[Vanhackspace] [Fwd: [Noisebridge-discuss] Fwd: Geek's Dream Lab Could Create Jobs In Michigan]

[Colin Keigher]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	[Noisebridge-discuss] Fwd: Geek's Dream Lab Could Create Jobs 
In Michigan
Date: 	Mon, 1 Feb 2010 18:13:04 -0800
From: 	Glen Jarvis <glen at glenjarvis.com>
To: 	Noisebridge Discussion List 
<noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net>
References: 	<64D6E949-90F2-401C-A450-41C288FED6A2 at gmail.com>



This was forwarded to me... It's so noisebridge :)

> *From:* "- Me, "
> *Date:* February 1, 2010 5:59:26 PM PST
> *To:* - ala'  Glen Jarvis <glen at glenjarvis.com 
> <mailto:glen at glenjarvis.com>>
> *Subject:* *Geek's Dream Lab Could Create Jobs In Michigan*
>
> I found the following story on the NPR iPhone App:
> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123107726&sc=17&f=1001 
> <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123107726&sc=17&f=1001>
>
> Geek's Dream Lab Could Create Jobs In Michigan
> by Dustin Dwyer
>
> Mich - February 1, 2010
>
> Chris Boden likes to say that he hacked college: He went to classes, 
> he lived on campus — but he never enrolled.
>
> "I couldn't afford to," Boden says. "But I wanted to learn, and I 
> found very quickly that if you actually have a sincere, passionate 
> desire to learn and you don't care about the degree, that the whole 
> world is a school."
>
> Boden never got a degree. But he kept the passion, which led to 
> creating The Geek Group, a consortium of people devoted to good 
> old-fashioned scientific and technical experimentation.
>
> The Geek Group has members all over the world, but its headquarters is 
> in an old machine shop just north of Kalamazoo, Mich. The Geek Group 
> has gained some attention for its series of videos on YouTube showing 
> their experiments, but it could be more than viral entertainment: 
> Boden thinks his vision could help transform the sputtering economy in 
> the upper Midwest.
>
> Inside A Lab
>
> Boden says anyone can come to his lab and just play.
>
> "It's like if you could go to Mythbusters and hang out," Boden says, 
> referring to a popular television show on the Discovery Channel. "It's 
> a real place."
>
> Boden's lab resembles the set of Mythbusters, with crazy experiments 
> all over the place — like a nuclear fusion reaction inside a small 
> glass container, which Boden calls "a star in a jar."
>
> Next to that, there's a magnetics demonstration that shoots an 
> aluminum disc straight up to the ceiling. There also is a high-voltage 
> lab, where Boden demonstrates the "Thumper."
>
> "It's like the finger of God," Boden says.
>
> He sets a Mountain Dew can on a piece of metal attached to an obscene 
> amount of electrical power. We stand back 30 feet, and Boden tells me 
> to mash a big red button. The can is vaporized. I can still feel the 
> thump in my chest.
>
> This place is a geek's dream house.
>
> Making A Company
>
> Lis Bokt first heard about The Geek Group while surfing the Internet 
> six years ago. She was living in Toronto at the time.
>
> "I came here, and I saw all of the really awesome machines and toys 
> that I knew that I had wanted to use for something, but there was no 
> way I would ever be able to get one for myself," Bokt says.
>
> After one visit, Bokt decided to move to Kalamazoo. She's now 
> executive director of The Geek Group, which is a nonprofit and stays 
> afloat largely through donations and grants.
>
> But it also serves as a kind of research-and-development facility for 
> small companies that can't afford their own lab. And this is what gets 
> Boden really excited. He takes me into a room with a milling machine 
> that anyone can use to develop prototypes.
>
> "This machine creates jobs," Boden says. "It doesn't just make parts. 
> It doesn't just make metal shavings and plastic shavings. This makes 
> jobs."
>
> That's what brought in Pat Hanna, who runs a company called 
> One2Products. His eyes light up at all the science experiments. But he 
> came here for a much more practical reason:
>
> "Well, we had developed our product that we're hoping these guys can 
> help us with, and we were looking for somebody to do some simple 
> machining and also to keep it quiet for a little while," Hanna says.
>
> Future Plans
>
> The Geek Group charges for some of this work. It's one of the many 
> ways to keep the lights on, and they do use a lot of electricity here. 
> The insurance bills are also through the roof. But Boden has a vision 
> to expand The Geek Group: build a 40-acre campus, but without degrees 
> or tuition. He says it would be a place where people could do "open 
> source" research and development.
>
> "But I can't get economic development to care because ... we're the 
> weird guys," Boden says. "We're the guys out on the edge of town that 
> blow stuff up."
>
> Boden believes The Geek Group would get more attention if it were in 
> Silicon Valley. But Silicon Valley doesn't have the kind of 
> unemployment that's ravaged Michigan or the manufacturing heritage.
>
> He believes that this is a place that could use some weird people on 
> the edge of town. This is a place that could use some real geeks. 
> Copyright 2010 Michigan Radio
>
> To learn more about the NPR iPhone app, go to 
> http://iphone.npr.org/recommendnprnews
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
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