A2Geeks

Vote for us online!

http://purpose.maker.good.is/projects/A2Geeks

A2Geeks need your help TODAY! We’re working hard to help our Geek community become more visible and connected. We’ve submitted an idea to get a Connect With Your Community grant ($1,000) to help jumpstart the first step in strengthening our maker community: by hiring a documentarian to capture the process of making, learning, and experiencing community in the Ann Arbor area. This is just the first step in our vision to help make Ann Arbor life better for Geeks.

Voting ends TOMORROW and we’re in 16th place out of 113 entries.   Yes you have to sign up for Good, but you can immediately unsubscribe so no worries about email spamming.

Thanks!

A2Geeks board

RSVP at http://a2geeks2012.eventbrite.com/

Join us at the second A2Geeks Annual Meeting at 6:30 pm on Friday, May 11th at Maker Works!

This meeting is open to the public and will be a great opportunity to meet and network with fellow geeks.  Representatives of local tech groups are especially encouraged to make a brief statement about their group’s activities.  The meeting will consist of a short pro forma board meeting, followed by a chance for local meetups and users groups to say a few words, snacks, and networking.  Don’t miss this chance to connect with the Ann Arbor geek community and help it grow!

A2Geeks is 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization dedicated to making the Ann Arbor area a great place for creative and innovative people to live and work by opening the tech culture to everyone.  A2Geeks holds events such as periodic Geek Tours, the Ann Arbor Mini Maker Faire, and Ignite Ann Arbor, and provides financial and other support to tech events in the Ann Arbor area.

Maker Works is located at 3765 Plaza Drive, Ann Arbor, MI  48108.  http://www.maker-works.com/sites/default/files/images/MAP.jpg

From Onorio Catenacci:

We’re currently organizing the first Great Lakes Functional Programming Conference for May 5 in Ann Arbor.  SRT Solutions has been kindly enough to let us use their office for the event.  The speaker lineup is still being set but if you’re interested in functional programming, we’d strongly encourage you to try to join us for this event.  I will post something when the tickets go on sale and in the meantime, if you have questions, feel free to contact me.

If you are interested, join the glfpc Google group.

UPDATE: Website!  http://glfpc.org/

The Pocket Factory (http://pocketfactory.org/) is going to be in Ann Arbor for one evening—Wednesday, February 8th—to run a two-hour crash course in computer-aided design and 3D printing. Go from know-nothing to printing your own iPhone case, belt buckle, jewelry, or other widget!

WHEN: Wednesday, Feb 8, 7–9pm

WHERE: Workantile (118 S. Main St., Ann Arbor, 48104)  

WHAT: Learn 3D design and instant 3D fabrication; fabricate on the spot and keep what you make! 

WHO: Nerdy adults and precocious teens with their own laptops.

COST: $20

HOSTS: Bilal Ghalib and Alex Hornstein of Pocket Factory, and David Erik Nelson, author of “Snip, Burn, Solder, Shred: Seriously Geeky Stuff to Make with Your Kids”

FLYER: http://davideriknelson.com/Stuff/PocketFactory2.pdf

QUESTIONS? Email dave@davideriknelson.com

The Ann Arbor .Net Developers group is having another JavaScripty meeting tonight. Kevin Dangoor, product manager for developer tools at Mozilla, will be talking about tools for web developers. This talk is largely the same as the one from 1DevDay Detroit. Here’s the synopsis:

Web applications having been getting increasingly sophisticated over the past couple of years. As usual, developers are pushing the boundaries of what the web can do faster than people can make tools to support their work. In-browser tools in all of the major browsers and IDEs have been charging forward, though. They provide a bunch of new capabilities to get things done quicker, and I’ll show off some of these new tricks and toys. I’ll also talk about where I think the tools fall short.

UPDATE:  The .NET developers group can be found at http://aadnd.org/ and they meet 2nd Wednesday, Monthly at SRT Solutions

Craftsman Guild is a meetup of local software developers who share knowledge in the form of a different presentation topic each week. We meet every Tuesday at All Hands Active at 6:30. See the website for more info:

http://craftsmanguild.herokuapp.com/

Open.Michigan, the University of Michigan’s School of Information and Data Without Borders are hosting a free datadive over the weekend of February 10-12, 2012.

This event brings together data scientists, local nonprofits and U-M organizations for a weekend of service. Data gurus will clean, parse, mine, analyze, map, and visualize large data sets, volunteering their skills to non-profits. 

New to data science? Free workshops will be held on Saturday, Feb. 11 on R, Visit, and Python. 

Register at: openmi.ch/a2datadive

More information at: a2datadive.weebly.com

Contact: a2datadive@umich.edu

a2geektour:

Our first tour at the U of M Computer and Video Game Archive was great, thanks to everyone who participated!  I really appreciated the Archive making themselves available, and thought it was great that they use period televisions for their consoles.  Saw some 8-bit Mario, Atari tennis, of course MarioKart and even a full Rock Band ensemble.  Turned into a real multi-era exploration.  I didn’t realize that there’s a guitar controller out there with strings at the strumming area and individual buttons at each fret. 

Please feel free to reply with your experience and any pictures you might have captured!