One of our latest projects here is building our own Ultimaker 3D Printer (Sectormaker if you will). We currently have Makerbot Cupcakes that are about 2 years old and we are updating them by building our own Ultimaker. Its about 80% of the way to printing something.

In other news our garden is faring rather well in the heat.

Sector67 was invited to speak at the WiLSWorld Conference along with Madison Public Library about makerspaces in libraries. Check out the prezi

This weekend is Maker Faire Detroit and we’re busy getting ready to hopefully bring home another victory in the Power Racing Series. Check out their website for more information.

This years Forward Technology Festival will be held August 16-25. There are a lot of exciting events this year, and they are all listed on our calendar. We are hosting Madison’s first technology meta meetup on August 17th. There are plenty of other events too whether your an entrepreneur, designer, nerd, hacker etc. so check out their website and sign up!

Loyalty cards are great, they are a great way to earn free stuff, until you lose them or leave them at home. Snowshoe Stamp is helping solve that problem. Snowshoe stamp is a simple and inexpensive way to authenticate transactions using your smartphone. This technology isn’t restricted to just IPhone users, it is compatible with Android phones and all devices that recognize 5 simultaneous touches. The stamp is a simple aluminum block with 5 uniquely placed points that when touched to your smartphone recognizes the business and gives the person a stamp on a punch card or deal. Snowshoe stamp is also integrating with social media; users can chose to tweet or post where they are in order to earn more rewards.

This growing company is considered one of the hot startups in Madison. Snowshoe Stamps has 8 employees and has recently raised a substantial amount of capital. Without the help of Sector67 Snowshoe Stamps wouldn’t be where it is today according to CEO Claus Moberg. Snowshoe Stamps started out making apps for grocery stores that would function similarly to the old Copps card. However, this proved to be very expensive so they came up with a new idea, using smartphones to keep track of punch card purchases. They knew what they wanted to do but had no idea how to go about making it and decided to contact Sector67. After working with Chris for several hours they left Sector67  no only knowing how to use the CNC mill but also with a functioning prototype that they presented to investors later that evening.

Sector67 provided Snowshoe Stamps with a place to prototype at a very affordable cost and the expertise they needed to make their ideas a reality. Snowshoe’s CEO sees Sector67 as continuing to be a very valuable asset to the Madison community and many more startups utilizing its resources.

This years 3D Printing Camp WI was an awesome event and we would like to thank our sponsors for making it all happen:

DHMN

UIUC

Ben Heck

Milwaukee Makerspace

Digital Craft Research Lab

Google

C.ideas

Midwest Prototyping

John Baichtal

Shapeways

Makerbot

Sector67 members have been busy over the past week. Here’s a quick update of what’s been going on:

Tim has been working on some new art, above is a narwhal he’s made.

Jeremy visiting us from PumpingStation: One in Chicago is CNC milling a circuit board

Polyurethane power wheels racing experiment

Adrian from Pere Design is reclaiming some old lumber

First Makership meeting where kids work with mentors to make their ideas reality.

Our members not only mentor kids, but they act like them too as you can see from our growing collection of electric vehicles.

Larry Walker will be leading a LiveCode Summer Camp at Sector67 next week.

What is LiveCode?
* a drag & Drop GUI-builerd tool, great for prototyping or for deployed applications
* a super-simple English-like programming language
* the shortest learning curve to writing iOS and Android apps, beats Objective-C hands down for ease of learning
* a great tool for whipping out quick & dirty hacks, to automate annoying hobby or work tasks
* a great way to put a GUI-interface on your Arduino projects, Arduino does the digital/analog I/O and LiveCode makes it user-friendly

What is the LiveCode Summer Camp?
A chance for parent/child teams learn to program in LiveCode, in an informal setting. Five half-days of short-videos, quick lessons, group lab exercises, and individual projects. Work on the “buddy system” and continue to use the trial license together at home after the camp ends.
We’ll cover the basics of using the LiveCode development tools, some introductory programming techniques, and a bunch of LiveCode tricks-of-the-trade that will let you do amazing applications with ease.

For more information or to enroll, email Larry Walker: larry@walkerenergysystems.com

3D Printing Camp Wisconsin 2012 will take place Saturday, July 21 from 8am to 9pm at Sector67.

3D Printing Camp Wisconsin is a participant-driven event focused on 3D printing technology. The event is not only for those who own 3D printers but also hackers, makers, prototypers, product designers and those who are highly interested in 3D printing.

For more information and to register check out their website.