Pumping Station: One

The Foreman Dog - by Jeff Kantarek

In case you thought otherwise, it turns out nerds aren’t exempt from proving their survival skills by cooking meat on an open flame from time to time.  To keep with tradition this Saturday, May 1st @ 3:00 we will be cooking out in one form or another, (The weather looks good as of this writing, so expect full force) and you are all invited to join us.

If you want to eat as well, we ask that you please bring something to share too.  We’re all excited to come out of our caves and kick off Spring/Summer this year with food, drink & good conversation so come on out, we need to attract the fire department like we did last year!

Hugs from the VP will be available too.

In The Laboratory by Henry Alexander

Art museums appear to be impenetrable fortresses after closing time. What is often unknown to the majority of the visiting public is that the majority of these collections are stored and cataloged outside of these main halls. In many cases up to 99% of museums’ collections are stored away never to be seen for decades, if that often.

Over the last 8 months I have researched the difference between movie museum security and the reality of museum security.

Just published is a some of my results in the Journal of Physical Security at Argonne National Laboratory.

You can find the article here.

Or here.

Lots of stuff going on with PowerWheels again this year. This time with a bit more press. Features on Make Blog and Time Out Chicago are out and about and let’s hope that keeps coming! It’s really exciting right now about all that is going on at PS:One. It’s pretty nifty and I have to say there’s a lot of people I’m thankful for that have helped make this happen. Before I rant on further about Powerwheels I’d like to spend time thanking them first. Here’s the short list:

• Shawn for making the powerwheel work before Notacon
• Hank for making that solid drive train
• Ryan for wiring, website work and being our Official Field-Trip Party Wagon
• Jordan for PR, emailing and working on the PW late into the night
• Nicky for proofreading almost anything I throw at her
• Jessica for buying the PW and working on that fancy packet
• Josh for welding things to other things
• Eric for pimping PPPRS to whomever is willing to hear about it
• Jeff for making sure we don’t stick our fingers in electrical sockets
• Sacha for ensuring we don’t Failboat so hard PS:one spins out of orbit
• Everyone at i3 for working with us and Maker Faire
• everyone else that have donated time and money that  I couldn’t remember off the top of my head

Let’s put this simple: This might be an event that I started, but this is event that everyone at the space is responsible for. You guys make this happen. Without your neighborly hacker help, this would never ever get off the ground. So I will continue thanking each and every one of you who have done your part. There’s just over three months to go before Maker Faire Detroit and if we keep this momentum, it’ll be great. Just wanted everyone to know that I’m proud of this space and all of its members.

Also, check out the PowerWheel trailer I finished last night to promote the event. I was sick when I did it so this is the result of Nyquil and Ibuprofen.

See you in Detroit!

-Your Friendly Neighborhood Sanctioning Body

After the takeover of Notacon content in Cleveland this weekend (Nicolle ran something like 5 events), it looks like Pumping Station: One members will be providing a lot of content for a conference a little closer to home this weekend: Ripple at the University of Chicago.

Ripple is a conference that explores the role of creativity in urban education, as well as other topics related to teaching practice and education policy.

Here is a partial list of the speakers.  And here is where to sign up.

PS:One Members will be providing the following content:

• Opening Panel (Christina Pei)
• Midday Panel 1: What is Education (Christina Pei and Robert E. Lee)
• Rogue Engineering Skills: lockpicking 101 (Christina Pei and Eric Michaud)
• Mine’s Smaller Than Yours: Nanotechnology and Chemistry in a DIY Environment (Sacha De’Angeli)

UPDATE: last day to purchase tickets is April 28 – one extra day to buy tickets!

Vermiculture or vermicomposting is a compact, smell-free way urbanites and apartment dwellers can compost their kitchen waste.  Join us and learn how to reduce your household waste while creating free organic fertilizer!

Date: May 6, 8-9pm
Ticket sales close on April 28 (after this date, there are NO refunds, we are purchasing live worms)

The full ticket price (Workshop + Materials) will include a 10 gallon bin and a half pound of red wriggler worms from our supplier in Wisconsin.  Those who purchase the information only tickets will only attend the lecture and receive no materials (worms, bin, etc..).
Notice to Attendees: if you have any available, please bring black and white printed paper, or a Tribune or a Red Eye (both are printed with soy-based inks). If you don’t have any, we will bring some too.

About the instructor:
Mary Pawlak has been educating people about the environment since 2004 and she has been vermicomposting since 2008.

Purchase Tickets Here

Photo by Anne Petersen

300 Seconds of Fame this Tuesday:
You have 300 seconds. Make it count.

Last month we had an action-packed 300 Seconds of Fame, featuring two!–count ‘em–two! related talks about pimping your work and raising funds; two!–count ‘em–two! musical performances that rocked our little house; anecdotes and ideas via the balloon factory and video surveillance; a first look at a new way to use an arduino; how YOU could go watch a robot competition; and some facts about why we use our brains the way we do. How meta.

This month, we’ll have wasps (but not in-house, I hope), a sure-to-be-controversial look at password hacking, some noises out of Tomer, and more! But that “more” might require YOU. Yes, YOU.

Want to get in front of the microphone and live up to your 300 seconds of fame? Drop us a note.

If not, come along for the ride! Sure to be entertaining. Come on in at 6 or later, and we’ll start these up around 8.

p.m., that is. Since I’m sure not going to come out at 6 a.m.

And if you can’t make it, we’ll try to be sure the ustream’s up and running for you to enjoy from the comfort of your laptop. Or desktop, I suppose, if you’re all old-school. But if you’re trying it from an iPad, you’ll be SOL. Just FYI.

Be there or have less fun. I swear at least one of the 300Seconders will have better jokes than this post. Seriously.

For this month’s Guided Tour, Daliah Saper will give a lecture on alternative content licensing to members of Pumping Staion: One, answering questions about open source software, creative commons, and the differences between “copyleft” v “copyright” agreements. Her discussion will include an overview of basic copyright law as well as recent copyright cases involving alternative licensing disputes.

This will take place on Tuesday, April 27th at 3354 N Elston.  The doors will open at 7pm.  If you want to learn how to protect your ideas while sharing them with the world, come ready to learn!

About Daliah

Daliah Saper is the Principal Attorney at Saper Law and serves as counsel to creative entrepreneurs and innovative business organizations. She is a member of the Illinois Bar and both the General Bar and Trial Bar of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. As a litigator she handles cases involving trademark and copyright infringement, computer fraud and abuse, trade secret misappropriation, online defamation, and commercial disputes. As a transactional lawyer she helps clients choose the right business entity, drafts corporate bylaws and LLC operating agreements, negotiates contracts and software licenses, and provides comprehensive trademark and copyright counseling.

We’re delighted to announce our latest FRED talk: Good Times with Quantum Mechanics.

If you’ve ever wanted to talk with a real live quantum mechanic, this is your chance!

April 14 at 8pm (doors open at 7) at Pumping Station: One 3354 N. Elston Ave, free to the Public.

Dr. Ian Spielman, a NIST researcher and UMD adjunct professor will present:

Synthetic electromagnetism: using quantum mechanics to engineer the fields that weren’t

Creating Synthetic Magnetism from JQI Admin on Vimeo.

[details after the jump] Read the rest of this entry →

It’s almost that time again…time for musicians, tinkerers, and anyone who enjoys being loud to come over to Pumping Station: One and cause cacophony!

This Friday, April 9, at 7:00pm, is the next Unusual Musical Instrument Jam! It is free and open to the public. Anything is welcome–electronic musical instruments, toys, computers, common household items, and anything else (even usual musical instruments). As always, we will be doing this concurrently with our friends at i3Detroit.

We are looking forward to seeing [and hearing!] you this Friday night!

(Photograph by Maurits Burgers on flickr.)