TINWHISKERS.NET

Well, you should. And you should vote for us! Because we’re awesome. And we’re actively trying to make more awesome every day, by enabling people with awesome goals to do awesome things in an awesome community.

We’ve already done so much: we’ve obtained an amazing space in downtown Los Angeles, and since then we’ve taught programming, 3D printing, puppetry, Hollywood makeup effects, film making, electronics, robotics, wearables, arduino, chemistry, 3D modeling, woodworking… and we’ve only been open for a few months, and only on the weekends!

Imagine what we could do if we had the budget to keep the space open 24/7. Imagine the talent we could bring in to share and teach. Imagine the equipment we could offer to Los Angeles.

If you think Los Angeles should have these things, please vote for our LA2050 submission to re-imagine eduation: Central Educational Network Based On The Apprenticeship Model!

Make-To-Learn is a new thematic initiative of the DML Research Hub. This month, DML is partnering with Instructables.com to host the Make-to-Learn Youth Contest where kids can share their creations, talk about what their building experience, and learn from the process of others who share as well.

I’m on the judging panel for the contest, and have been watching the first projects begin to roll in. There is some serious talent out there in kidville! Think your project is awesome enough? Know a youth who makes crazy things? Submit projects HERE! The contest is open until April 15th, and we invite all sorts of makes – digital, physical, electronic, gastronomic, whatever! Just as long as a youth made it.

All throughout 2012, we’ve been making kits, holding workshops, running classes, and building friendships. Now, the moment we’ve been so anxious about has finally come: We’ve released our KickStarter for the LA Makerspace into the wild!

It’s been a crazy and amazing year. We’ve had literally hundreds of children and adults learning with us at our events. And now that we have our new home in the LA Mart, we’re ready for the next step: filling it with awesome tools, awesome people, and awesome projects! Help us create a new generation of nerdlings, and FUND OUR KICKSTARTER!

Hey, have you been thinking to yourself: “Man, I wish there was a place I could go to show my kids awesome DIY technology, AND make really awesome and fun crafts!”? Well then, HAVE I GOT A DEAL FOR YOU, MY FRIEND!

This October 21st, I’ll be hosting a workshop through the LAMakerspace to make DIY holiday lanterns. We custom-designed ALL of the parts in this kit, so they’re guaranteed to be full of awesome.

When: Sunday, October 21, 2012 from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM (PDT)
Where: Silver Lake Headquarters 2898 Rowena Ave, #100, Los Angeles, CA 90039
Who: Ticket is good for one kid + adult pair (and one kit). Recommended age: 10.
All children under 13 must be accompanied by an adult. Please limit one adult per child, as we have limited space.
How Much: $20

The Kit includes:

• One custom unassembled lasercut cardboard lantern exterior
• One unassembled custom LED circuit board
• One custom 3D printed moon (to house the LED)

We’ll also have the following available for everyone to share:

• Soldering irons / solder, for the circuit
• Markers, for colouring
• Coloured plastic wrap, for the lantern windows
• Hot glue guns / hot glue, to assemble the lanterns

This class is a great opportunity to show off some DIY tech to kids, just in time for fall! We’ll have Makerbots printing moons live at the space, and will be teaching basic soldering via the custom LED circuits.

If you have any questions, please reach out to @at0mbxmb on Twitter or email at0mbxmb at gmail dot com. See you there!

I’m convinced that literally anything you could possibly want can be found in LA. I’m convinced.

(This is of course operating under the assumption that “anything” does not include functional public transit.)

Really, though, I’m primarily talking tech. You want to found a startup? Do it in LA. You want to learn a new skill? Do it in LA. You want to meet up with a bunch of awesome like-minded strangers who think your interests are so cool that they’re willing to sit in an hour of traffic to do it with you? DO IT IN LA.

I just got back from a FREE 6-hour workshop on Ruby on Rails, hosted by Tiffany Davis, Carbon Five, and Railsbridge. Student skill level ranged from total n00bs to lead developers. (I fall somewhere in between, but found myself in Boram’s advanced class for having a pseudo-working knowledge of OOP.)

Before I moved to LA, I had a tough time finding people who wanted to spend their free time learning–especially about programming. Here, I feel I can’t throw a stone without smashing some poor, friendly nerd in the face. (Hence why I have sworn to give up stone-throwing for good.) But really, there are awesome, motivated people all over this city. They are out there, they are building amazing things, and they are opening these innovations up to all of us.

The workshop I attended today was a product of Railsbridge. The amazing folks behind Railsbridge have put together a guide and curriculum for you–be you an organizer, teacher, or student–to allow you to enable yourself and those around you to learn Ruby on Rails. I’ve taken a few stabs at learning RoR, but was never successful enough to get to a point where I could code anywhere near the speed of my excitement. This (and the pain of setting up a new dev environment) always led me to fall back onto one of my stronger languages, leaving Ruby and Rails behind. In the workshop, we worked through the painful parts of getting started together, under the leadership of professional developers. After that, we worked through what commands are most useful, some best practices on source control, how to write a basic webpage with database integration, and how to toss it all easily onto the web. (For the last part, we used Heroku, which worked fantastically for our “just-make-it-work” needs.)

Long story short, I had a blast. I can’t wait to get to Crashspace and start coding! (Speaking of Crashspace, maybe we’ll host a Railsbridge event of our own! Hit me up on twitter if you’d be interested!)