Make:Philly at IndyHall Block Party!
Makers! We. Are. Back.
And what better timing than to coincide with Philly Tech Week and the Philadelphia Science Festival. These two awesome events bring schools, institutions, researchers, technologists, entrepreneurs and the Maker in all of us together for fun and interesting programs in April.
To start, we're invading IndyHall's Block Party on 4/22. Since this is a block party, we'll keep it to a casual meet and greet. Wondergy will be bringing Solar S'mores, and possibly liquid nitrogen. Are you an experienced maker? If you'd like to show off something you made, bring it along! We'll bring extra table space for you. Want advice? Consider this an open Make! We'll also have photos from past meetings, and a preview of our next full meeting topic - the Potato Chip Challenge.
IndyHall, or Independents Hall, is a the membership based coworking space and community in OldCity. IndyHall members are designers, developers, writers, artists, entrepreneurs, scientists, educators, small business owners,telecommuters, marketers, videographers, game developers, makers, and more. It all seems so fitting for a Make:Philly get together.
:: MEETING SPECS ::
Please RSVP at http://anyvite.com/events/home/wymuphismv
The IndyHall Block Party is Sunday, April 22, 1pm – 7pm,
Location: the EZPark lot at 20 North 3rd Street Philadelphia, PA
Can't wait to see you there!
Most Recent Meeting (March 2nd)
DOWNLOAD PETER'S PRESENTATION HERE.
We're having just 1 meeting this Spring and we're making it count. Check it out:
If you are interested in product design and design thinking in the context of a startup this is the meeting for you...
We are tremendously thrilled to be welcoming the award winning designer, Peter Bressler of Bresslergroup as our guest speaker. He will be giving a talk entitled “Product Design in Entrepreneurial Ventures” in which he will explore the following questions: What is the value of design to an entrepreneur? How should an entrepreneur use design? Can an entrepreneur afford design? In the process he will share experiences and case studies from his over 30 years of design experience spanning the consumer, medical, and industrial spaces.
Peter's expertise includes user research, human factors application, manufacturing processes and innovative criteria conflict resolution. Peter has authored or co-authored over 60 design and utility patents and has received over 40 national design awards. He is a Past President of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA).
:: MEETING SPECS ::
Date: Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011
Time: 7PM sharp!
Location: University of the Arts, 211 S. Broad Street, Terra Hall, 5th Floor
ID: Bring your ID with you to sign in at the front desk
Cost: Free
:: OPEN MAKE ::
A staple of all our meetings is Open Make -- an opportunity for you to share with the group a project you recently completed. If interested in presenting email us at makephilly@gmail to reserve your spot.
:: MAKER CHALLENGE ::
During the second half of this and every meeting we break into teams and build something to meet the objective of the 'maker challenge'. *All skill levels welcome.* In the spirit of our guest speaker's talk, the maker challenge will comprise designing and building an innovative product prototype.
Aug 8th: Annual Make:Philly BBQ featuring Wondergy!
Make:Philly / Wondergy BBQ
Solar Smores and water bottle rockets? This is not your ordinary BBQ. Make:Philly and Wondergy are joining forces for a novel and explosive public BBQ in Fairmount Park on Sunday, August 8th, 2010. All are welcome.
For this year’s BBQ, Make:Philly has teamed up with Wondergy, an Philadelphia-based science educational entertainment company. Wondergy is a team of scientists who love to play with the world around them. They put interactive science education in unexpected places like Phillies games, Skatebaording competitions, concerts, corporate meetings, birthday parties, and of course, BBQs.
Wondergy is infusing science-based fun into this year's BBQ with several exciting new additions including “Solar Smores”, in which attendees will use the power of sunlight to set marshmallows ablaze under giant parabolic mirrors. The heat from the sun (and some liquid nitrogen) will also create an explosion which will launch a trash can 20-50 ft in the air, as Wondergy recently presented live on NBC TV.
All are welcome to attend. Bring a picnic lunch and if you have a small grill, bring it too.
Be sure to also make and bring your own water rocket! Never made one? No worries, water rockets are easy to make! They are just water or soda bottles which are filled half way with water, pressurized with a bicycle pump and then launched. For visual instructions on how to make one, check out this instructable: http://www.instructables.com/id/Water_Rocket/ . Pimp your water rocket with some stylin' colors! We’ll bring the launcher.
EVENT DETAILS:
Date: Sunday, August 8th
Time: 1-3PM
Place: Lemon Hill, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia
Map: Map for August 8th Meeting.pdf (362 KB)
Food: Potluck - please bring something to share with 3-4 other people.
Cost: Free
Parking: Free
Kid Friendly: Yes
Adult Friendly: Yes
Water Rocket: Build yours at home and bring with you, along with a bottle of water
ABOUT WONDERGY - Based in University City, Philadelphia, Wondergy is a team of scientists who create exciting and understandable science educational entertainment programs and events. With over 7 years of experience making science hands-on and fun, Wondergy has strong track record of client, faculty, and participant satisfaction. Wondergy has developed a wide range of science educational products, from small, up-close programs suitable for birthday parties or corporate retreats, to school-wide assemblies and full-year school curricula, to custom-developed programs to explore the science behind new technologies and community events. www.wondergy.com
April 18th: "How to make a watch. And how to recyle it."
Featured in TechCrunch, Geekadelphia, CoolMaterial, and other sites.
We have a fantastic meeting lined up for this Sunday, April 18th! Vanja Buvac, the entreprenuerial and engineering force behind the rapidly growing Cadence Collective company, will provide an unprecedented inside look into how watches are designed, made, distributed, and sometimes recycled.
In 2002 Vanja Buvac invented a new device for measuring stroke rate in rowing. He soldered the devices together in his living room and sold them on the docks of Cambridge, MA. When not soldering or selling, he studied patent law at the local law library so that he could patent the device. Once he got the patent, he licensed it to Nielsen-Kellerman of Boothwyn PA. Together they set up manufacturing for the device in China. It turned out that the best form factor for the device was a wristwatch. After NK's license expired Vanja started The Cadence Watch Company. Today, The Cadence Watch Company designs, manufactures, and distributes the following lines of watches:
1. The Cadence Collective is for those with refined design tastes.
2. The Oarsman line of chronographs are watches designed for rowers who appreciate the heritage and values of rowing.
3. The VoX line of performance watches helps rowers improve their performance on the water.
:: MEETING SPECS ::
Date: Sunday, April 18th, 2010
Time: 3PM sharp!
Location: University of the Arts, 211 S. Broad Street, Terra Hall, 5th Floor
ID: Bring your ID with you to sign in at the front desk
Cost: FREE
:: OPEN MAKE ::
A staple of all our meetings is Open Make -- an opportunity for you to share with the group a project you recently completed. If interested in presenting email us at makephilly@gmail to reserve your spot.
:: MAKER CHALLENGE ::
During the second half of this and every meeting we break into teams and build something to meet the objective of the 'maker challenge'. *All skill levels welcome.* In the spirit of our guest speaker's invention, the maker challenge will comprise designing and building a creative recyling project using old watches Vanja is donating MakePhilly.
March 24th: "From Idea to Success: Philadelphia Innovation Resources Abound"
We're excited to help promote this event of the American Society of Inventors of Philadelphia which will feature a presentation by Les Anderson, CEO of Euthanex and Medico International. Les will share how he took his ideas and understanding of his customers' needs, and turned them into successful businesses
The American Society of Inventors has pulled together many area organizations to produce this event including The University City Science Center, NextFab, The Hacktory, Make:Philly, Hive76, Breadboard, The Esther Klein Gallery, IndyHall and the Nikola Tesla Inventors Society. Sponsored by Buchanan, Ingersoll and Rooney, the event's activities include: A tour of NextFab at 6:00pm; networking and light refreshments from 6:30 - 7:00pm; Les Anderson's presentation and Q&A until 8:00pm, and group introductions and networking until 9:00pm.
When: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 at 6:00 PM
Where: University City Science Center, 3711 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104
Tickets: Free
Registration required here.
Most Recent Meeting - Feburary 14th
We are thrilled and honored to welcome back Slavko Milekic, M.D., PhD as guest speaker. Dr. Milekic will update us on his development of a "cheap webcam-based eye-tracker." His invention is software that transforms a regular webcam into a sophisticated device that can follow the eye movements of someone at a computer so that they in turn can control the computer without a keyboard or mouse -- just by using their eyes.
Since he last spoke at MakePhilly over two years ago he has successfully completed development of a functional prototype of a webcam eye-tracker which has been accepted for an international conference this April. Dr. Milekic's presentation will explain how his device works and will explore the potential impact of such a device on our everyday experience with computers. For example, he will explore such questions as: "What can you do if your computer knew exactly what you are looking at? What kind of games would you design? What kind of educational applications? What about mind reading software?"
Dr. Milekic is an associate professor of Cognitive Science & Digital Design at the University of the Arts,
:: MEETING SPECS ::
Date: Sunday, Feburary 14th 2010
Time: 3PM sharp
Location: University of the Arts, 211 S. Broad Street, Terra Hall, 5th Floor
ID: Bring your ID with you to sign in at the front desk
Cost: FREE
:: OPEN MAKE ::
A staple of all our meetings is Open Make -- an opportunity for you to share with the group a project you recently completed. If interested in presenting email us at makephilly@gmail to reserve your spot.
:: MAKER CHALLENGE ::
During the second half of this and every meeting we break into teams and build something to meet the objective of the 'maker challenge'. *All skill levels welcome.* In the spirit of our guest speaker's invention, the maker challenge will be to build a device with which you can write "hi" behind your head through remote mechanical control.
MakePhilly Builds Giant Operation Game For Franklin
BODY WORLDS 2 hosts OPERATION Game Tournament at The Franklin Institute
Saturday, January 30th @ 11AM
BODY WORLDS 2 teamed up with MakePhilly and Hive76 to produce a life size version of Hasbro's OPERATION game featuring Ben Franklin. Read more here: http://www.tango-echo.com/articles/thebigoperation
Here's some pics from the event:
Join MakePhilly!
Welcome to Make:Philly. We are artists and engineers; DIY'ers and DIY wannabe's; geeks and visionaries. We're here to create. We are Makers.
JOIN OUR MAILING LIST! ( join )
- Increase the technical, design and creative skills of our members
- Make something at every meeting!
- Provide a network for creative collaboration
We look forward to seeing you at the next meeting!
Comments or Questions? MakePhilly@gmail
MakePhilly In The News
August 2010
JANUARY 2010
Test Your Operating Skills
Do you have what it takes
to save Ben Franklin?
By Katharine Gray
Steady, steady, steady -- buzz.
That's how many of us found out we weren't going to grow up to be surgeons. But if you happened to be a pro at Operation, then here's the chance to win your title.
That's how many of us found out we weren't going to grow up to be surgeons. But if you happened to be a pro at Operation, then here's the chance to win your title.
Make Philly, Hive76, The Franklin Institute and Body Worlds 2, an exhibit of real human bodies that have been turned into plastic to improve the education of medical students and the general public, have teamed up to bring you something much less scary sounding than that -- an Operation Game Tournament... [Full Article]
AUGUST 2009
January 2009
Scene But Not Nerd
Geeks in Philadelphia make their mark. 
by Steven Wells
"...A typical Make: Philly event: In a room at the University of the Arts on Broad Street, around 60 real–life MacGyver “deeks” (DIY geeks) listen to a lecture about research into snakelike self-reassembling robots from Penn professor Mark Yim. Then a deek takes the stage to show off his own borderline-insane invention: a body board nailed to an office chair."
September 2008
Geek Safari
"I come expecting freaks with enormous heads and pocket protectors and slide–rules and homemade Dr. Octopus–style exoskeletons. But this looks like a pretty normal bunch of people. Two hours in their company will change that perception.
If any one of these Philadelphians were stranded on a desert island like Tom Hanks in Cast Away, they’d have a fully functioning one–person 21st century civillization going full blast within hours. Never mind talking volleyballs. These people would build self–replicating armies, volleyball–headed robot servants that can climb coconut trees and build paddle steamers. No problem. That’s what they do.
These geeks are amazing. They turn junk into shit that does stuff. They are real–life MacGyvers. And they will rule the planet after the Apocalypse, keeping the giant cockroaches at bay with ray guns built out of duct tape, chewing gum and old Etch A Sketches.
This the 18th meeting of Make:Philly—”a collaboration of artists and engineers; DIYers and DIY wannabes; geeks and visionaries”. This translates into 50 or so youngish folk packed into a classroom at the University of the Arts on Broad Street while outside the rest of the city frolics in the balmy autumnal sunshine. And misses out on all the fun.
They might be geeks Or they might be nerds. Or possibly dorks. Nobody seems quite sure what the difference is anyway. But they all seem damn sure these former terms of abuse are now badges of honor...."
April 2008
Grassroots groups nurture creativity
Philadelphia Business Journal - by Peter Key Staff Writer
Like many area entrepreneurs over the years, Blake Jennelle is proud to have attorney Steve Goodman represent his company. That doesn't mean, however, that he lets Goodman attend the meetings of Philly Startup Leaders, which Jennelle founded last September. The group is for people starting companies and he doesn't allow service providers, other than potential investors, to attend its gatherings. "They've pretty much decided that they want it to be entrepreneurs only and I deeply respect that," said Goodman, who co-chairs Center City law firm Morgan Lewis & Bockius' global emerging technology and life-sciences practice.
Philly Startup Leaders is one of three organizations that members of what sociologist Richard Florida calls the creative class have created to make Philadelphia a better place for people like them.
MakePhilly, which holds meetings at which people make things ranging from musical instruments to computer-controlled devices, has been around about two years. Earlier this year, it opened the Hacktory, in Philadelphia's Spring Garden section, to provide work and meeting space and classes...
