Whenever I’m asked by someone (whether a native, student, or traveller) about what the most unique or interesting place in Gainesville is, I always give the same answer: Gainesville Hackerspace.
Then I arise several questions: What is it? Where is it? Why haven’t I heard of it before?
What is Hackerspace?
Via: Hackerspace Demo Night
The way I usually explain Hackerspace is as “a country club for nerds” or “a thunderdome of smart people doing things that interest them”. Hackerspace is a place where brilliant people go to work on their own projects. It’s hardware, software, electronics,and as importantly, a meeting place.
Every Tuesday there’s an open house. Most of the time, it’s project night. Project night is where members and non-members of hackerspace come in and work on whatever they’re workign on. Projects range from 3-D printers, to software hacks, to a robotic drawing machine with an arduino CPU. The beauty about project night is that for each active project, there are 2 often 3 observers, and even more importantly, someone in the room with complementary expertise to navigate any roadblocks.
On select Tuesdays, the atmosphere changes from one of unorganized collaboration into fairly organized presentation. Demo night is where Hackerspace members debut finished projects- From a emergency solar backup generator rig to vector-modeled, machine embroidered, handmade my little pony plushies, to the HackerHouse. The space becomes standing room while brilliance, often without refinement is displayed, and questions technical enough to warrant PHD theses are often posed.
Where is Hackerspace?
To dawn the thick framed glasses, flannel and a scarf, “underground”
More specifically, Hackerspace is located in the sun center basement, directly beneath Grooveshark’s Sound Bites Cafe. Parking is generally available in the sun center lot, but for demo night the lot may be full.
Why haven’t I heard of it before?
The Hackerspace is unique in the Gainesville tech scene: there is no PR or marketing effort. It’s word of mouth. With this approach, Hackerspace boasts a thriving and diverse community of developers, engineers, researchers, artists, and mayoral candidates (Okay, just one of those).
But even if you’ve only heard about hackerspace through a friend of a friend, or merely reading this article, feel free to come out on a Tuesday evening. You’ll find a warm welcome, and plenty of passion about projects that are just plain cool.
Image courtesy of Gainesville Hackerspace
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