A three-way geek collaboration has birthed
Dorkbot Pittsburgh, a weekly meeting-of-the-minds for people “who like to do strange things with electricity.” It’s held upstairs at
Brillobox bar.
Dorkbot is a national phenomenon started in 2000 by Doug Repetto in New York City. It spread to San Francisco, Tokyo, and other cities. Drue Miller and her husband J. Eric Townsend, who had recently moved here from San Francisco, had the idea of starting a Pittsburgh Dorkbot about the same time that CMU professor Golan Levin and Drew Celley of
wifimaps.com. They all contacted Repetto in New York, and he got them together.
“I was excited when they started it up,” says Jason Simmons of
Gradient Labs, who will soon be making a presentation at Dorkbot. “I feel like there hasn’t been a focal point for people like this, those of us who are interaction designers—musicians, artists, entrepreneurs—there hasn’t been a forum that brought all these people together into one room. It examines the blurry boundaries between art, design, and business.”
“Pittsburgh is such a geek town, and there’s a really thriving arts community. There was potential for overlap of the two, but it wasn’t happening,” says Miller. Dorkbot Pittsburgh focuses on art and technology and tries to feature both at each meeting. Presenters range from Jonny Farringdon of BodyMedia Inc., who designs wearable body monitors, to Kevin C. Smith, a “circuit-bender” who manipulates children’s toys by rewiring them.
Says Miller, “Pittsburgh really is in many ways poised on the brink of something really big.”
Writer: Sherrie Flick
Source: Jason Simmons, Drue Miller, Drew Celley
Image courtesy of allartburns (@Flickr)