Visiting HacDC and DorkbotDC
A few months ago I learned about a hacker community located only a few miles from my house, HacDC. Tonight they were hosting the monthly meeting of DorkbotDC, another organization that I had heard about through the DC/MD/VA Robotics Group. I thought this would be a good way to see both of them at the same time.
Before the talk, I took a short tour of the HacDC space. It was a bit smaller than I expected, basically just a room, although I was told they have another room downstairs as well. (For presentations like tonight, HacDC uses the main worship area of the church where they are located.) They had some interesting looking equipment, oscilloscopes, an air soldering machine, a drill press, and a bookshelf of technical books. I took a few pics:
Soldering station
Drill press
Random stuff
Then we had the DorkbotDC presentation. I was particularly interested in Andy Holtin’s Glance project. This is a guy who casts molds of gears, and explains in clear terms. It was a fascinating demonstration of just how far you can go with a reasonable home studio. That said, I am not likely to be hand-making basic hardware parts. I would rather spend my time in other ways!
I was happy to meet Gareth Branwyn, Editor-in-Chief of Make: Online and the writer of their blog. He is based in Virginia and is a member of HacDC. He was very friendly and immediately gave me a business card when I introduced myself (foolish man!). I told him I was working on a SpeedVest mod, and he cautioned me that someone he knew had run into problems with finicky electro-luminescent wire. He offered to give me the guy’s contact information, which I will certainly use. I want to make sure the vest is robust enough for real use!
Membership in HacDC is $50/month. I am not sure access to the space is really worth that much, but if the next few meetings are this good I will likely pony up as a form of social contribution. It’s wonderful to find such a vibrant community next door.
Update: Gareth has blogged more details of the presentations here.