If you happened to pass through the door of Suite 519 in the 915 Art Studios building this past weekend, you know what a busy time it was. Things kicked off early Saturday morning with the focused goal to start and finish a new 3D printer build, the MendelMax. A few folks started to filter in after a while: some to lend a hand, some to hang out, and some to work on their own projects. At around 2 PM, more people came in for our hosting of the monthly Philadelphia Star Trek meetup group. Afterwards, Dan was awesome enough to run through an impromptu class on how to develop your own Pong clone using the Unity 3D game engine with some of the Trekkie attendees.
Sunday also got off to an early start with the Ubuntu Bug Jam hosted by Hive76’s own jedijf. Jim was pleasantly surprised to have some Linux newcomers on hand and jumped at the opportunity to teach some command line skillz in a way only he can. In true geek fashion, they were rolling along on IRC by the end of the session! Shortly after the Bug Jam got underway, Jordan and Matthew were back at the MendelMax, determined to have it printing well, and packaged up to be shipped out by the end of the night. On the heels of the Bug Jam was the first installment of the Philadelphia Game Developer Collective which brought such a turnout that we actually ran out of chairs! This meant that our next meeting, the PAFA build group, had to get together in the lobby to hash out some last minute details and designs. While these two groups were meeting, and the MendelMax was being built, Brendan and Robert were plugging away at the hand-built custom control panel that they’ve been working on. It really looks awesome.
Despite all of these things happening at the same time, everything could not have gone better. We were able to introduce some new people to our space, greet a few familiar faces, teach some new technical and mechanical skills, brainstorm new ideas and projects, and get some really great work done! I was pleasantly surprised with all of the spontaneity happening within and around the edges of these groups.
That said, if you missed all the action this past weekend or would like to come back for more, we’ve got some up coming events that you won’t want to miss!
Wednesday, March 7: Our ever popular weekly open house! This is the number one best way to meet the people behind Hive76 as most of our members are here on Wednesday nights. You’ll get a nice tour of the space, exposure to some of the projects that are in the works, and plenty of great conversation! Always FREE!
Thursday, March 8: PAFA After Dark: Turned On! Finally, come out to see the fruits of our labor! Hive76 and the Hacktory have teamed up once again to bring you some awesome interactive installations to play with in between checking out the excellent art of Henry Ossawa Tanner. Tickets are available for $10 (non-PAFA-members) here.
Saturday & Sunday, March 10 & 11: Art Hackathon @ Hive76! Come join Hive76 for an eight hour, two day art hackathon where participants will have a chance to really get creative under a common theme with recycled materials and various art supplies. A fee of $25 is being requested for supplies and food. Email smcbeth_at_hive76.org ASAP to RSVP.
Monday, March 12: Our March installment of MMMM is coming up! If you’ve got a soft spot in your heart for microcontrollers or are eager to learn a thing or two about them, this is the workshop for you! Designed to be beginner friendly, this workshop is open to everyone. This is a FREE event!
Be sure to keep an eye on the Calendar for upcoming events, or better yet… join our discussion list or hop in our IRC channel, #hive76 on freenode and have a chat! Hope to see you soon!