2/06/2012

Google +, bringing makers and hackers together to easily share ideas and interests.

A lot of people ask why I have such an affinity towards Google+. "Why do you need it when you have facebook and twitter?" Granted, I could probably make the connections I seek using those two trusty tools, among others, but for whatever reason, Google+ made it much easier to pinpoint people that encompass topics that I hold dear.
Meet Pete Prodoehl, aka @raster on twitter. Just a few months back, I sparked an interest in 3D printing. Naturally, with Google+ being the new tool in the shed, I took it for a spin to find other makers who were getting their feet wet in this exciting new medium. Within seconds, I had opened the door to the open source community that I had heard so much about. I've since named that circle on G+ "Hack the Planet" and Pete stood out among the crowd because he had just set out to build a MakerGear Prusa Mendel RepRap 3D printer. I too was in the midst of assembling a 3D printer, the RapMan 3.2 from BitsFromBytes for my prototyping and one-off parts that I require in my labs at NIST. I picked up all of the knowledge that he was dropping here and there all around his interwebz, and now I'm up and running... even dropping a bit of my own knowledge here and there.
I quickly found that Pete is a (more ambitious) clone of me. He shares many of my interests which, to this point, I only dabble in. He dabbles too, but he's like the Obi Wan dabbler to my young padawan dabbler. Arduino, 3D printing, hacking, making, laser cutting, the list goes on and on. See for yourself and dive into his RasterWeb.
All that aside, that is not what I set out to post here. Pete's latest venture into laser cutting at the ever so awesome Milwaukee Makerspace yielded a positively sick little wooden nickel that I simply had to have! I humbly asked if he'd send me one and a few days later it was in my mailbox, along with some stickers! The little squares are his logo for RasterWeb, and the Milwaukee barcamp stickers are for an open source un-conference in his area.
Thanks Pete! I hope one day our paths will cross!