Hackers and hackettes,
As many of you are aware I've been working on a project for awhile that tries to get as many community members as possible represented on 1 board. I thought it would be really neat to let individual community members choose a cap to represent them on the board. The goal has been to get as large of a proverbial family photo in 1 shot as possible. The response from most of the artisan makers and GHer's was very positive and eager to be a part of it, as I figured it would be- the sense of community here is pretty astounding.
I've been working on creative ways to get non-cap makers represented on the board, and still have some ideas left. For instance, Rowdy's cap would be yellow per his preference for the color, and he chose the Hack'd by Geeks set to be the filler (which is rapidly becoming less and less real estate) So I'd like to put a yellow cap on the R. The KUL these caps are going on was previously owned by livingspeedbump. I'll have a mousepad via Shadovved's groupbuy with a special twist on it :P Switchnollie had a great idea to put some popular GH phrases on a board-bag done in the GH colorway.
The artisans I've spoken with have been incredible, some even offering to do a custom cap for the board. Again, as much as possible I want as little as possible to do with what I was actually purchasing/commissioning- and for them to just do something that made them happy and felt represented them. It was so cool how many of them were not only happy to participate but legit excited about it- and made this way more affordable than it could have been. I'm super excited to see what they went with to be their token. As far as the big OG artisan makers go, I have a token cap for almost all of them that I'll use on the board. (even was able to purchase a Mandolin cap! thanks signature!) Any maker is welcome to say "let's use this cap if you can find one" or "hey man leave me out of this" I won't be PMing anyone privately anymore , but I did want them to have the same opportunity like many of the newer artisans had fun with. Sorry to anyone if the random PM was unwanted.
In retrospect, I should have started the project with a concept post, but the project kind of came to life on it's own through conversations and happenstance with some really cool makers, so I kept the ball rolling that way. I don't regret it because it's given me the opportunity to talk to many of you via Skype, Steam, or PMs and that has been really cool! But now I'm ready to introduce the idea to all of GH! There are lots of awesome people on GH, and I want as many of you as possible to be on this board and in this silly family photo/yearbook piece. For example: I saw multiple of you GHers everyday that I thought "man! He's all over GH- I have to get a token for Ghostjuggernaut on here". There were just too many of you awesome bro's to keep PM'ing individually and keep track of who I'd talked to already and who I hadn't. Really... like way too many. Chances are if you're reading this and you post with any regularity, I wanted to PM you
I really want to stress a couple of things: 1) I'm happy to pay for the cap and for shipping if you have a cap you want on as long as I can afford it :P I'm also happy to ship a cap back to you if you just want it on the board for the family photo! That's not a big deal at all - the more the merrier. I even have most cap spaces left unreserved if you're eyein' the big piece of cake. For example if Shaddoved wanted his GH avatar on the left tab key- I'd do my best to make that happen, or if speedbump or matt3o had a random key leftover from one of their set buys- I'm thrilled to pay for it to make it happen! I'm very happy to find creative ways to fit everyone in who'd like to be! 2) This board will be a beautiful hodge podge of colors and caps from GHers. With this many individual sweethearts displaying their uniqueness, matching the rest of the board should be your last concern! The most important thing to me is that you get a token to represent you that you're happy with. 3) This is a fun project! It's also pretty silly- a yearbook style photo using keycaps and mech accessories? You bet your ass. It's as silly as life gets and I'd like to keep it that way.
I'm happy to list out what keyspaces are open/taken and who is participating so far, but I'd like to confirm with each of them that it's okay to do so on this post! Some of my favorite artisans and personalities are coming up with stuff and I'm really excited to see the end result!
I really want to encourage anyone to post or PM me and let's find a way to get this board packed with people. Right now it's a TKL KUL, but if we're blessed enough to run out of room I'm happy to add a numberpad or a 60% to get more folks in!
Thanks for reading this book. Now I gotta take a nap. I'll be AFK til tomorrow afternoon but hit me up or start spitballin ideas to get more people involved! (or nobody respond and make me feel real dumb) Right now we're at around 35 individual entries, which is already amazing!
Edit: I did explore the idea of building a keyboard using components bought from all the wonderful GB's ran by awesome GH'ers. It would have been a great way to get some more people involved efficiently. I'm pretty nub at soldering/wiring/etc and to be honest probably lack the steady hands to pull off that type of procedure. (RLS is no joke, especially when it starts to spread to your arms) Plus I'm very happy that this is going on a board once owned by speedbump. What a nice hacker.
