MakeIt February

MakeIt NYC is back with regular meetings this February, and we're getting things rebooted with a terrific slate of presenters, a great new location, and an amazing new sponsor (and, oh yes, giveaways and swag)! This month: MICROCHIP!!! Thimble, The LED Artist, BotFactory and more. UPDATE: Hackaday! Pizza and refreshments! Just sign up already, or read on for more details.

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We have a new sponsor, presenter and friend of MakeIT NYC - Microchip Technology Inc (http://www.microchip.com/). Microchip is the company behind the ubiquitous PIC microcontroller families, about a bazillion other types of electronic components, and they're the new home of the guts of your Arduino, too. (http://www.microchip.com/pagehandler/en-us/aboutus/acquisitions/atmel-acquisition.html) Karen Drucker and her team join us to tell us about the high-octane chipKIT Wi-FIRE Development Board (http://www.microchip.com/DevelopmentTools/ProductDetails.aspx?PartNO=TDGL021-2). And who knows? You might get a souvenir to take home with you.

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Say thank you to Hackaday (http://hackaday.com/), purchaser of tonight's pizza, #1 Hacker news-site and facilitator of The Hackaday Prize. Sophi Kravitz joins us to talk about The Hackaday Prize where over $500k was awarded in 2015 for humanitarian projects. She'll also discuss Hackaday.io (http://hackaday.io/), possibly the funnest (and productive) place on the internet for hardware folks to hang out- it's a project sharing platform with over 120k (yes 120,000!) community members.

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Now, wouldn't it be great if there was something like Blue Apron, but for Makers? And who needs food when there's a hot serving of cool hardware projects shipped to your door every month? That's what Thimble (http://www.thimble.io/) is about. Oscar Pedroso is going to join us and talk about his inspiration, his experience with getting Thimble off the ground, and what a successful Kickstarter campaign (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1891856541/thimble-learn-and-build-electronics-w-monthly-deli) is all about. Thimble is funded like a 1000%, but why not check it out and get them to, say, 2000%?

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We'll also be joined by Akimitsu Sadoi, know by many as The LED Artist (http://www.theledart.com/). Aki is, in a sentence, where engineering excellence and artistic creativity intersect. His designs are just lovely, and I was lucky that he allowed us to experiment with one of them at PCB:NG. (http://blog.pcb.ng/ouroboros-teleios/) Oh, and his A60 just happens to employ a Microchip PIC - what a crazy coincidence! If you ever needed advice about LEDs, he's your man.

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And if that wasn't enough, BotFactory (https://www.botfactory.co/), who joined us last September (https://www.meetup.com/MakeIt-NYC/events/224783240/), are back to update us (and show us!) Squink (https://www.botfactory.co/product), their desktop circuit fabrication system. Man, something like that could put certain companies (http://blog.pcb.ng/hello-pcbng/) out of business. We promise not to get all cobra and mongoose on stage.

All this and more! See you there.