April 2009

The next University of Waterloo surplus sale is April 28, 2009 from 12:30 PM until 2:00 PM. If you've never been to the sale, it's quite the experience. The line up starting at the door often runs down Phillip St. before the doors open. Then it's a mad dash to find the items you're interested in before someone else lays claim. There's usually a large assortment of deals to be found on PCs, Macs, monitors, hard drives and various peripheral cards, furniture and various scientific instruments. There's also bikes, cell phones and other lost and found items. This week they have a Tandberg Precision H.D. Camera that didn't sell from the last sale.

It's worth the trip, even if you don't buy something, just to see people happily cart away their purchases .

For more details, check out the sale's web page at: http://www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infostor/surplus_sale_info.html

To date, the maker meetings we've had have been centred around getting a hackerspace up and running, but there's no reason we should let the lack of a space keep us from getting together, sharing our projects, learning from each other and having fun.

I'm wondering what people would like to see in a maker group. One of the best examples of a successful group is Make: Philly, a 400-strong group of makers in Philladelphia. According to their about page, their meetups are:

...characterized by three main ingredients: an "Open Make" segment allowing attendees to share a project with the group, a subject matter presentation by a member or outside speaker, and a Maker Challenge -- a building activity.

 Is this the type of meetings you would like to have? I think at a minimum a meetup with a project demo would be good, speakers if we can arrange them and some food and drink would be good. Leave comments and let everyone know what you think...