Pumping Station: One

Have you ever wished you could help direct investigations or do some hacking in areas like chemistry and biology (or others), but feel shut out of the scientific process because you don’t work in academia or industry?

Are you working in science within industry or academia, but feel locked into a narrow field of R&D that is dictated by conservative sources of funding either via business allocations to meet short-term profit imperatives or from government grants?

Open Science is the practice of making methodologies and results publicly accessibe as well as facilitating various degrees of distributed collaboration in the research process. “Hacking,” or altering the objects of study for various reasons, will be emphasized in our program for purposes that could range from art to biofuel development.

Please attend our meeting this Sunday and subsequent meetings every third Sunday of the month to help shape this nascent program. Early meetings will develop strategies for acquiring lab space and equipment, formating the program, and selecting initial group projects.

Who: Open to the public

Where: Pumping Station: One, 3354 N Elston Ave, Chicago, IL

When: This Sunday, December 18, 6pm (and every 3rd Sunday at 6pm)

Cost: Free

We look forward to meeting you!

The third installment of DIY CNC night will be Wednesday, September 14th at 7pm!

DIY CNC night is a monthly (second Wednesday of each month) event held at Pumping Station: One, 3354 N Elston Ave, for hobbyists, enthusiasts, and professionals to celebrate and explore Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) tools such as laser cutters, 3D printers, CNC mills, lathes, plotters, and more!  Attendees are encouraged to bring along any machines or work examples they wish to show off.

The usual schedule is as follows:

• 7-7:15 introductions / show off stuff you brought along
• 7:15-7:45 brief presentation
• 7:45-9-ish mingling, discussion, tour of Pumping Station: One, general schmoozing, and machine repair/assembly/upgrade

This month Bart Dring of MakeSlide and buildlog will be talking about his projects.

Miniature Taj Mahal designed and printed by thingiverse user tc_fea.

The second edition of PS:One′s DIY CNC night (Automation Station: One) is this Wednesday, August 10 at 7pm.  All 3D printing, CNC mill, laser cutting, and any other CAD/CAM tool enthusiasts are welcome (members and non-members alike).

Feel free to bring things to show off.

Image by Thingiverse user rotoscan.

No promises that DK or the big M will show, but there have been rumors...

This week Pumping Station: One turns two years old!  Not only are we older and wiser, but we’re getting bigger too!  As you may have read on this blog, we’ve recently doubled our footprint in our building, adding on another classroom and a dedicated workshop.  To celebrate and show off our new space, this Friday, April 15th, we’ll be throwing a birthday party and grand re-opening (not that we actually closed).  We’ll have making-related activities like electronics and desktop trebuchet kits early on, as well as a DJ and liquid refreshments.  The festivities start at 6 PM.  Donations of $5-10 at the door requested.

Feel free to RSVP.

We just received a very generous gift of a Nilus LeClerc Loom, dubbed Weaving Station: One.

Jen is working on getting it set up and learning how to use it – if anyone out there knows about setting up looms and weaving and would like to have access to ours, please contact us.

We have a new equipment labeling and tracking system!

Here’s how it works – every major piece of equipment has a wiki page and a label.

The label has 5 pieces of critical info:

1. Name of the Tool
2. QR code and URL (of the wiki page)
3. Owner – (PS:One or individual)
4. Certification Required (RTFM) or No Certification Required
5. Do Not Hack (DNH) or Hacking is OK

The Wiki page is a place where you can learn more about the tool, whether it is functioning, safety documentation, person to contact, certification information, etc.

Feel free to go into the equipment pages and add detailed usage information.

Thanks to the generous folks at LVL1 and Labitat for sharing wiki code and labeling schemes with me – I stole a bit from both systems to come up with the PS:One system.  Thanks to Dan Meyer, Shawn Blazak, and Tim Saylor for putting in a few hours of hard work Sunday afternoon to get the system up and running. Thanks also to Nathan Witt and Jim Burke for smoothing out bumps in the wiki template and creating video, respectively.

Today, January 18, 2011, is the last day of my tenure as President of Pumping Station: One, and I’d like to take this opportunity to say to the PS:One 2010 Board of Directors, PS:One members new and old, our community, our friends, and our neighbors:
Thank you.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve your community for the past year as president of the City of Chicago’s hackerspace.  Thank you for the hard work, enthusiasm, and ideas; the good, the bad, and even the crazy ones you contributed to keep us alive this past year.  In 2010 we experienced near-catastrophes, but we also experienced many more triumphs.   Read the rest of this entry →

Photo of one of Anne Petersen's finished items, by Anne Petersen.

Jen’s knitting workshop has been a great success with almost 10 attendees and many people who had never knitted before already finishing multiple projects.  Therefore, Jen is teaming up with Gretchen to run the knitting workshop every Monday.  If you want to learn how to knit and haven’t attended yet, you now have double the opportunities to learn.  Come by any Monday at 7pm and start making something!

Due to the upcoming holiday busyness Circuit Hacking Wednesday will be canceled for the 28th of December.  Circuit hacking will continue on January 11th.  There will be kits to solder, circuits to bend, and fun will be had by all.

Also PS : One movie night will be moved from January 1st to January 8th.  I will be taking requests for screenings until the 3rd if anyone has any good suggestions.