We've been named as a participant in element14's Great Global Hackerspace Challenge!
Here's our request to participate...
Our hackerspace -- think|haus -- was founded in 2009 in the Canadian "rust belt" city of Hamilton, Ontario. With the move to our second space, we have refocused our space and our efforts on positive community building and working collaboratively as a group.
Some of our recent efforts towards this include:
- providing support and facilities for the Hamilton Open Data movement -- an attempt to get municipal level data into the hands of the citizens in a useful way.
- regularly scheduled "open to the public" training sessions on a wide variety of topics -- from basic soldering and sewing through to micro-controllers and computer security.
- working with a local Girl Guide unit (similar to a US Girl Scout troop) to simultaneously teach computers, engineering and sewing through the development of the BlinkyHat project -- a camp hat with LEDs, ATtiny85v, batteries and conductive thread assembled by the 9-12 year old girls.
- active participation in the Toronto mini-MakerFaire (May 6th) with a (currently secret) awesome group project.
- being one of the founders of the SoOnCon maker/hacker conference (http://sooncon.ca) and the lead space for Canada's first European-style HackerCamp -- SoOnCamp2012 -- to be held in July 2012 just outside of Hamilton.
We are trying hard to be an example of positive interactions between the wider community and the maker/hacker movement - and we are eager to commit to being one of the competing hackerspaces.
You can find out more about us at our website: http://thinkhaus.org and look forward to our next post where we announce and introduce the members of the team taking on the challenge.