I’d been looking forward to this day for several weeks. Thanks to the help of my friends Jenn and Andrea, we’d planned a Burlington visit for some  of our maker friends from other towns and affiliations. Our plan was to tour Beta then tour Generator to look for possible interactions. It was a fun group including :

• Prof Neil Gershenfeld an old friend from MIT who heads the Center for Atoms and Bits and was the fatehjr of the Fablab movement. We patterend the UVM Fablab , the Essex Highs chool Fablab and Generator after a template that neal created in the early 2010’s. Neil also runs a great class called “how to make almost anything” at mit which is amazingly cool
• Prof Scott Kirkpatrick – Now at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.. but formerly at IBM. A long time hero of mine. He was the creator of simulated annealing.. a technique I used in my phd thesis a zillion years ago.. Scott flew himself and Neil up from Boston. THey were able to roll right up to Beta.
• Tom Bodet and Johny Wolfman from the Hackspace woodworkers makerspace in Bratellboro. (My friend Lars works there too.. but couldn’t make it) . Tom and johnny are super fun.. (Tom’s a very funny guy. You can hear Tom sometimes on NPR’s “wait wait dont tell me:.”and as the wry voice pitching Motel 6.. “we’ll leave the light on for you” )
• From UVM my good friend and collaborator Jenn Karson who has appointments in Engineering and Fine Arts . Her friend Prof Eric Munson, Jenn (and my ) boss Dean Linda Schadler and Dani ? a really nice videographer.
• From Generator . my friends Meg Howard the ED of Generator and Veronica Newton lead for programs and partnerships at Generator
  

It was SO fun showing the whole group  around BETA and Genreator .. We had a great day seeign what each other were working on and figureing out how we might work together in the future.

Neil gave a great talk about some  of the projects going on at the Center for Bits and Atoms .. and gave us a recount of wall that went on at the Haystack craft camp this summer.. It was so great !

After a quick tour of generator we headed down town for a quick Ramen dinner.. then I drove Neil adn Scott back to BETA and walked them out to their plane

Really fun day !
nite all , nite sam