FAO: MrPopinjay & other Sussex crew - Brighton hackspace!

[MiL0]

Last night I went to a "Build Brighton" open night:



"Build Brighton is a Hackspace, a communal workshop where like-minded people can geek out about electronics, technology, crafts, engineering… even food hacking."

http://www.buildbrighton.com

They're just in the middle of moving to a new location so the hackspace is a bit of a building site at the moment. When it's finished (in a few weeks hopefully) it'll provide members (and the public on Thursday evenings) a 24/7 space to make all sorts of stuff.

The actual building is a large warehouse full of soldering stations, comfy sofas for hanging out on, an impressive looking laser cutting station (housed inside a shed!) and loads of tools, projects, gadgets, etc. Thursday nights is a free open-to-the-public night where you can pop along and talk to some fellow hackers about your work and show off your latest project. £20 per month allows you 24/7 access to all the tools/gear and an additional one-off charge of £50 gets you access to the laser cutter (great for cutting perspex/acrylic).

I met quite a few people there last night - very friendly bunch with a LOT of useful know-how between them. The vibe is slightly geeky - mostly men with soldering burns on one hand and a beer in the other but everyone you talk to has a real enthusiasm for diy electronics/hacking. I met engineers, electricians, plumbers, programmers, musicians, photographers, dj's and artists... a great little community

Here's one of the members sites:

http://unsymbol.wordpress.com/2011/0...di-controller/

Phil Cunningham made a usb midi device using a teensyduino. His site was actually how I found out about Build Brighton. Using the code above and a teensyduino it should be possible to make a reasonable midifighter clone (made especially easier by the laser cutter - for cutting the front panel).

Anyway - just thought it might be of some interest to the DJTT Sussex/Brighton crew. Hopefully I'll see some of you down there sometime

Location: Google Maps

[zimfella]

nice. I'll pop down there

[MiL0]

nice one zim - whereabouts are you based? from your avatar I thought it was somewhere a bit more exotic than Sussex by the sea!

Also forgot to mention - they're assembling a CNC machine for routing circuit boards and, more interestingly, a 3D printer!

[MiL0]

ah yeah, I forgot - you're the guy who was running that night in Hove town centre somewhere? is that still going?

[zimfella]

nah finished that a while ago now, every week for three months got a bit to much. Got something in the works for a monthly thing soon. nothing big just a small bar but cool one. this build brighton looks interesting. You got any projects in mind?

[MiL0]

yes - I'm restarting my big diy midi controller project again! The main problem I had before was costs - buildbrighton has got a laser cnc machine so it's inspired me to get cracking again

let me know when you re-start the night