KWartzLab represents at DIY & DJ's at Waterloo Public Square

Much fun was had today in uptown Waterloo.  KWartzLab and MakeKW were invited to join in the DIY and DJ's event in Waterloo's new public square (thanks Tracy!).  We talked to dozens of people about our hacker space start up and made lots of friends.  If this looks like fun, please join us.  If you have questions about the hacker space, you can contact me.  Click through for deets...

Here's Andrew holdin' the fort down.  He brought out his home brew amp and also had some sweet Arduino stuff going with a cool yellow-on-blue LCD.  I brought a bucket of sidewalk chalk.  Mahrie (on the right) from The Bead Bazaar kept a close eye on us and saved us multiple times as the wind tried to remove our literature.

Magic beads!

Quick aside to clarify for the newcomers to the cause:

• MakeKW is a community of local makers bound together by their love of making all kinds of stuff
• KWartzLab (say 'quartz-lab) is an effort by a local group of makers to create a hacker space:  a physical space where we can meet, work, collaborate, teach, dream, and socialize.  KWartzLab is very freshly formed as of Thursday July 9, 2009 after 3 months of much homework and legwork.  We have 20 paid members and are working hard on incorporating and leasing space as soon as possible.  We're looking for additional members so come make stuff with us.

In reality, it's a lot of the same personalities associated with both of these facets of the local maker scene.  On with the show...

 Noah and Rick brought out their awesome bot that is running a Parallax Propeller chip.  Much discussion ensued about multi-core microcontrollers.  Guys, we've still got to figure out what's happening on the one channel of that h-bridge :-)

Jeff rocked his laser guitar.  That's right...

I said: LASER GUITAR!  Go Jeff.

 and Bevan!

Then Alex arrived in magnificent steampunk style and busted out the face paints along with a "Free Face Painting" sign...

that generated this queue of people who were treated to Alex's fantastic one-off designs.  She painted unique designs for 22 people between 6 and 10pm.  Rock!

Also rallying around the tent were Jessica, Matt, Andrew, Ben, Bevan, Jeff, Mark, and Jessica

Join us and your money is in good hands with this serious guy: Mr. Ben Brown, ladies and gentlemen.  Ben worked some serious printer kung fu to pull together business cards and literature for us today in very short order (applause).

Shouts to the DJ's: nice work guys.

and the sun set, but we were having too much fun to leave

Heather (amazing textile work) and Jessica (amazing Tarot card designs) bundled up and dug in.

and it's not a party until Gus has a snake tattooed on his face!

Had beer and food in our usual social style at the Heuther afterward.  Awesome day.

Thanks to Mark, Gus, Shin, Bevan, Alex, Jessica, Heather, Ben, Andrew, Matt, Jeff, and Saied for coming out to support the cause and share the fun.

Thanks to Tracy Suerich, Russ, Jessica, and the other volunteers.

Thanks to The City of Waterloo and Waterloo Music for sponsoring.

Make: way for the future.
DW