[lug] Volunteer Saturdays afternoons with Bococo: Boulder Community Computers
Neal McBurnett
neal at bcn.boulder.co.us
Sat Jun 5 10:12:32 MDT 2010
At the last LUG meeting I noted the cool new non-profit in town: Boulder
Comunity Computers, aka Bococo: http://bococo.org/
It is based on the FreeGeek model - teach folks in the the community
how to work with free software and recycle computer hardware, and in
return for their volunteer labor they earn their own computers. This
has been a huge success in Portland OR. I went on the tour there last
year and it is most impressive: http://www.freegeek.org/ E.g. in
Portland in 2009, Free Geek distributed 2,415 refurbished computers
into the community. 1,086 of these computers found new homes with
volunteers while the remaining 1,329 computers were awarded to
nonprofit organizations. They generally put Ubuntu on the
computers. Let's get Boulder in the same league!
Bococo is just getting off the ground, but has lots of good things
going for it - a nice space, a bunch of hardware, volunteers, good
community connections and a nice web site. It is at 2232 Pearl St,
behind Pete's Electric Bikes, colocated with iSupportU, a local IT/web
support company.
Below is the latest Bococo newsletter, about the "build session"
today. Feel free to drop by, especially any Saturday afternoon, or
contribute your ideas, business savvy, contacts, techie insight, or
money.
Congrats to Eric Jackson and the rest of the team for getting Bococo so far so quickly!
Neal McBurnett http://neal.mcburnett.org/
----- Forwarded message from Boulder Community Computers <Boulder_Community_Computers at mail.vresp.com> -----
To: neal at bcn.boulder.co.us
From: Boulder Community Computers <Boulder_Community_Computers at mail.vresp.com>
Subject: Build Session June 5th
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bococo_logo 2 2232 Pearl St
bococo.org
303.335.0411
Build Session for June 5, 2010
Hi Bococo buddies,
About the Sessions
Tomorrow, Saturday, we will have our fourth Bococo Build
Session from 12-5pm at our shop. Build sessions are
opportunities for members
On the agenda: of the community to learn
many skills including
* Dis/Assembly line: We have a number of new desktops to take computer repair and
apart and test. This is a great opportunity for a refurbishment. Every hour
tech-phobic people to learn about computer hardware and of work earns $10 of credit
refurbishment. good toward anything in the
* Case Modding: We have a number of new tools available to Bococo Shop (bococo.org/
create custom PC cases. Click here to get an idea of what's shop).
possible.
* Projector Stand: We need a stand to finish the Bococo movie Participants 16 or younger
theater. Heavy use on the power tools for this one. must have adult guardian
* Street Signs: Again heavy power tool use. We have various with them or a signed
materials (donated from ReSource) to slice, dice, and make waiver.
into our permanent signs outside the shop. Bring
protective eye and hand gear if you have it. Only rule: Be respectful
* The Elusive Black Beauty: We got a new soldering iron and complement Eric as much
which we'll use to install the capacitors in the 42" TV. as possible.
* Numerous smaller projects.
* We also have some non-salvageable equipment that has About Bococo
expressed interest in meeting Big Blue.
Boulder Community Computers
Check out our site at bococo.org to see more information about is a non-profit that
what we're doing to bridge the digital divide like in the bridges the digital divide
Kalmia Housing Community. and prevents electronic
waste in Boulder. We
refurbish old computer
equipment and allow people
Last Week's Build to purchase, barter, or
earn it through work trade.
2010-05-29 16.45.49 (newsletter)Last week we had our best We use some of the proceeds
session yet. Grant and Christian got down and dirty with the to provide affordable
soldering gun. Heroic Harold reorganized the tool section, computers classes.
tested all the keyboards, green tagged a number of towers and
probably wrote an award winning screenplay when I wasn't
looking. Jordan hit the power tools like a champ and cut the
logo out of plywood for one of our signs. She then got too
excited and broke the handle off one of the clamps so -50
points for that. Neal went deep into the rabbit hole to debug
a graphics issue on the Compaqs. Aaron refurbished a number of
towers as well as toyed with CrunchBang. Justin and Cathy then
stopped by to help brainstorm ideas for specialized Bococo
boxes such as media servers, Boxee boxes, or virus proof
computers for your children. See here for more info about
those ideas and here for the full scoop on the day. Thanks
guys!
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