We’re going to do a focused cleanup day at the space this Sunday April 10th starting around 10 AM. Feel free to come when you can; we’ll be working till about 5pm or so depending on how much we get accomplished. Bring your work gloves as we’ll be primarily focused on the shop to make some more room for projects and more work area. We want to make visible progress, not attempt to clean an entire mountain. We want to open up the shop area a bit better so that we (and the landlord) have more room to work. We have set goals that we want to complete on Sunday so that we can focus everyone’s efforts. That being said, if you have projects you’re storing / working on in the shop, you may want to make sure any tools or such are put up before Sunday. I know some of you have projects you all are working on, I just don’t want to have to move something that shouldn’t be moved.

Our main goals:

• reorder and reorganize the mezzanine, specifically the right hand half of it
• move enough stuff out of the way to get the metal rack over on that side against the wall
• order and organize the wood that’s on the floor there utilizing the rack and space created on the mezzanine

This doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a lot to do so we’re definitely going to be using everyone that can show up to help. These three things should keep us pretty busy all day.

Sign up for the April 2nd LAN Party

MidsouthMakers LAN Party April 2 2011

Prusa Mendel in building stage

Prusa Mendel Showing off Glow in the dark ABS parts

This Friday Feb 11th 7pm @ the space come check out what we’ve been working on with 3d printers. We’ll have 3 Mendel printers in various stages of assembly. Come by and ask questions, hang out, and see the progress. Dan and Claudio will be working on early stages of assembly and Sonny will be working on later stages of assembly of his Mendel. Nick’s Makerbot will also be at the space to show off differences between it and the Mendels.

If 3d Printers aren’t your thing then feel free to ask for a tour around the space. Our Friday meetings are open to the public. Come by and see what we’re all about and of course, feel free to sign up for a membership!

Freemont Space - Shop (Image by Daniel Hess)

We’ve leased a space at 2203 Freemont Rd! We’ll be handing out keys to all paid members at the 12/17 Friday meeting at Republic Coffee. Google Maps: 2203 Freemont Rd. Memphis, TN 38114. If you are not yet a full member you can become one by paying dues for December. We’ll be discussing our initial move in plans at the meeting on Friday, we look forward to seeing you there.

The LAN party last Saturday was a great success, thanks to everyone that was involved in setup / clean up and a special thanks to our host, Jeff Leath and our very own Kevin Dunn for some really tasty chilli. Thanks to everyone that showed up even if you didn’t play, was great to see everyone.

Image by John Wood

HEY FOLKS! LET’S GO TO HUNTSVILLE!

When this first came up as a discussion I was psyched from the get go.

This past Saturday, June 26th, we made that happen.

Daniel, Jim, Kevin, Brandi, Chris, Drew and I all loaded up and headed East early in the morning. Trailed closely by Ryan Anderson. The trip there was great and the weather was very kind.

Upon our arrival we were afraid no one was there, but soon after hitting the doorbell we were greeted by Justin (Ratmandu). After exchanging pleasantries we were given a thorough tour and explanation of everything in the shop. There were many “ooohs” and “aaahs” followed with several “Oh Neats”. Immediately we were drawn to the numerous projects that were in different stages of completion. Intrigued by all there was to see, we couldn’t help but ask questions over and over again. Justin calmly and patiently answered each and every one.

When lunch time came around we were guided to Bandito Burrito and found it to be very close to authentic and also very good eats. This will be recommended to the future groups visiting there too.

Returning to the space, we found several other “Locals” had arrived as well as Nick, a visitor from Birmingham who contacted us after seeing one of our stickers on a truck while he was in Memphis. We gladly shared information with Nick and we hope that he has success getting a space started in B’ham as well.

There were many handshakes and greetings and story tellings to be heard as well as many heartfelt smiles being shared all over. From here we talked about lots of different things and played with as many gadgets as we could. Everything from the Cupcake bot to the screen printing press. Discussions about Arduinos, software cores, and modding Jeep doors were everywhere. There was no shortage of thought provoking conversation.

One discussion about a place called Mike’s Merchandise caused many of us to visit this wondrous place and see what all the “hub bub” was about. We were anything but disappointed. If there was ever a store designed with “Makers” in mind, this is the place. Alice said “They have a bit of everything”, this my friends was a great understatement. If you find yourself in the Huntsville area, say hi to the “Locals” but by all means, do not miss Mike’s Merchandise. Whether you’re looking for a radiator from a Caterpillar truck or a box of test tubes, this place is likely to have it. With surprisingly small prices too.

The trip home went well but leaving was not exactly desirable. These folks have a great setup and seem to be doing a really good job of keeping people’s interests high. With lots of activities going on and many, many things to work on in the space, this group isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. We will also be looking forward to revisiting them in the very near future.