi blanket to share. After the first hexagon with the letter π embroidered on it, the first 127 digits of Pi are shown using the resistor color code to represent the value of the digit. Samantha is donating this quilt to the Project Linus, an organization that gives blankets to children who are seriously ill, traumatized, or otherwise in need.

International Women’s Day 2013.

International Women’s Day celebrates women’s equality and achievements – International Women’s Day (8 March) is a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future. Suffragettes campaigned for women’s right to vote. The word ‘Suffragette’ is derived from the word “suffrage” meaning the right to vote. International Women’s Day honours the work of the Suffragettes, celebrates women’s success, and reminds of inequities still to be redressed. The first International Women’s Day event was run in 1911. 2011 was the Global Centenary Year. Visit internationalwomensday.com website

At an Annual Tech Show, It’s Hardware’s Turn in the Spotlight @ NYTimes.com.

Each year, thousands of tech enthusiasts flock to South by Southwest, the technology, music and film conference here, hoping to be among the first to find the next big thing in social networking and mobile apps.

But this year, it might be a piece of hardware that steals the show. The most talked-about start-ups this year include the maker of a camera that automatically takes a photo every 30 seconds, a new game console and a gadget that lets people control their computers and devices by waving their hands. Hugh Forrest, the director of the technology portion of South by Southwest, estimated that at least two dozen panels, talks and presentations involve some sort of new device or gadget at this year’s event — a much higher portion than he could recall from previous years.

<3 Limor Fried! Plushy components, badges (dumpster diving!) get kids comf w tech @adafruit #csw57 #cswsf twitter.com/statusofwomens…

— DOSWSF (@statusofwomensf) March 7, 2013

Pundits with plushies! #csw57 #cswsf @adafruit Microfinance and Gender Equity twitter.com/statusofwomens…

— DOSWSF (@statusofwomensf) March 7, 2013

Commission on the Status of Women.

The fifty-seventh session of the Commission on the Status of Women will take place at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 4 to 15 March 2013.

The Commission on the Status of Women (hereafter referred to as “CSW” or “the Commission”) is a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). It is the principal global policy-making body dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women. Every year, representatives of Member States gather at United Nations Headquarters in New York to evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment worldwide.

The Commission was established by ECOSOC resolution 11(II) of 21 June 1946 with the aim to prepare recommendations and reports to the Council on promoting women’s rights in political, economic, civil, social and educational fields. The Commission also makes recommendations to the Council on urgent problems requiring immediate attention in the field of women’s rights.

Read more.

Re-Imagine The Fountain.

What would you do if you could re-imagine the soda fountain? Miniaturize the technology? Make one for the home, or for on an airplane so flight crews don’t have to load and unload so many cans? The possibilities are huge!

The winning team will have their prototype and intellectual property related to the project purchased by The Coca-Cola Company at the end of the weekend for $10K (for the team). If teams wish to keep their IP, they may decline the prize and somebody else will be declared the winner.

Impressive, Red Bull and now Coca-Cola are jumping in to hackerspaces and hackathons.

Meet your 2013 OHS chairs!.

The OSHWA board has appointed AddieWagenknecht and Jimmie Rodgers as the 2013 Open Hardware Summit co-chairs!

Open Source Hardware Documentation Jam. A 3-day co-design jam to improve Open Source Hardware documentation practices and facilitate collaborative innovation!

On April 26-28, 2013 in New York City: a unique event during which developers, designers, and hardware hackers get together to bring Open Source Hardware to the next stage.

“The power of open source hardware lies in the ability to build upon others’ work and good documentation is the key to making this happen.” – The Jam Hosts.

Documentation best practices can increase contributions to OSHW projects significantly. A shared understanding of what documentation should look like, more powerful and cooperative software to handle it and new graphical tools could be the keys to the next revolution in product design and manufacturing. For this reason, we decided to host a collaborative event: to generate ideas and projects that could enhance the User Experience of people who are new to OSHW – whether they are individuals or businesses – and want to contribute to a shared vision and shared objectives.

Given the wide scope of the challenges, the organization team designed a first 3-day event, that will be based on a mashup of well known design and collaborative creation formats for group cooperation such as Service Design Jams (http://www.designjams.org/) and Hackathons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackathon). The event will be focused on identifying and sharing outstanding problems concerning the diffusion of OSHW (especially those related to documentation and technology transfer best practices), in generating creative solutions and prototyping them collaboratively.

It will be a great opportunity to learn, build relationships and start new projects. The team behind the Jam currently opened a form for people to submit their applications (apply) and is looking for several different profiles, as the challenge behind the mission of the event – improving the way OSHW is designed and documented to enhance reuse, replication, remix – is huge and implies a large set of skills.

Every organization interested in Open Source Hardware shall participate: the team is looking forward for cooperation and involvement and can be contacted at info@opensourcewarehouse.org.
See the updated list here > http://www.opensourcewarehouse.org/be-a-partner/

Adafruit is a partner and sponsoring this jam!

Women’s History Month 2013.

The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in paying tribute to the generations of women whose commitment to nature and the planet have proved invaluable to society.

Here are some ready-to-use lesson plans, student activities, collection guides and research aids for educators.

PyCon is the largest annual gathering for the community using and developing the open-source Pythonprogramming language. It is produced and underwritten by the Python Software Foundation, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing and promoting Python. Through PyCon, the PSF advances its mission of growing the international community of Python programmers.

Because PyCon is backed by the non-profit PSF, we keep registration costs much lower than comparable technology conferences so that PyCon remains accessible to the widest group possible. The PSF also pays for the ongoing development of the software that runs PyCon and makes it available under a liberal open source license (currently available at the PyCon github project).

Python – Skill badge, iron-on patch. You’ve learned the Python programming language! Python is an easy-to-learn and programming language that’s popular for its powerful capabilities and human-readable code. The Python logo is used with permission from the Python Foundation.

Adafruit offers a fun and exciting “badges” to celebrate achievement for electronics, science and engineering. We believe everyone should be able to be rewarded for learning a useful skill, a badge is just one of the many ways to show and share.

The Python badge is for use with educators, classrooms, workshops, Maker Faires, TechShops, 4H clubs, Hackerspaces, Makerspaces and around the world to reward beginners on their skill building journey!

This beautiful badge is made in the USA.

For those of you with amazing hardware startup projects, TechCrunch Disrupt NYC 2013 is looking for you:

TechCrunch Disrupt is the premier launching pad for start-ups. But for one special day, the event becomes a haven for amazing hardware startups. We want you to join us.

I love hardware. That’s why I want you guys to bring some of the coolest hardware projects imaginable to Disrupt NY this year. That’s why I want you guys in our Hardware Alley.

Hardware Alley is a one-day celebration of hardware start ups both young and old. The goal has always been to show off amazing hardware that we have written about over the past few months, as well as a few surprises. Last Disrupt we featured the guys from Thermovape, Makerbot, and Lit Motors. This year we want to fill Disrupt NYC with more amazing companies.

For more details on Disrupt head over here. We’re looking for new or even unlaunched products, as well as potential Kickstarter projects. Prototypes are fine as long as they’re amazing.

You can see the previous Hardware Alley participants here. You can sign up here. Bootstrappers can contact me directly at john@techcrunch.com if you need a break on price. Hope to see you in the alley… the Hardware Alley.

Our sponsors help make Disrupt happen. If you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact our amazing sponsorship team here sponsors@techcrunch.com.

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You know … Hardware Alley:

Tonight looks to be a great 6th meet up of the NY Hardware Startup, with a headline pitch from Ben Einstein, founder of Bolt, and a chance for those submitting to NY Next Top Maker Competition to share products and garner support.

Check out this month’s event description:

It’s that time of the month again where we get together and show that hardware isn’t just an after thought in the big apple! Our longer pitch will be given by Ben Einstein, founder of Bolt, a new startup incubator in Boston that will be accepting applications for their inaugural class. I also thought we could use this meetup for those of you who have made a submission to the NY Next Top Maker competition to show off your product and garner support for the “public voting” finalist. If you’ve submitted an application and want to present, get in touch with me!

Here is the tentative agenda:

6:30 – 7:00pm: arrival, pizza and beer

7:00 – 7:20pm: Ben Einstein, founder of hardware incubator Bolt

7:20 – 7:50pm: Pitches from NY Next Top Maker submissions (TrafficCOM by Ted Ullrich; ALPHI by Jarett Michaelson and Tom Randolph, Sounder by Howard Fink)

7:50 – 8:00pm: Bill Morris from I Heart Engineering, pitching the TurtleBot

8:00 – 8:10pm: Sachin Chaudhry from BrightLot, presenting JumpDrive

8:10 – 9:00pm: mingling and drinking whatever’s left of the beer

As usual, let’s thank our sponsors MakeSimply for providing the food and refreshments!

See you on the 26th!

Haytham

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Washington’s Birthday (Presidents Day) 2013 – Adafruit is open, all orders start to ship on Tuesday, February 19, 2013..

Washington’s Birthday is a United States federal holiday celebrated on the third Monday of February in honor of George Washington, the first President of the United States, and concurrent with Presidents’ Day. Washington’s Birthday is commonly referred to as Presidents’ Day (sometimes spelled President’s Day). Presidents’ Day was started by President Nixon, to honor all past presidents of the United States, and set on the day when Washington’s Birthday was celebrated. Both Lincoln’s and Washington’s birthdays are in February.

The fifty-seventh session of the Commission on the Status of Women will take place at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 4 to 15 March 2013.

The Commission on the Status of Women (hereafter referred to as “CSW” or “the Commission”) is a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). It is the principal global policy-making body dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women. Every year, representatives of Member States gather at United Nations Headquarters in New York to evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment worldwide.

The Commission was established by ECOSOC resolution 11(II) of 21 June 1946 with the aim to prepare recommendations and reports to the Council on promoting women’s rights in political, economic, civil, social and educational fields. The Commission also makes recommendations to the Council on urgent problems requiring immediate attention in the field of women’s rights.

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In a Fireside Hangout on Google+, Obama says we need more patent reform and computer education
2 The Next Web.

In President Obama’s inaugural Fireside Hangout on Google+, he faced the public and answered a bevy of questions along a wide range of topics, including immigration, gun violence, and even technology.

One of the five Americans selected to speak with the President happened to be Limor Fried, an entrepreneur and CEO of Adafruit, an electronics manufacturing and education company in New York City. What was interesting was the topic of her questions, specifically relating to entrepreneurship, patent reform, and computer programming in schools.

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President Obama Says Teach Programming!.

Ladyada, aka Limor Fried, founder and CEO of Adafruit had the opportunity to ask the President of the United States some questions. She inquired about patents, how the president’s girls were doing in science and technology and asked: should we teach programming in schools?

A Google+ hangout with the president is a modern version of the Roosevelt fireside chats of the 1930s. In this case five people got the chance to put questions to President Obama and one of them was Limor Fried, the well known entrepreneur and enthusiastic proponent of technical education.

Obama Calls for Patent Reform to Topple Trolls @ Electronic Frontier Foundation.

In a welcome turn of events, President Barack Obama spoke directly to the patent troll problem and the need for more comprehensive patent reform yesterday in a “Fireside Hangout” — a live question and answer session hosted in a Google+ hangout. The President was responding to a question by  the prominent electrical engineer and entrepreneur Limor “Ladyada” Fried, who in 2009 won an EFF Pioneer Award for her work with free software and open-source hardware.

SHOWTIME! Watch Ladyada with the President of the USA today at 4:50pm EST. Ladyada (Limor Fried) was selected to join President Obama in a Fireside Hangout this Thursday 2/14 at 4:50pm EST on Google+! Limor will be talking to the President LIVE about manufacturing, patents, education and more (hopefully!). Don’t forget to RSVP here for a reminder to tune in on Thursday- http://goo.gl/7pxfM.

Introducing Black Makers Month @ MAKE. Kipp writes -

Rock and roll. Baseball. President Obama. These are very uniquely American things, made possible by the diverse cultures, backgrounds, and talents that have helped shape our country. American innovation is also a product of a diverse American culture. I’d like to celebrate the diversity that drives innovation by recognizing black makers throughout the month of February. Black History Month is devoted to celebrating part of our culture. Let’s not forget the history of black makers like Elijah McCoy. Why stop with the past though? Let’s also profile modern black makers who are changing lives. As we inspire more kids from more diverse backgrounds to become makers, we will strengthen innovation and increase success in arts and STEM fields.

Read more!

Previous
African American History Month 2013 @ Adafruit.

ASK AN ENGINEER 10PM ET – 2/16/13! With special guest Kipp Bradford!

What is “Ask an engineer”? From the electronics enthusiast to the professional community – “Ask an Engineer” has a little bit of everything for everyone. If you’re a beginner, or a seasoned engineer – stop in and see what we’re up to! We have demos of projects and products we’re working on, we answer your engineering and electronics questions and we have a trivia question + give away each week. Previous chats can be viewed at http://www.adafruit.com/ask

About Kipp:

I’m Kipp Bradford. I teach engineering at Brown University. I’m also the founder and president of open-source hardware manufacturer kippkitts. I’m on the Technical Advisory Board of Make Magazine. My goal in life is to Make Makers. Why? That’s a great question. I believe that people who are Makers see the world’s problems as opportunities to create a new innovation. Makers are the engines of our economy and sources of inspiration forSTEAM education. Am I succeeding? Well, that’s hard to tell. There is certainly a lot more work to be done. Progress is being made though, and the movement is gaining momentum in schools and businesses. So I will continue to Make Makers and showcase some of the incredible Makers that I’ve come across in my life!

Chat details!

• Visit our new “Ask an Engineer”section on Adafruit at 10pm ET, Saturday nights
• Or visit our Ustream page
• For old schoolers, you can use IRC, you’ll need a Ustream log/pass, check out the Ustream IRC how-to here
• We are #adafruit-industries6796 on IRC server chat1.ustream.tv
• Watch the show with an iPad, iPhone or Android phone!

And don’t forget, 30 minutes before the show we’re doing our weekly show-and-tell. If you are on Google+ and want to join, just add/follow +Adafruit’s page and post a comment so you can be added to the show and tell circle. At 9:30pm ET you will see a link to the hang out. Just keep your mics muted until we call on you and have your project ready.

For those who just want to watch, you’ll be able to watch it live on Ustream here and we usually have a recorded version posted later.

Trammell Hudson writes in about the TIMESQUARE watch class he held at NYC Resistor:

We had a great class yesterday. Four of the students had never soldered before, but the kits went together really easily and all eight worked on the first try.  We took a little longer on the assembly than I had expected — 2.5 hours instead of 1.5 — and as a result the software portion was a little bit shorter than I had planned.  Everyone successfully compiled and re-flashed their watches using the arduino IDE and the FTDI friend, so they should be in good shape for experimenting with them.

TIMESQUARE DIY Watch Kit in five colors!

Lincoln’s Birthday from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Lincoln’s Birthday is a legal holiday in some U.S. states including Arizona, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, and Indiana. It is observed on the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth on February 12, 1809.

The earliest known observance of Lincoln’s birthday occurred in Buffalo, New York, in 1874. Julius Francis (d. 1881), a Buffalo druggist, made it his life’s mission to honor the slain president. He repeatedly petitioned Congress to establish Lincoln’s birthday as a legal holiday.

The day is marked by traditional wreath-laying ceremonies at Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site in Hodgenville, Kentucky, and at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. The latter has been the site of a ceremony ever since the Memorial was dedicated. Since that event in 1922, observances continue to be organized by the Lincoln Birthday National Commemorative Committee and by the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS). A wreath is laid on behalf of the President of the United States, a custom also carried out at the grave sites of all US presidents on their birthdays. Lincoln’s tomb is in Springfield, Illinois.

Chinese New Year – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Chinese New Year is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. In China, it is also known as the Spring Festival, the literal translation of the modern Chinese name. Chinese New Year celebrations traditionally ran from Chinese New Year’s Day itself, the first day of the first month of the Chinese calendar, to the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first month, making the festival the longest in the Chinese calendar. Because theChinese calendar is lunisolar, the Chinese New Year is often referred to as the “Lunar New Year”.

Within China, regional customs and traditions concerning the celebration of the Chinese new year vary widely. Often, the evening preceding Chinese New Year’s Day is an occasion for Chinese families to gather for the annualreunion dinner. It is also traditional for every family to thoroughly cleanse the house, in order to sweep away any ill-fortune and to make way for good incoming luck. Windows and doors will be decorated with red colour paper-cuts and couplets with popular themes of “good fortune” or “happiness”, “wealth”, and “longevity.” Other activities include lighting firecrackers and giving money in red paper envelopes.

More here & here.

This week on Community Corner, we show how to create an event listing on the Adafruit Google+ Community. We are starting to put our Ask An Engineer and Show & Tell events announcements up there each week — and will add a bunch of other local, regional, and national events there that our community has been requesting. Check out our video on YouTube (please subscribe!) and Vimeo.

Have an upcoming Raspberry Pi Jam, Mini-Maker Faire, science conference, or hackathon?

Share it here!

Watch our latest project videos.
New tutorials on the Adafruit Learning System.
Music by bartlebeats.

Each week on Community Corner, we share something we have enjoyed the previous week on the Adafruit Google+ Community site “Makers, hackers, artists & engineers: Learning and sharing with Adafruit!” (Note: Google+ login required.)

If you haven’t joined us at this public community yet, stop on by for a visit. And bring something to share!

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