Draft letter to Mitch Altman

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Mitch,

This past Tuesday, we dedicated our weekly meeting here at Splat Space to brainstorming about project ideas for the Challenge. In attendance were guests and members of all ages, backgrounds, and professions, and our ideas [1] were as diverse as the attendees. Our motivations, on the other hand, were anything but diverse: we're all excited about the possibility of helping make education awesome, and having fun doing it.

We're one of the newest hackerspaces, and also one of the least-known. We don't have any fancy equipment, and our name isn't associated with a popular invention or hack. But here in Durham, North Carolina, we're becoming known as a (edit: the place) place that anyone can go to learn really cool new things.

We've hosted popular Learn to Solder and Basic Electronics workshops, Lightning Talks, and are home to several local tech (edit: and educational) Meetups: (edit: Triangle Linux Users Group, thepublicschool.org, and others). Our members have volunteered to help teach kids at a local elementary school Lego Mind Storms, (edit: mentor kids at a local elementary school's Mindstorms robotics competition) and one of our biggest fans and collaborators is a fifth grade teacher.

All of the hackerspaces I've been a member of, visited, or heard about all seem to have a unique cultural identity, or flavor, that develops over time. If I had to come up with one for Splat Space, it would be education. That's why I (edit: we) think this Hackerspace Challenge is something Splat Space should be invited to participate in.

Sincerely, Alan Dipert (edit: and the members of Splatspace)

President Splat Space http://www.splatspace.org


1. http://wiki.splatspace.org/index.php/March_2011_Hackerspace_Challenge