Meet Your Makers
Farmer and Farm Hack Intervale host Rob Rock is featured in an article in the independent publication Seven Days about the newly formed Vermont Makers community, a diverse group of farmers, programmers, educators, artists and others that are working to create organized meet-ups and work spaces for collaborative innovation.
Photo from www.7dvt.com (Matthew Thorsen)
Vermont hackers, artists and inventors are sharing ideas — and solving problems
Remember when geeks were uncool? John Cohn does. The 52-year-old IBM fellow recalls the disapproving look people shot him when, growing up, he told them he wanted to be an engineer. “I’ve spent my whole adult life trying to get other people interested in geekiness,” he says.
Looks like it worked — the Age of the Geek has arrived.
With the advent of the internet, open-source software, and increasingly affordable and accessible high-tech tools, making stuff isn’t just possible; it’s hip. Evidence of both qualities is in the pages of Make magazine, where readers find slouch-detecting belts and Star Wars deck chairs. You’ll even find instructions for do-it-yourself space exploration using homemade satellites. Yes, really.
Vermont’s “makers” — a term that originated in the early 2000s, meaning any amateur or professional inventor of physical objects — are farmers, programmers, artists, educators and kids. Whether they’re dreaming up Roomba-style contraptions to scare the deer from their fields or creating sound installations for a gallery, makers have a few things in common: curiosity; a renegade, DIY spirit; and a willingness — even eagerness — to share.
Read the whole article HERE
Very cool things happening up in Vermont. Would love to hear/read about that deer device!