[clug] [OT] Canberra/Australia maker community

[Adam Thomas]

2009/11/27 Alastair D'Silva <alastair at newmillennium.net.au>:
> I have been contemplating starting an Australian maker community for a
> couple of months now.

There are a few pockets of people who have had similar ideas (myself
included) but have not made much progress due to the fragmentation and
(warning:generalisation ahead) insular nature of the communities in
Canberra. I haven't been able to make it to CLUG meetings in a while
due to have another commitment on Thursday nights and my introverted
nature has meant I haven't put much signal out beyond my immediate
friends.

> I have considered Dorkbot http://dorkbotcbr.wordpress.com/ but their focus
> is too artsy for my taste - I prefer projects with more function.

I've been attending the Dorkbot Cbr meetings for a few months now and
there hasn't been a lot of maker type talks. I think this is largely
due to the contacts that the organisers have and the backgrounds of
the people attending. At the last meeting I gave a lightning talk on a
project I'm working on (basically an Arduino+WaveShield+OptoSwitch)
which was pretty well received. Alex, one of the organisers, said that
she wanted to run some workshops in the new year which might be better
suited to your taste and may even lean on your knowledge.

Dorkbot might not be the right home for a Maker community but the
organisers' are good people and it's worth letting them know what's
going on and seeing if they are interested. I've CC'd Alex in to try
and break some of the ice.

> Given the growing interest in CLUG about maker oriented talks such as Peter
> & my Laser Engraver & Arduino talks, and now Tridge's coffee roaster, I
> think bootstrapping the community via CLUG might be productive.

There is clearly a lot of interest, skills and resources in the CLUG
community in the Maker area. With some word of mouth/email
advertisement I think it would be easy to pick up interest from other
people and groups around Canberra.

> Subject: Canberra/Australia maker community

The Australian maker community is growing, a few hackerspaces dotted
around the place are providing space and nutrients for incubation.
http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Australia. The Connected Community group
in Melbourne is very active with a healthy LUG crossover. You may have
met Jon Oxer (who's been writing the book "Practical Arduino") and his
geeked out RX8 at Linux conferences around the place.