The Cowtown Computer Congress

The video is of my humanoid robot Boomer. I was getting the robot ready for the 2008 Robogames. One of the contest is Robot Kung Fu. The goal is to knock the other robot down. You get one point per knock down. The robot with the most points after 2 minutes wins. The bottle is full of water and weighs almost 6 pounds.

 Link to the video

I am thrilled to announce that CCCKC has come to an agreement in principal to lease a 1400 square foot facility located deep within the limestone hills of Kansas City.  Don’t be fooled by the above ground access…the lab lurks 85 feet below the surface of the earth.  What started as a few guys kicking the idea around over some pints at the Flying Saucer has become one of the most inspiring and diverse groups of hackers, tinkerers, makers and enthusiasts in the country.

Since meeting 0 last spring, we have incorporated as a Missouri not-for-profit corporation, recruited a great number of members, outlasted one potential landlord, elected officers, recruited a number of great affiliate organizations, screened an independent film, tagged the side of a telecom facility, held a public soldering workshop, built a talking robot and had countless meetings where we talked about how awesome it would be if we had a space.

This is a pretty impressive set of accomplishments for an organization which has no real home. Luckily that’s all about to change.

As you’ll see soon, there are four distinct areas within our facility. First, we have a 700 square foot classroom for workshops, presentations and speaker target practice.

We also have a mini-kitchen which will be decked out with numerous sources of coffee, tea and other liquids which plants crave.

One section will be dedicated to hardware workshops with work benches, soldering irons and other necessary tools.

Finally there is a location for members to store their projects and the home of the CCCKC networks.

We will officially take posession of our underground lab on February 1st and are planning for week long celebration during the first week of March.

If you’ve heard about the Congress but were waiting for the right time to join, this is it.