Pumping Station: One

Pumping Station: One did Memorial Day weekend right in true hackerspace fashion.  A couple members got their hands on a welder for Chicago’s first annual Power Wheels Racing Series and fixed up a trashed scooter with a sweet new handle bar. One of our members graciously donated a mostly functional Commodore 128 that Nicky has already got playing some tunes.  Hopefully she’ll have an exhibit up for Geek Prom on June 13th showcasing her new found computer orchestrating!

The highlight of the weekend was the epic amount of food.  There was a Bacon Explosion, grilled pineapple, hand fried hot wings, reeses and rolo brownies and more that I can’t even remember.  I’d just like to add a quick thanks to everyone who brough food, those who cooked, cleaned and made this happen.  Lets start making up more holidays just for the sake of grilling!

Who wants to mod and race Power Wheels?

All of you? That’s what i thought.

Chicago’s only hackerspace, Pumping Station: One, is organizing into teams, and having each team mod, race, fix, and continue racing a Power Wheels vehicle through a series of trials
and tribulations. For $40, you can have your very own semi-functional Power
Wheels, for you and your team (if you’d like to work in a group) to
modify and race!

Join in, or you will be missing the most epic event in hackerspace history: the Power Wheels Racing Series. The first Heat is Saturday June 20th, stay tuned for more details.

PPPWRS from Jeff Kantarek on Vimeo.

Q: What has 4 legs, glowing eyes, and guards our hackerspace?

A: Our newest addition to the ever evolving workshop, Carl!  If you want to know what’s going on at PS:One this very moment, this is the cat to go through.  You can reach him by following him on his twitter stream here: http://twitter.com/carrrl.  Work is ongoing to further automate his updates including a motion detector that we’ve already acquired.

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Mitch Altman stopped by Pumping Station: One Thursday May 7th.  Mitch not only walked through his amazingly entertaining creations, but also a lot of background on why he does the things he does.  Most members created TVBGones which will no doubt run amok in Chicago. A few who already had the little TV dis-abler opted for a Brain Machine.  Having tried one out myself, you will go on a trip, it’s different for everyone and even if it makes you a little uncomfortable it’s worth the experience, though if you are epileptic you’re going to want to steer clear.

Thanks again Mitch for graciously coming by the space and sharing your experience and knowledge with our members.

Pumping Station: One – Loft Buildout from Jeff Kantarek on Vimeo.

We pushed hard this weekend to get the loft built. There’s a few touchups to finish but for the most part it’s up and ready.  The underside of the loft will be for mechanical work, with the intent to provide decent sound isolation to keep the noise out of the rest of the space.  The top of the loft is going to be one of two quiet lounges.

Update: Anne took some awesome shots over the weekend too, take a gander