American Pi: details of the Raspberry Pi hackspace tour
Rob Bishop, our tech evangelist, developer and all-round good egg, has been finalising his itinerary for the first Raspberry Pi Hackspace Tour (previously discussed here). Here’s his updated schedule:
18th September – Make.SI (Staten Island, NY) – Evening event, starts at 7pm – Sign-up
19th September – NYResistor (Brooklyn, NY) – Evening event, starts at 6pm – Sign-up
21st September – MakerBar (Hoboken, NJ) – Afternoon event – Sign-up (3pm), Sign-up (7pm)
22nd September – HackManhattan (NYC, NY) – All day event – Sign-up (10am / 2pm)
23rd September – Alpha One Labs (Brooklyn, NY) – All day event – Sign-up (12am / 3pm)
24th September – Hive76 (Philadelphia, PA) – Evening event, starts at 7pm – Sign-up
26th September – HacDC (Washington DC) – Evening event, starts at 7:30pm – Details
29th September – Noisebridge (San Francisco, CA) – All day event – Details
30th September – Hacker Dojo (Mountain View, CA) – Afternoon event, starts at 1pm – Details
1st October – Stanford SVI (Stanford, CA) – Evening event, starts at 7pm – Sign-up
2nd October – Nullspace Labs (LA, CA) – Evening event, starts at 7pm
3rd October – 23b Shop (Fullerton, CA) – Evening event, starts at 7pm
4th October – Crash Space (Culver City, CA) – Evening event – Details
6th October – ATX Hackspace (Austin, Texas) – Evening event, starts at 6pm – Details
You can see all this data as a Google map – which I’m not embedding properly, because a bunch of you complained that it crashed your browsers last time. (Stop using IE and move to a proper browser.) Here’s a screengrab of the map, which you can click on to visit the map itself.
Hackspace tour map. Click to view.
Special Guests
NYResistor – Adafruit Industries: our good friends from Adafruit will be on hand to join in the Pi hacking and will be giving away this giant Raspberry Pi-looking back pack filled with awesome electronics and more. (They’re adding a new desirable thingy to the back pack every day, so it’s worth checking the link frequently.)
Noisebridge – Oracle: The JavaFX engineering team will be coming along to demonstrate Java and JavaFX running on the Raspberry Pi
Follow Rob on Twitter
Twitter Feed: @Rob_Bishop
Hashtag: #AmericanPi
Discussion
Plan a project, discuss meeting up, organise shared lifts and talk about the tour in our forums. Rob will also be answering questions in the comments section below this post.
Prizes!
We’ve been kindly donated 20 Pibows to give away for the best project at each event (thanks Pimoroni!) and we’ll be giving out highly sought-after Raspberry Pi stickers for anyone who has something to show! (If you’re extra-nice, Rob might give out stickers even if you don’t have something to show. He’s malleable that way.)
Sales
We’ve tried desperately hard to work a way to sell Raspberry Pis at the events, but sadly US state sales tax restrictions mean have made this incredibly difficult to arrange across four states, especially for an outfit like ours with no US presence. We’re all super-annoyed by this (especially Rob, who had visions of trekking across the US with only a gargantuan rucksack of Pis and Mountain Dew to sustain him – the big weirdo). We’re looking at handing out discount codes at the events – I’ll be confirming this later if we can sort it out.
If you have a Raspberry Pi already, bring it along!
Future Tours
Plans are underway for a US return covering the Midwest and other areas. We’ve already discussed visiting Boston, Chicago, Vancouver, Portland and Baltimore, but these locations aren’t set in stone yet. We know that a lot of you want Rob to visit your area on a later tour, so if you’d like to see him, please leave a comment below.
We’re also going to be doing the same thing in the UK: if you’re a member of a British Hackspace and would like us to drop by, please let us know in the comments section.
Europe and the rest of the world will be coming soon! We wish Rob the very best of British luck with the inevitable jetlag. Please be nice to him.
76 comments
Marc
Additionally, Oregon has no sales tax.
liz
It’s my *favourite* thing about Oregon. (That and Tanuki in Portland, which is the best Japanese/Korean/Oregonian dive bar IN THE WORLD.)
Marc
Try Horse Brass Pub next time. many flavors of Scotch Whisky to try.
John
How about Toronto??
liz
If you’ve got the details of a local hackspace, we’ll definitely look into it.
Adrian
I second the request for Toronto. How about this hackerspace?
http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/HackLab.TO
Rob Bishop
I’ll add it to the list!
Yves McDonald
Montréal would be more fun :-P but, seriously, it would be nice to hold one in Eastern Canada
Dinesh
A Tour to India (hopefully in near future)……we r waiting……:-)
liz
Definitely on the cards – probably some time late in 2013.
Joe
Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN. You get to visit two cities for the price of one!
liz
It’s really helpful for us if you can link to (or at least mention) local hackspaces when you add the name of a city here!
Joe Dobmeier
The community organisation is called Twin Cities Maker and their hackerspace is “The Hack Factory” http://www.tcmaker.org/blog/hack-factory/
Peter Fleck
In addition to Hack Factory, Minneapolis has The Mill, Leonardo’s Basement, and a Free Geek site.
http://www.mnmill.org/
http://leonardosbasement.org/
http://freegeektwincities.org/
Rob Bishop
Thanks
Eric Howland
In Madison WI, the Hackerspace is Sector 67 http://www.sector67.org/
608-241-4605
Tom
San Antonio, Texas, would be happy to have a visit.
The hackerspace is called 10BitWorks. It is infested with Propellers, Arduinos, PICs, and some Raspberry Pi.
http://www.10bitworks.com
liz
Our kind of infestation!
Rob Bishop
It would be great to see your members at the Austin event if you can make it!
Temia Eszteri
No love for Washington: the State: the Movie: the Game. :(
liz
As we mention in the article, Rob’s going to be doing more of these tours; he can’t visit every city in the country in the time he has available for this one, much as he’d like to! If you’d like to invite him to your local hackspace for the next tour (as we mention in the article), please do so in the comments here.
Geordie Birch
Washington state would dovetail nicely with Victoria and Vancouver, British Columbia.
Geordie Birch
Vancouver Hack Space: http://hackspace.ca
Victoria Makerspace: http://makerspace.ca
Washington State: http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Washington
Rob Bishop
I’ll add them to the list!
Robert
Chicago please! There are plenty of retrogeeks (old farts like myself who learned to program on a Sinclair ZX81) and geeklets (like my son) living in and around Chicago.
Rob Bishop
Pumping Station: One is top of the list for the next trip so we’ll definitely be in Chicago soon
Mac Rutan
Orlando, FL is ready and waiting. The Central Florida Raspberry Pi User’s Group and FamiLAB hackspace would host! We have so much mountain dew it’s absurd.
Rob Bishop
You’re on the list!
Waterbury
Rob, I’m from the Central Florida Raspberry Pi User’s Group and FamiLAB as well. Our members are all about the Pi. Check out this picture from the first week after the first shipment of Pis started hitting Orlando!
http://imgur.com/DXRSq
We also had a member make a Raspberry Pie to honor the Raspberry Pi! :D
http://thingiverse-production.s3.amazonaws.com/renders/4b/17/a7/2c/4a/Raspberry_Pie_display_medium.jpg
I made a derivative of Adafruit’s Pi case:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:26164
and lead engineer and founder of tawlk.com, lrvick has been working on a camera control system:
http://i.imgur.com/6FMOs.jpg
Raspbe
Rob Bishop
That’s awesome! Hopefully I’ll get across to FamiLAB soon and I can see all these cool projects in action. In the mean time please blog about it and tell Liz!
Cormac Something
You should do a tour across Europe. I live in Galway, Ireland which has many great places to host such an event such as the University NUIG. There is an organization called Coderdojo which is a voluntary run organization which teaches young people such as myself how to code in cities all across the world, including Galway. Everyone there would love for an event such as this and would love to buy a Raspberry Pi. Their website is http://coderdojo.com/dojos/galway/
I myself am a keen coder and a big Raspberry Pi fan.
Yours Truly,
Cormac Something
P.S. It would be a good start for a west-to-east tour. Or end of an east-to-west.
Rob Bishop
Hopefully we’ll be able to arrange a European tour soon
Cormac Something
That would be great!
Ron Lindsey
You folks partial to being near water? There be a whole chunk of land in the middle that you MISSED! (Nashville,TN bring one of them…)
Rob Bishop
We’ll hopefully cover more of the US in future tours – there’s a lot of it to visit in one trip!
W. H. Heydt
I’m not the least surprised that you’re being tripped up by state sales taxes…particularly in California, which cracked down on flea markets and conventions a few years ago.
I’m sure it’s too late to make arrangements now, but perhaps in the future you could find local SF or SCA vendors that could work with you that have reseller licenses and have already dealt with the states you’re going to.
Marc
It should be no trouble to find an enthusiast that is sales tax knowledgeable. Here I am for Washington State.
liz
We’ve actually been trying for a month or so to get things sorted, and finally threw up our hands at the start of this week. Ho hum.
Eric P. Scott
This doesn’t fall under California’s Swap Meet/Flea Market/Special Event criteria; it’s a lot closer to Trade Show sales. See State Board of Equalization Publication 77, “Out-of-State Sellers: Do You Need to Register with California?” http://www.boe.ca.gov/sutax/staxpubsn.htm
Eric P. Scott
There’s definitely still time to make this happen.
I checked with the San Francisco Field Office of the State Board of Equalization to find out exactly what the foundation would have to do to sell Pis in California. It turns out to be quite simple, thanks to recent procedural changes that went into effect in June. You’d need to fill out an online application for a Temporary Sellers Permit (valid for 90 days), and leave fields blank for things like bank account information. The system would place the application in a pending state. Next, you’d telephone during business hours to discuss your situation; they’d unlock the application and issue a permit the very same day. No fees are assessed, and a deposit should not be required.
Then, keep track of how many Pis you sell at each event, and as long as Rob’s backpack holds less than a pallet load, this should be easy as … well, you know.
Scott
We’d love to host y’all at Pittsburgh’s maker space HackPittsburgh!
Rob Bishop
Thanks for the invite!
Rob Beard
Hi Liz,
If you’re looking to do a UK tour, could I suggest the Exeter LUG? Rick Timmis who runs the Exeter LUG has access to a reasonable sized community centre with hall, internet access and even a Linux based internet cafe (which we were looking at trying to setup a couple of Pi’s as LTSP clients sometime). There’s usually a LUG meeting there on the second Friday of every month around 7pm but I’m sure with a bit of planning something could be arranged for a weekend. The community centre is close to Exeter’s main railway station (so there’s good rail links for anyone visiting the city) and I’m sure a band of merry geeks from across Devon & Cornwall would probably be interested in coming along :-)
Rob
Rob Bishop
Get in touch via Liz and let’s see if we can organise something :-)
dbh937
I’m a New Yorker, and I love what Raspberry Pi is doing, but if I’m not mistaken, there isn’t a any town or city called New Jersey, NY.
Rob Bishop
Good spot … I think we meant Hoboken, NJ!
Chris
Yes indeed, I noticed that myself. Being from N.J. that one confused me until I followed the MakerBar link and saw it was Hoboken.
Rob Bishop
Fixed!
Javier
I’m kind of disappointed that the NYC area is already sold out. Oh well
Rob Bishop
I think there are still spaces at the HackManhattan event if you’re quick!
Brian
C’mon guys!! You don’t have time for Atlanta, GA?!? Also, Be Warned… American Mountain Dew contains Brominated Vegetable Oil (BVO), a product also used in Flame Retardants. http://kotaku.com/5867844/mountain-dew-ingredient-may-reduce-fertility-make-you-flame+proof. Enjoy your CONUS tour!
liz
Rob is already AFLAME. With awesomeness.
David Monks
We (Open Shed) would be very happy to welcome you in Penzance, when you do your UK tour.
Rob Bishop
Get in touch with Liz and we can see if we can work out a visit soon
Ryan
Bring it to Kansas City!
Rob Bishop
Kansas City Hackerspace is on the list for a future trip!
Harrkev
Wow! A WHOLE FIVE STATES represented (if you include DC as a state). A tour is traveling AROUND. This map looks more like a visit to a couple of relatives.
liz
You read the bit about more being planned for later in the year and our seeking requests for hackspaces to visit, didn’t you?
You didn’t? Go back and read again (developing skills in reading comprehension is not what the Foundation is about, but we’re happy to support it as a secondary goal), then try commenting accordingly.
m0ntala
Looking forward to a future UK tour! :)
m2xtreme
Come to Boston, MA please! We are full of college students; a great market for the raspberry pi. I would think MIT is a good hackerspace, they’re notorious for clever hacks (though technically MIT is accross the river in Cambridge, not Boston).
Rob Bishop
Boston / MIT are definitely on the list for a future tour!
schneidz
seems like this wouldve been a great oppertunity to present at the embedded systems conference in boston:
http://east.ubmdesign.com/
liz
We do have to watch what we spend the Foundation’s money on; and we get invited to present at a lot of conferences (more than we’re able to attend) for free, so we don’t tend to attend conferences which require us to pay for a booth or a speaking slot.
schneidz
speaking of mit… a pi/olpc mash up would kick a lot of ass.
although they are two totally different design philosophies and target audiences.
Jim Manley
I’ll be at the San Francisco, Mountain View, and now Stanford gatherings to help show off Pi boards, cases, the Atrix lapdock “PiTop” conversion, a GertBoard, an Arduino Uno, and software, software, and more software than you can shake a stick at … well, you can shake a stick at it, but it won’t pay any attention. I’ll also be available to help herd cats, I mean, visitors and let everyone know about our ongoing Raspberry Jams, the Peninsula Raspberry Pi Meetup group, etc.
Someone’s going to have to take up the slack once Rob whizzes in and out of town, and Hal Heydt, and the rest of us Pi aficionados will be ready to do that over the long term. If someone can PM me the Stanford point(s) of contact, I would be more than happy to help in any way needed.
Maybe we can talk the campus bookstore into carrying Pi boards, etc., and we also should get Fry’s Electronics to stock them while we’re at it. The Palo Alto store that serves Stanford has a Wild West theme – each Fry’s has a different kitsch theme reminiscent of the 1950s/1960s theme park destinations built back then. We can only hope and dream that someday they will feel the need to build a Pi themed store ;)
cave
Hi Liz,
It would be nice to plan some visits in Austria too.
Europe>Austria>
http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Austria
Wien/Vienna
https://metalab.at/
http://www.happylab.at/
Linz
http://www.devlol.org/
Graz:
http://realraum.at
Innsbruck:
it-syndikat.org/
Les
Chicago would be nice but Indianapolis is friendlier :) The traffic is no where near as congested and the city doesn’t gouge one for parking!
Mark
Looking at the “Bramble” it highlights a need for “Power over Ethernet”.
Actually, a little hardware device that pulls power of the ethernet, regulates it and shoves it down a rat’s tail into the USB power “in” on the “Pi” while letting through the ethernet connections “sans power” into the “Pi” ethernet port might be a way forward… We could call it a “Rat’s Arse”…
I’m sure someone’s already thought of that though… Anyone?
SupremeSpod.
Al Bennett
Come to Edinburgh Hacklab! I heard you guys nearly made it during the Turing festival, you should *actually* make it this time…
Have fun over the pond!
Lee Haelters
Rob, welcome to our side of the pond. Probably you are no stranger here (as in “one who is already familiar”, not “stranger than fiction”!)
Would anyone care to trade a ticket to the Philadelphia/Hive76 event for one to the Staten Island/Make.SI event? Got mine before the event in Philly was published, now it is closed.
Lee Haelters
schneidz
i was unable to get a ticket for philly either. it is weird that they sold out the day after liz posted this.
what do you think the chance is to view the presentation if i show up without a ticket ?
Lee Haelters
@ schneidz – I am not sure that I would go on record about my intention in advance, as that just gives someone the opportunity to say “No”. Also may boost the number of those with the same idea, thereby decreasing one’s own opportunity! Lee
Bob C
“(Stop using IE and move to a proper browser.)”
Oddly enough IE had no problem. It is Chrome that has given me the most grief with Google maps the past two months. A source of much hilarity in our IT dept.
DK
Seattle hasn’t been mentioned yet? I’m shocked!
Here are some local hackerspaces:
http://metrixcreatespace.com/
http://www.jigsawrenaissance.org/ (they’ve blogged a bit about raspberry pi)
http://www.airlighttimespace.org/
http://www.hackerbotlabs.com/
Also http://www.seattletechnicalbooks.com/ can hook you up!
Bill Carver
The chances of visiting rural Idaho are slim to none, but if Rob or Liz are in the area stop by for a brew, a great view of Idaho’s Grand Canyon, and crash for the night between Denver and Seattle.
Randolph
Ah, man, not going to make the Pacific North
wetwest?In Seattle, you might try CreateSpace: http://metrixcreatespace.com/ and Jigsaw Renaissance: http://www.jigsawrenaissance.org/. In Portland, you might try The Backspace Cafe: http://www.backspace.bz/. You might also try Eugene Makerspace in Eugene, Oregon; they’ve already got a Raspberry Pi project going.
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