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2013: Here’s To Making Things And Friends

It’s New Years Eve and a popular day for reflection. 2012 was a really big year for me personally. I call it My Year of Fitting In. As many transplants to LA can attest, it can take a little while to figure out where you fit in, but once you do, it’s like you finally found home.

I wrote a few blog posts in 2012, two of which impacted my life greatly:

Why Los Angeles Will Outpace the Silicon Valley As The Tech Startup Capital led to the creation of Represent.LA

and

Want: Kid Friendly Hackerspace in LA which led to LA Makerspace

I didn’t know the impact that a crowdsourced map could have on a city or cities (http://representmap.com) and I definitely had no idea if anyone else wanted a hackerspace that woud allow kids. If I learned anything from this year, it’s this, and I quote from my favorite movie Contact:

…we belong to something that is greater then ourselves, that we are *not*, that none of us are alone!

It wasn’t until just now, reviewing my calendar did I realize how much traveling I did for speaking gigs and pleasure – Sweden, Denmark, Japan, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco (thrice), Portland (twice), Dude Ranch in Colorado, Ireland, London (twice), and I’m writing this post from Vienna.

In addition to LA Makerspace and Represent.LA I started new day jobs that pay the bills, I’m now the Technical Director at the Digital Media Learning Research Hub at UC Irvine to support youth in their passionate interests and I joined the Born This Way Foundation, an organization focused on creating a braver, kinder world.

As with life, there were definitely some difficult times, my dear friend Xeni Jardin spent 2012 undergoing cancer treatment, but I am so happy to report that she is now cancer free. We were kicked out of the house we were renting, but thankfully found a better place, and we lost our beloved Lucky Cat, which there is no replacement for (I’m crying right now just thinking about her).

I would like to thank everyone that reached out to me this year to send me an article, make an introduction, back the LA Makerspace Kickstarter or just to say ‘hey.’ That always helps to backup the whole “we are not alone” philosophy. There are a few other people I would like to make mention of: Alex Benzer, my co-creator of Represent.LA and who allowed me to use Social Engine for workshops, the LA Makerspace BOD: Jeff, Levi, Michael, Michelle, Sharon, Teresa, and Joseph, Kent and Lindsay, my pals at BoingBoing who have posted multiple updates about LA Makerspace, Jeff Sturges at Mt Elliott Makerspace who I consider a mentor, Dale Dougherty and Mark Frauenfelder at MAKE Magazine & Maker Faire who have made so much of the maker community accessible to everyone, Dale and Anne Marie Thomas at Maker Ed who are helping the world realize that you make to learn and learn to make, Nirvan, Harley and Tara of the Imagination Foundation who have shown the world that one kid can make a difference, my husband Sean who inspires me with his thoughtfulness and punk rock approach to life, my Mom who has always been a maker I just didn’t realize it, and my kid, Ripley, for the motivation and inspiration and truly truly the best thing I ever made.

My New Year’s Resolution for 2013 is about making deeper connections in my community and with myself. I want to make more maker friends in LA and around the world, share as many how-to’s for all of the projects I work on as possible, bring lots of brilliant makers into LA Makerspace to share their wisdom with others and make the space accessible to anyone in LA that wants to be there.

2013 is going to be truly a year of making things and friends, because the two go hand-in-hand. Read the resolutions from some of the top Maker Minds…many of them plan to do more how-to’s and ensure making is even easier for everyone to get started and most of them are all very accessible to the community.

Happy Making of Things and Friends to All in 2013!

Hearts and Hugs,
Tara

Photo by Sean Bonner

December 31, 2012
Got: Kid Friendly Hackerspace in Los Angeles
This update is a huge deal to me…I hope you’ll read on.

If you’ve been paying attention to any of my updates for the past several months, then you may have read my post from May 3rd “Want: Kid Friendly Hackerspace in LA” and you may have paid attention to what the response was. If you didn’t, here’s the scoop:

After I wrote that post, 25 people showed up at Crashspace to discuss our common desire to run kid friendly maker events in LA. If you aren’t familiar, here’s a definition of a makerspace:

Makerspaces (aka Hackerspaces) provide shared physical resources otherwise unaffordable or attainable by an individual or family. They provide a fluid workspace as well as the collaboration, inspiration and encouragement of others. We want to appeal to youth, families, school groups, stay-at-home-parents, home-schooled kids and individuals that are comfortable working around and with kids.

The maker movement, as it pertains to education, seeks to build the confidence, analytic skills, and creativity of those involved by establishing an environment centered on the creative act. This collaborative and project-based approach to learning runs counter to the current trend in education of defining academic success in terms of standardized tests, especially at the cost of hands-on programs such as shop, art, and laboratory science. By establishing a permanent physical location for Los Angeles Young Makers students, and their families, will have a place to learn about engineering, design, and research through both organized classes as well as open-ended projects.

Very soon after that first meeting, a group of us started running events including the LA Youth Hack Jam, Scratch Classes, Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream Social and an Arduino Class taught by 11 year old Quin. You can read all about it on our website and a running list here.

During that time, I started bi-weekly planning meetings where anyone interested could come and help plan the opening of our own space. Our goal was to determine interest in the community for DIY events/classes/projects and then find a place before the end of the year to call our own with 24×7 access for late night project hacking and lots of fun equipment and tools to play with.

We certainly aren’t the first group to open a makerspace, but Los Angeles is a very large place (500 sq miles) and we had people from the westside and eastside attending events, so finding a central location that met our long list of requirements was incredibly hard. We did some research and identified DTLA as our best bet from an affordability standpoint but also accessibility to a train stop and the work being done to reach the westside. You can read all of our requirements here.

After hosting planning meetups every 2 weeks, the committed became apparent and a core group of enthusiasts formed. We met at several places around DTLA including Urth in the Arts District, Americano and NationBuilder near Pershing Square. The participants included Software Engineers, Hardware Engineers, Scientists, Teachers, Filmmakers, Roboticists, Rocket Scientists, Librarians, Small Business Owners, Parents! The diverse backgrounds made for interesting conversations and the kind of members that we wanted to exist in the space…an eclectic mix of experiences, skills and interests.

After months of meetings and a couple of failed possibilities, one day I got a call from Sharon Ann Lee of Culture Brain asking if I could meet at LA Mart. Levi, Sean, Sharon and myself met with Ava, the Business Dev. Director at LA Mart and got a tour of the 11th floor. If you aren’t familiar with LA Mart, picture multiple floors of Furniture and Gift Showrooms. Ava explained that the entire 11th floor is being dedicated to a community of creatives curated with artists, filmmakers, tech entrepreneurs and everything in-between.

We checked out all the available spaces and found one that was 2100 sq ft and perfect. There’s an area for childcare, windows to bring in natural light, freight elevators to move in large equipment, and the bonus is a Fab Lab right next door. So anything we can’t offer, members can walk a few feet and get what they need. It met almost every single one of our requirements except the outdoor space, but we are discussing plans for the roof.

It was a no-brainer decision, we knew that it was the right spot to setup LA Makerspace.

I am super SUPER excited to let you know that we will be opening up LA Makerspace in the New Year!

Between now and January we’ll host some events including the Halloween Open House on Oct. 28th to let people see the space and learn more about what we are doing. We need to build the space out and we need to raise some funds to pay for equipment, tools, insurance, etc. until we can become self-sustaining through memberships and events.We’ll raise some funds through Corporate Sponsorships and a KickStarter campaign. Anyone can donate money on our website now or equipment and tools can be dropped off. Pretty soon we’ll be pre-selling memberships. We were very fortunate to meet Sabrina at home&community who agreed to be LA Makerspace’s fiscal sponsor so that we can apply for grants and take in donations. We’re in the process of doing the paperwork for our own 501(c)3.

Our Mission

To provide an all ages 24×7 community workspace with a workshop, research areas, babysitting area, gallery to showcase projects and outdoor space. The space is to be used for developing and prototyping ideas, projects, events, classes, and tech group meetups.

Reach for the stars

I know this is just the beginning, but jumping over that first hurdle was a big deal. Now it’s real. Now we have a homebase and we can focus on some of our projects like Citizen Science, continuing Scratch Classes for our young kids, Mom & Dad Hack Days including Childcare, Little Engineer classes for Toddlers and Preschoolers. And maybe building an elevator to the moon.

If you’d like to get involved please email me. And don’t forget to come out to one of our amazing events:
- Oct. 21st: Light Up Your Night: DIY LED Lanterns
- Oct. 27th: Master Makeup Effects with Brian Hillard & KNB Special Effects (The Walking Dead & Transformers!!)
- Oct.28th: Halloween Open House including Master Makeup Effects, Wig Styling/Decorating and a Contest!
Thank you to our Board of Directors, Joseph, Sabrina, Luz, Michelle, Sara, Kent, Cassy, Travis, Nirvan, Harley, Patricia, Jean, Stacie, Donna, Adam and especially to all the makers that have come out to our events. We hope you like the new space and look forward to working alongside you on a bunch of amazing projects!
Just look for the big wooden chair!

Hearts and Hugs,

Tara
October 13, 2012
LAdy Tacos Being Consumed By DIYGirls
Late last year I met up with a few ladies and we chatted about forming a ladies only group to work on tech-related projects together. We created a group on meetup.com called LAdy Tacos, a “Sausage Free Zone.”

LA is a big place and it can be really hard to find others that work in the tech industry, interested in learning how to code or hack on some hardware. It’s especially hard to find other women who are into tech.

LAdy Tacos is for women in LA interested in and/or working in technology to get-together to hack on software and hardware, mentor each other and help increase the number of women in tech.

You need to be a woman, interested in tech and have a sense of humor.

Since then we’ve expanded the group and learned about:
- Arduino
- Soldering
- iOS apps
- Twilio APIs
- Twitter APIs
- eTextiles
- Mozilla Open Badges
Around the same time that this group was created, my friend Luz Rivas started DIYGirls. They’ve been meeting to learn about everything from woodworking, to blacksmithing to programming.

Aside from the name of Luz’s group being a little more, shall we say, easier to share publicly, it sounds more welcoming to females of all ages. My main focus right now is on Teach Me Stuff as part of the Connected Learning work I’m doing at UC Irvine and LA Makerspace, so although I’m a bit sad to do it, it just makes awesome sense to merge LAdy Tacos with DIYGirls and help Luz with organizing events.

Meetup.com doesn’t have a way to merge two groups, so I’m going to ask LAdy Tacos members to join DIYGirls.

Thanks to everyone who brought their sense of humor to our LAdy Tacos events. See you in DIYGirls!

<3

Tara

p.s. LAdy Tacos Forever!
July 29, 2012
Video of My Talk at Farmhouse Conf: Mapping the LA Tech Scene

Here’s the video from my talk where we build a low-fi map of the LA Tech Scene. The kid screaming in the background is my two-year old, Ripley. My husband Sean was trying to keep him occupied for 30 whole minutes while I did my talk. Sean did a 5 minute lightning talk so I got off easy. :D

Stay tuned for a digital version of the map where tech companies, accelerators, incubators, VCs and co-working spaces can add themselves.

May 24, 2012
Maker Faire 2012

Maker Faire 2012 was everything that I hoped it would be. The creativity and enthusiasm was infectious. I wanted to see and try everything but I would have needed weeks to do that.

I covered some of my favorite things during my interview with Super Awesome Sylvia and Joey Hudy, two of my favorite young makers.

The Take Apart tent was a ton of fun. Kids were everywhere taking computers and who knows what apart.

Some were making some new creations out of the chaos using soldering irons and hot glue guns.

I spent some time at the Exploratorium Tinkering Station making a Mobile Headband. I’m not sure I’m going to wear it outside of Maker Faire…

S~q~u~i~s~h~Y Circuits!! Weeeeee

Not just an apple II, an apple II signed by WOZ

Over at Lynne Bruning’s eTextiles Lounge we learned how to sew and light up an LED using conductive thread and a watch battery.

Here’s my pal Bunnie getting his pic taken of his head. I’m eagerly awaiting a 3D Model of my head from AutoDesk. Guess what you’re getting for Christmas!

There were SO MANY 3D printers. These colorful 3D printers are very attractive, but the $50 cartridges are kind of a turn-off.

GameDesk helped 13 year old Jasper fly like an Albatross (he said it has been his dream since he was very young :D ).

A Laser Cutter for $3k? Whoa.

Here’s the Little Bits tent. My son Ripley has recently been introduced to them and I’m excited to see him build stuff!

I’ve been eyeing the MaKey MaKey Kickstarter campaign. Out of nowhere Josh from the Rockwell Group gave me a free kit. WIN!

Thanks to old friends and new for such an awesome time!

May 21, 2012