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Staten Island MakerSpace Hosts Weekend Hardware 'Hackerthon'

By Nicholas Rizzi | April 11, 2014 5:00pm
 The Staten Island MakerSpace will co-host a weekend long "hackerthon," with Copenhagen-based Dreamups, to develop open hardware technology that can have a social or environmental impact.
The Staten Island MakerSpace will co-host a weekend long "hackerthon," with Copenhagen-based Dreamups, to develop open hardware technology that can have a social or environmental impact.
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Staten Island MakerSpace

STAPLETON — The Staten Island MakerSpace will host a weekend long "hackerthon" starting on Friday night with the goal of developing hardware technology that can have a social or environmental impact.

The event, co-hosted with the Copenhagen-based group Dreamups, will let participants pitch an idea, develop a prototype of it and show it off to the public on Sunday at a free event featuring wine, food and beer made by Staten Island's local homebrew club.

"It should be a fun, collaborative weekend," said DB Lampman, one of the organizers of the event. "We'll see what projects will come out of the weekend."

First, the group will pitch ideas, then pick the best five to develop over the weekend. After the event, Dreamups will post the ideas online with an open-source license for anybody around the world to use them.

"The idea is really just to sort of share ideas," Lampman said about the group. "They're sort of looking to see what people in that community are interested in building."

Dreamups has hosted several of these events around the world, but the one at the MakerSpace will be the first in the United States, Lampman said. They contacted the group around six months ago looking for a space in the city to run the event, organizers said.

Lampman said a representative from Dreamups will be on hand for the event, along with members of Curtis High School's robotics team who will plan the work.

Attendees aren't required to spend the entire weekend at the hackerthon, but can come and help out for any part they'd like, Lampman said.

"People don't have to feel like they have to commit to the three days if they don't want," she said. "If they want to spend a couple hours on the weekend they can. We're happy to have some extra hands come out."

The prototypes developed during the weekend will be presented to the public on Sunday by a representative from the crowd-funding website Indiegogo, with a free party at the space.

"We'll have a little party and just sort of celebrate the collaborative weekend," Lampman said.

Registration for the event is $25 and tickets can be bought online at the MakerSpace's website. The public party will be on Sunday, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., at 450 Front St. Stapleton.