FAO: MrPopinjay & other Sussex crew - Brighton hackspace!
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.”
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/2011/07/12/teensy-hid-midi-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