"Hangout & Nerdout" Ep. 4 on December 15th Goes Out Into Space

“Hangout & Nerdout” is a virtual community meetup series co-produced by Hackster and Make:. Each month, we bring members of both communities together to explore technology, innovation, and education. Register for this month's episode now and hear from three pioneers in space technology!

Our premiere episode was on wearables, the 2nd episode was part of Hackster’s Impact Summit focused on sustainability, and the 3rd episode was all about ART from freestanding circuits to fire tech!

The 4th episode will bring our 2022 to an epic finale taking us to outer space. We're featuring Roger Cheng, creator of Sawppy rover, Dan Schneiderman on 2024 Total Solar Eclipse, and Joan Horvath on her journey from NASA JPL to Make: Calculus as a "recovering rocket scientist".

Meet our SPACE 🚀 nerds

Little Roger grew up playing with LEGO and had a Voyager space probe poster on his wall. Grown-up Roger's love for robot space explorers has not changed but now he has 3D printers, soldering irons and can write code. Sawppy is a project that combines his passions into a mini Mars rover for the backyard and shared with space fans around the world.

Dan is the Eclipse Partnership Coordinator at the Rochester Museum & Science Center. In his role, Dan is preparing the Greater Rochester Region, New York State, and beyond for the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. Dan has additionally been a producer of Maker Faire Rochester since 2014 and formerly worked at Make: as a Community Manager. Check out Dan’s TED talk on “A Nation of Makers”.

Joan is a rocket scientist, educator and author, with her Bachelors from MIT in Aeronautics and Astronautics and Masters of Science in Engineering from UCLA. After MIT, she spent 16 years at Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) working on both planetary and earth science spacecraft. A stint in the Tech Transfer Office there led to her getting the entrepreneurial bug, leading her to get involved in a number of startup companies over the last 20+ years. In 2015, she co-founded Nonscriptum LLC (with Rich Cameron) where she teaches educators and scientists how to use 3D printing and other maker tech. Joan and Rich have authored seven books for Apress, Make:Geometry and Make:Calculus for Make, and numerous courses for LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com).

Register now to save your virtual seat for the event here and stay up to date on future episodes! 🦄