Random Notes

[derekenos]

Synthesis of material from:

• Makerspace
• Beacon Community Network
• Beacon Community Fund
• Beacon Community Cloud / Intranet
• Humane Technology Space

2022-04-30_14-37-22.mp4

General Goals

• Help create an opportunity-rich community

Howland Library / Library of things / Computer Science library

• Libraries have historical been, and continue to be, community anchors, providing critical access to information and resources
• Our library has expressed relevant interest via their 3D printer and Library of Things offerings
• I, and others in the community, could donate our computer science and other tech books to the library, maybe having its own section
• They have existing, effective community outreach
• That space next to Beacon Reads would be super sweet, in a central Main St. storefront with close proximity to the library, Happy Valley and with a nice parking lot in the rear.

Mentorship / Apprenticeship

• Facilitate mentorship oportunities for local professionals
• Provide software and web development apprenticeships that focus on supporting and building local digital resources

Lego + robotics, battlebots, lego car racing ramp

• Legos are ubiquitous, well-loved, and often cited as a meaningful childhood influence by thinkers, inventors, and engineers
• Lego robotics are expensive and relatively inflexible
• Cheap, commodity components can be physically intergrated with Legos via simple lasercut mounting plates and small, low-power IOT boards programmed in Python
• Fun, engaging, and creative activities:
  • Lego battle bot build workshops and hosted comptetitions
  • Reproduce the car racing ramp at Lego Land and host after-school racing hours

Open-source Household Appliances

Design and fabricate:

• Washing Machine
• Clothes Dryer
• Dish Washer

Precious Plastic + community collaboration

• Precious Plastic has designed a complete system for turning plastic waste into useful products
• Open source tools could be employed in the design and fabrication of the molds
• This collaborative effort could foster a greater sense of community cohesion
• Products
  • Skateboards
  • guitar picks, bridges, nuts

Materials Depot / Thrift Store

• Materials Depot is described: here
• Accept more general community donations and surplus as a retail thrift store with proceeds going toward the Beacon Community Network fund.

Music and Visual Arts

• Workshops for recording/authoring video game sound effects and music
• Make effects and lighting controls for performances
• Beat-making workshops w/ local guests

Data center / Beacon-related archive.org mirror

• Host a Raspberry Pi cluster and provide access
• Provide a local cloud offering
• Get Forem running on RPis + spin up student-run communities
• Maybe do some crawling for IA or mirror some content

Emergency response (e.g. fabricating PPE)

• Makerspaces and digital fabrication proved useful in the production of PPEs during the early stages of the pandemic
• Having these tools, and associated expertise, improves the safety and security of our community

Product / business incubator

• Beacon is full of skilled and creative people
• People may have ideas for apps, websites, or products but don't know where to start or how to get them built
• We could provide product design and prototyping services

Beacon Computing Club

• Integrate this into the space with meetups and presentations
• Get more people on-board and foster collaboration on local projects
• Post tutorial videos

Workshops

• Hide data in an image
• Peer-2-peer socket communication in Python
• Browser extension to remove ads
• Software: Ubuntu, Inkscape, Gimp, Audactiy, Kden live, handbrake, emacs(?), etc...
• Bash / shell
• Public / private key crypto + ssh
• Docker
• Fediverse / apps
• crypto
• audio theory / generation / Web Audio API

beaconny.net

• Recruit others to help grow the offerings to make it the NFT guide to Beacon

Workshops

• Take-apart-a-thons: let kids take apart donated appliances and other devices, giving them the opportunity to ask questions about what they see, maybe even put them back together or try to salvage some parts?
• Laser-cut lamp making. Pendants?
  

Regular Podcasts or Videos

• Maybe discuss the hacker news of the day?
• Introduce beautiful and elegant concepts
• Updates on the space and project progress
• Interviews with local developers and creatives
• Allow kids to record segments on whatever they want on their way to school

Repair cafe

Host Repair Cafe sessions and revive / support the previous incarnation (contact Antony Tseng):

in the Community Room of the Forrestal Heights Apartments, as part of their Resident Opportunities and Self-Sufficiency program

Solar Barge

Solar-powered barge for regional transport.

Sneaker School

• PBS News Hour segment
• SCAD Sneaker Design minor

OSE Inspired

• Organization is distributed in nature, coordinated through teams of teams.
• Swarm builds / extreme manufacturing
• Immersion education / apprenticeships
• Educational / product model
• Integrated skillsets

The above taken from this talk on Decentralization, also Pedro Domingos offered on how to make a difference:

Radical self-determination

Revenue sources:

• workshops (NYC people)
• products for: tourists, ecological orgs
• tech-enabled artifact finding (river swarm, metal detection)
• fabrication (local)
• donations
• grants
• retail (robotics stuff)
• gallery admission and performances

Beacon Built Campaign

Certification levels:

• 1: From local raw materials
• 2: From imported raw materials
• 3: From imported components

Is kinda like a grassroots / community / local synthesis of:

• Kingston Fabrication Center (article, NoVo Foundation, Daniel Freedman, Marcin interview w/ Daniel)
• MIT Media Lab
• How to Make (almost) Anything
• ITP (Interactive Telecommunications Program)
• Computer Clubhouse
• Bennett (Day School) Labs
• NYU Game Center
• RPI Game Dev Center
• Wonderville Indie Arcade
• Experimental Television Center
• Quirky