My trip to Europe was paid for by BruCON <http://2010.brucon.org/index.php/Main_Page>, and annual hacker conference in Brussels, Belgium, which is branching out this year from security to other diverse hacking activities. I’ll be giving a talk there on how to bring your project from idea to reality, and how to make a living on your project. I’ll also be setting up a Hardware Hacking Area, teaching people to solder and to make cool things with micrcocontrollers.

While in Belgium, I’ll also be visiting three hackerspaces in the area, giving workshops and talks.

VoidWarranties <http://we.voidwarranties.be> — Antwerp, Belgium
HSB <http://hackerspace.be/Mitch_Altman_Electronics_Workshop> — Brussels, Belgium
whitespace <http://0×20.be/Main_Page> — Gent, Belgium

And while I’m out here in Europe, Hacktivity <http://hacktivity.hu/portal/en>, an annual Eastern European hacker conference paid for my trip to and from Eastern Europe, where I’ll be setting up a Hardware Hacking Area.

While in Eastern Europe, I thought I’d put out the word and see if any of the brand new hackerspaces would like me to give workshops at their spaces. The response was very enthusiastic, and I set up a tour of four hackerspaces!

progressbar <http://www.progressbar.sk/> — Bratislava, Slovakia
brmlab <http://brmlab.cz/event/mitchaltmanworkshop> — Prague, Czech Republic
H.A.C.K. <http://hspbp.org/tiki-index.php> and Kitchen BudaPest <http://www.kitchenbudapest.hu/en>
Harkopen <http://harkopen.com/news/workshop-mitch-altman> — Bucharest, Romania

Everywhere I go, hackers are graciously putting me up in their homes. I feel really grateful to be part of such a warm, welcoming, community of hackers.

As with my other tours, the workshops on this tour give anyone and everyone the opportunity to learn to solder by making any number of kits that me and Jimmie Rodgers and Ladyada and others have created to teach people to make cool things with microcontrollers — kits that are designed so that everyone, regardless of age or skill level, can complete successfully and take home with them. It is very similar to what I do when I’m home (and what Miloh does all the other times) at Circuit Hacking Mondays at Noisebridge . The workshops also help build publicity for the hackerspaces that host the workshops by attracting people to the space, and showing everyone how cool it is to have a hackerspace in their home town.

Sharing experiences about our hackerspaces is also a big part of how hackerspaces around the world help and support each other, and I’ll be sharing all I can about Noisebridge and how we got going and make things work out.

Other than reimbursement for air fare from the hacker conferences, I am doing this Workshop Tour without charge, and only ask to be reimbursed for any parts used ($10 to $30, depending on the kit). I do this ’cause I love it!

I am looking forward to meeting more of the coolest, intelligent, thoughtful, friendly, creative people in the world — hackerspace people!

Here is my schedule:

11-Sept: leave San Francisco
12-Sept: dinner with whitespace hackerspace — Gent, Belgium
14-Sept: progressbar hackerspace workshop and talk — Bratislava, Slovakit
16-Sept: brmlab hackerspace workshop and talk — Prague, Czech Republic
17-Sept: Hacktivity conference dinner — Budapest, Hungary
18-Sept: Hacktivity workshop
18-Sept: Hacktivity party
19-Sept: Hacktivity workshop
20-Sept: Kitchen BudaPest and H.A.C.K. visit — Budapest, Hungary
21-Sept: Harkopen hackerspace workshop — Bucharest, Romania
23-Sept: VoidWarranties hackerspace workshop — Antwerp, Belgium
24-Sept: BruCON conference talk and workshop – Brussels, Belgium
25-Sept: BruCOB conference workshop
26-Sept: HSB hackerspace workshop — Brussels, Belgium
27-Sept: whitespace hackerspace talk — Gent, Belgium
29-Sept: fly back home to San Francisco

After this tour, I’ll be home in San Francisco for the entire month of October!

– Mitch.

My first stop was the Detroit Maker Faire <http://makerfaire.com/detroit/2010/>, where 22,000 people gathered to check out over 300 exhibits, enthusiastically sharing, learning, and teaching through making cool things. I led a panel on hackerspaces both days of the Faire — both with standing room only. Hackerspaces are really popular now! There are way more hackerspaces in the Midwest alone, than time to visit all of them in a month. This is an exciting time to be a geek!

My main thing at the Detroit Maker Faire was to set up a Hardware Hacking Area, which I did with the help of Jimmie Rodgers <http://www.jimmieprodgers.com/> and Dale Grover, of A2 MechShop <http://www.a2mechshop.com/>. Together with 19 other volunteers, we taught 1,500 people to solder! The Makezine blog has a really sweet writeup on it:
<http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/08/mitch_altman_rocks.html>

From now (4-August) till the end of the month, me and Jimmie and Matt Mets (of Hack PGH <http://www.hackpittsburgh.org/> — who will be joining us for the rest of the tour after Canada) will be giving 14 workshops at that many hackerspaces around the Midwest.

The workshops will give anyone and everyone the opportunity to learn to solder by making any number of kits that me and Jimmie have created to teach people to make cool things with microcontrollers — kits that are designed so that everyone, regardless of age or skill level, can complete successfully and take home with them. It is very similar to what I do when I’m home (and what Miloh does all the other times) at Circuit Hacking Mondays at Noisebridge <https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Circuit_Hacking_Monday>. The workshops also help build publicity for the hackerspaces that host the workshops by attracting people to the space, and showing everyone how cool it is to have a hackerspace in their home town.

I also share any and all experiences with the hackerspaces I visit about how we started and run Noisebridge.

Me and Jimmie and Matt are doing this without charge, and only ask to be reimbursed for any parts used ($10 to $30, depending on the kit).

As we go from city to city, hackers host us, and we meet some of the coolest, intelligent, thoughtful, friendly, creative people in the world — hackerspace people!

While traveling I hope to have time to blog more about our experiences here on this Noisebridge blog. Jimmie will be adding his thoughts to the blog on his website.  And Matt will be blogging about it and posting it to the Makezine website. 

Here is our schedule:

Hacklab.TO – Toronto, ON — visit on 3-August
Site3 — Toronto, ON — workshop on 5-August
Kwartzlab – Kitchener, ON — workshop on 6-August
think|haus – Hamilton, ON — visit on 7-August
OCD — Detroit, MI — workshop on 8-August
Mt. Elliot Makerspace – Detroit, MI — workshop on 9-August
I3 — Detroit, MI — workshop on 10-August
A2 MechShop — Ann Arbor, MI — visit on 11-August
AHA — Ann Arbor, MI — workshop on 12-August
LVL1/Actors Theatre – Louisville, KY – demo on 13-August
LVL1 — Louisville, KY — workshop on 14-August
Hive13 — Cincinnati, OH — presentation on 17-August
Hive13 — Cincinnati, OH — workshop on 18-August
BloomingLabs — Bloomington, IN — workshop on 19-August
Arch Reactor — St. Louis, MO — workshop on 20-August
KC Mini Maker Faire / CCCKC — Kansas City, MO — Hardware Hacking Area at Faire on 22-August
Quad Cities Co-Lab Hackerspace — Quad Cities, IA/IL – workshop on 24-August
PS:1 — Chicago, IL — workshop on 25-August
Madison BarCamp — Madison, WI — talk on hackerspaces on 28-August
Sector67 – Madison, WI — workshop on 29-August

I wish I had more time, since there are many other hackerspaces that we don’t have time to visit on this trip.

According to google maps, we’ll be driving about 2,400 miles in the car we rented for the month. Road trip!

- Mitch.

The Hackerspace Movement:

http://codebits.eu/intra/s/session/93

Make A Living Doing What You Love: How to Bring You Project From Idea to Reality:

http://codebits.eu/intra/s/session/95

They were both very well received.  Many people told me they were inspired by one or the other, which is about the best compliment.  The videos are at the above links.

I also set up and ran a Hardware Hacking Area throughout the three days of the conference.  49 people out of the 400 attendees made one of my kits — about half of them TV-B-Gone kits.  So, there are currently more TVs being turned Off in Portugal.

Now I get to hang out in Lisbon for a few days, before heading to Singapore on Wednesday, where I’ll talk about hackerspaces again.

I got here today.  Rather than sleep, which is my MO on planes, I worked on my presentations for Codebits, which I’ll be giving Thusday and Friday — the one Thursday is about how to start a hackerspace, and Noisebridge will, of course, be the focus.

The CNET story about Noisebridge hit the interwebs.  It’s a very decent story:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10405255-245.html

I met up with two friends and managed to stay awake, and even have an hours-long coherent conversation.  Now I get to catch up on some emails…