This may look like a picture of an ordinary room… but look closely at the ceiling. It’s rough rock.

That’s because this is a picture of Kansas City’s official hackerspace and it resides 85 feet underground in a mine.

So. Freaking. Awesome. Learn more.

Now you can check out my talk at 25c3! Video File Link

(I like this still from the video, it looks like I am holding the internet in my heart… which is true!)

Update: Fixed the video link. More mirror sites are here.

Update 2: If you would like me to give a presentation like this, you can contact me at brepettis@gmail.com.

Update: We’re up to 29 spaces and the deadline has come and passed. Unless you have heard from us and we have reserved a space for you in the book, any space that has not contacted us, will not make it into the book.

19 hacker spaces from around the world have submitted a 500 word piece about their beginning, 5 photos, and their logo. AWESOME! With only three days, hackerspaces from around the world rallied and scheduled extra meetings, im conversations, and writing sessions to meet the deadline.

We’ve also had interest in making it actually be an actual, touch the pages book. Exciting!

We are now looking for supplemental materials to put in the appendix. Is there a piece of writing, blogpost, warning sign text, or artwork that inspires you and the people you hack with? If so, shoot an email to us at book@hackerspaces.org and if it makes sense, we’ll put it in the appendix of the hackerspaces book.

Here are the hackerspaces that have submitted so far in order of submission:

1. net.culture club MAMA
2. Computer Club Itzehoe e.V.
3. Entropia
4. C3D2 HQ
5. /tmp/lab
6. RealRaum
7. CCCKC
8. VHS
9. voidpointer / hackerspace bxl
10. Metalab
11. Hacktory
12. syn2cat
13. Das Labor
14. c-base
15. The Datengarten
16. C4
17. Hacker Consortium
18. Chaos Mainz
19. Makers Local 256

There are a few hackerspaces missing from the list. If you notice that a glaring oversight, send them a note and tell them to submit. We’re also interested in hearing beginning stories from hackerspaces that no longer exist! The design will be finalized on Monday, so there is still time to submit for those who have been busy wrapping presents and drinking hot mulled wine… or just haven’t heard about it yet!

A book should exist that shares the beginning of hackerspaces. It would inspire folks who are in the daydream stages of starting a hacker space and it would be totally awesome.

This book idea was the topic of conversation I was having with Astera. It’s an insane project, editing and designing and organizing a book and publishing a pdf for the international hacker congress, 25C3. We have to do it.

We’ve already had confirmation that some awesome hacker spaces will be submitting their 500 words, 5 pictures and logo.

Astera, who’s been one of the driving forces behind hackerspaces.org is going to be designing it so it won’t be the word document converted into pdf that it would have been if I were to design it. Yay for collaborations! I’ll be editing the text.

We sent out emails to all the hacker contacts we could get our hands on and a lot of them bounced. We’re a little bit worried that some hackerspaces won’t get the message so feel free to spread the word and send this blogpost around to hackerspace people you know.

You can see the email I sent out after the jump.
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NEW YORK electriCITY from 2 Player Productions on Vimeo.

Peter is an awesome tinkerer. He makes really wonderful circuit bent instruments that not only sound interesting, but look cool too. Check this brand spanking new video about him and then check out his site, casperelecttronics.

snugfitsansa, originally uploaded by openfly.

Matt Joyce is a creative hacker who seeks to twist things just a little bit and make life more interesting in the process! In this instance, he’s put an mp3 player inside a pineapple grenade which will provide great opportunities to have interesting talks when traveling by air, subway, or bus.

In the spring of 2007, some friends and I from the Seattle hacker space, Public N3rd Area which is host to the weekly hacker gathering, Hackerbot Labs, got together and put together a payload for a near space balloon.

AHAB Tether Test from binarymillenium on Vimeo.

We went out to Eastern Washington and attempted to launch it but the weather was horrible. Recently this video popped up on Vimeo which is the footage from the three cameras stitched together.

DIY Space Preparation from Bre Pettis on Vimeo.

High Altitude Balloon Launched… and Lost!!!! from Bre Pettis on Vimeo.

Later we sent it up to 109k feet but lost power on the way down and never recovered it. Somewhere there are some SD cards in a field that I really want to get my hands on and see the pictures!

Last night was the opening party of Roboexotica, the worldwide gathering of cocktail robots. It was a blast! Pictured above is Robovox, a 40 foot high robot that you can text message to and it will say what you text to it!

I ran my robot arms and they lasted for a few hours until I ran out of Vodka, cherries, the batteries died, and the hot glue failed… all within about a minute of each other. I really enjoyed having people play with the cherrytron2000!

The Reprap that we made last year that failed was revived and cranked out shot glasses all night!

Here are my photos and a slideshow!