What is a Hacknight? Why should I show up?

Its been on my mind for a while that we have been running hacknights here at Quelab about twice a week for over 2 years, And we still get questions as to what “Hacknight is?”

Basically its part OpenHouse, part generic project work time, and part social time to talk about ideas and projects with other folks with diverse backgrounds and experience. (Members can arrange to get in any time, but it helps to get a good mix of members and non members)

During hacknights we invite members and nonmembers alike to come down and start/work on projects, teach, learn, inspire, share resources, and explore.

Another point of contention is what hacking is, We could call it Makenight, or Inventnight, or Craftnight. But we are a Hackerspace, Harking back to the days before hacker meant computer criminal! Back to when people were tinkering and experimenting, building actual radio shacks in their back yard and then building radios to put in them. When we say Hacking/Hacker we are not talking about the news style sensationalists whom are taking down websites or stealing identities and creditcard numbers. We are talking about grass roots inventors, the folks like Steve Wozniak whom built the first apple computer in a garage!

In the mid 90′s RadioShack started to scale back all of the tinkering bits, the diodes, the transistors, the battery packs, and even worse the kits. Folks stopped making and playing and building things and started just buying whole things with tamper resistant screws, glued shut things, with software licenses that made it illegal to see how it works. We aim to be the antidote to that.

Radioshack had a slogan kinda like “You have questions, We have blank stares!” we aim to be the opposite of that, you have questions we are here to help. You have a dead toaster? Come find out what makes it tick(maybe even fix it). You have an idea for how to build a winter planter for starting your garden seedlings, we want to help you with the tools and others to help. You want to build a robot, or a interactive sculpture, or learn to build a home security system, or even just experiment with light, or heat, or cameras, or rockets, recycling, or candy, or yarncraft… Just about anything you can think of we want you to think of ways you can use Quelab to make that happen!

Here is a quick list of some (but by no means complete list of hacknight hacks!)
Fixing: laptops, power plugs, appliances, glasses, cameras, furniture, bikes, cars, printers, locks, silverware, phones…
Making: 3dprinters, casting, soldering, robots, kits, trailers, signs, rugs, props, frames, ion generators, jewelry, steampunk crafts, cameras, fireworks, toys, puzzles, tools, shelves…
Hacking: leds, textiles, tastebuds, toys, game consoles, tvs, monitors, robots, locks, puzzles, gadgets, cameras, linux, microcontrollers, light-bulbs, rockets, bikes, solar, batteries, phones, games, typewriters, musical instruments…

Here is a link to a slideshow of some of the above mentioned hacks over the last few years, to hopefully inspire you!

So with that said, come on down, our Hacknights are currently Tuesday 7pm-10pm and Sunday 7pm-10pm! Our hope is to grow with your help to the point where we can have hack a lot more Hackdays and Hacknights! What would you build?