Amherst Media Maker Drop-in

On Friday, we had the first drop-in session for the Amherst Media Maker community. Around 10 people came and we spent most of the time in a far-ranging discussion. Some of the people had come to the initial workshop, but several were new. It was a great conversation that I hope will be a model for how we move forward. There was a lot of excitement and positive energy.

Ostensibly, I went there to work on Node Red. Before the meeting, I had installed Node Red on my Raspberry Pi and could at least demo it. But we mostly talked about other stuff.

Christine Olson came because she's interested in studying the launch of Makerspaces. Stephanie Jo Kent came to talk about hacking community engagement to build resilient communities. A student from Hampshire came to talk about developing a curriculum for teaching electronics. It's great to see the Maker community becoming a home for so many interesting perspectives.

We talked about a vast array of interesting ideas: gamification, building environments to foster collaboration, providing space for self-directed activities, the distinction between Maker and Hacker, models for organizing the community, and future plans for the space.

We did look at some technical stuff. I briefly showed Node Red. I brought one of the Galileo development boards I got recently which we passed around and discussed. We worked, again, to try to get the servos working: the ones we received with our kits have been problematic and we've been working with the supplier to figure what's wrong. It was all good.

It looks like the time will work going forward. There was interest in meeting again next week. Several people said they could come every week. I'm not sure I can attend every week, but I'll come when I can.