300 Seconds of fame

From Pumping Station One

2nd Tuesdays of each month at PS:One, you! yes YOU! get to hear your fellow members, geeks, and other associated community-minded people present to whoever wants to show up, but only for 300 seconds apiece.

You've got five minutes. Use it wisely.


What is it?

300 Seconds of Fame (300SoF) is a combination/alteration of PS:One's separate lightning talks and Pecha Kucha night, taking in elements from Noisebridge's Five Minutes of Fame, which in turn is an adaptation of CCC's Lightning Talks. The idea is that we hold about an hour's worth of 5 minute open mic slots. You can run shorter, but not longer, than five minutes.

Within those parameters, what is it? Glad you asked.

It can be a presentation, a musical number, a demonstration, a debate, a run-through of a proof of concept, performance art, live circuit bending, etc, etc, ad nauseum. Will it fit into five minutes, be feasible for the space, and be appreciated by an audience? Go for it.

When and Where does it happen?

Second Tuesday of every month after the 8pm meeting at PS:One. (doors open at 6)

Why are we doing this?

  • Easy way to find out what's going on at PS:One -- no need to sit through long lectures.
  • Some people are working on projects that are not ready for a full 30 minute or hour long talk, but they want to get their ideas out. Maybe they need help; maybe they want to propose an idea to the PS:One community.
  • Some people are shy about public speaking and want to practice without giving an "official" conference talk, which can be daunting. This is a great way to try it out in a community of peers.
  • These days, many of us are becoming entrepreneurs to one extent or another. If you're trying to sell your idea to someone, you need to be able to explain it in five minutes or less.
  • "The Law of Fives"

How can I participate?

Easy - sign up to give a talk! Contact Anne (@onthelevel on twitter or anne @ pumpingstationone.org).

Include your name (or handle) and talk title.

If you're doing slides, let Anne know beforehand so she can arrange for the projector.

Right now, we're running this off-the-cuff, as lightning talks were when Anne ran them after meetings. Once we find ourselves pushing the hour limit, we'll be restricting sign-ups and/or scheduling people for later months.

How can I attend?

Just show up!

If for any reason you're unable to attend, you can usually watch it live on our UStream Channel.


Current 300SoF

  1. - One damn beautiful hackerspace.
  2. -
  3. -
  4. -
  5. -
  6. -
  7. -
  8. -

(sign up for these available spots!)

Past 300SoF

June 2011

  1. Will - Fresh Paint
  2. John - Electronics for Popups
  3. Jess - World Naked Bike Ride
  4. Ish - Apps that break the game
  5. Tomer - Sarah Palin in a box on acid, or ecstasy
  6. Adrianna - Song for Pluto

May 2011

  1. Nick - HAL740: An Introduction to DIY Home Automation
  2. Rhys - Pirates, Hackers, and ADC
  3. Shawn Blaszak presents the fantastical tangled tale of how I earned my semi-ersatz Erdos number and my surprisingly believable Bacon number
  4. Jordan - Cricut hacks
  5. Jim - More Stories from the Balloon Factory
  6. Matt/digipengi - Protect Your Shit
  7. Avner - GGHC

April 2011

  1. Kyle - Passive Agressive: Interpreting and Reinterpreting Passive Digital Media
  2. Dustin - Firefox 4 and Mozilla
  3. Jim - My Bike and a special announcement
  4. Sacha - How Open Source Saved My Company
  5. Eric - How to Wiki

March 2011

  1. Joe - Waking up a la Flava Flav
  2. Jonathan - Extracting Coffee
  3. Jim - Hipster Nascar and the Balloon Factory
  4. Eric - Freegeek
  5. Rhys - Wireless Chording Keyboard on Thingiverse

February 2011

  1. Avner - Vertical garden
  2. Joe - Where's Waldo?
  3. Dan - Small CNC
  4. Patrick - Things I'm doing
  5. Jim - Stories from the balloon factory
  6. David - Time-lapse CHDK photography
  7. Ben - Macaroni and cheese

January 2011

Election edition!

  1. Jordan Bunker (At Large)
  2. Jim Burke (At Large)
  3. Shawn Blasak (At Large)
  4. Asher - hacking the five minute play
  5. Rhys (CTO)
  6. Tim "How to hand-cut a mortise and tenon (badly)"
  7. Ishmael Rufus (Treasurer)
  8. Patrick (Secretary)
  9. Idan - Skiboard
  10. Nathan Witt (Vice President)
  11. Anne Petersen (President)
  12. Sacha De'Angeli (Nothing)

December 2010

  1. Sarah - Member survey
  2. Jordan, Ish, Rhys, Nathan, Tim - Open Door Hackathon
  3. Dan - CNC PhlatPrinter
  4. Tim - Top reasons why you can't juggle
  5. Joshua Rothhaas - Tinkering School comes to Chicago
  6. Jay - PCs Uncased
  7. Sacha - ChiHack
  8. Patrick - XMas64 Part 2: Electric Boogaloo
  9. Nathan - Pledge drive
  10. Jaku and John - RFID jacket
  11. Tomer

November 2010

  1. Patrick - XMass64 v0.1
  2. Dustin - Hacking Elections
  3. Tim - Laser Cutters and you
  4. Tim and Jordan - Hackerspace valuation, a proposal

October 2010

  1. Bill Mania - Team Frednet and the Google Lunar X Prize
  2. Joe - Joe's Fantastic Voyage
  3. dustin - buildbot
  4. arthur - xray scattering
  5. Vimby - The world premier of Scion's Take on the Machine, Pumping Station: One

September 2010

  1. Patrick - Patrick
  2. Sacha - Chemical burns and electric shocks: making atomically sharp needles for fun and profit.
  3. Sacha - Fish or eat sushi: dumping unprofitable projects for fun and profit.
  4. Dan - Knots? That's Awesome

August 2010

  1. How to Fail at Physics by Sacha
  2. Clear Hotspot by Matt
  3. Mister Rogers on Ecstasy in a Box by Tomer
  4. Open Up by Willow

July 13, 2010

  1. How to Identify Someone Who Practises Hacking by Tim
  2. PRS by Jim
  3. Rival Spaces by Steve
  4. Optimizing PS:One by Anne

June 8, 2010

  1. Stuff I keep in my pockets by Patrick
  2. Shadelab by Alex Gilliam
  3. More tales from the balloon factory by Jim
  4. MakerBot by Patrick
  5. Breakfast Cleanup Club results by Anne
  6. chain maille by Jakub
  7. Geek Pranks by Patrick
  8. NeighborCon by Travis

May 11, 2010

  1. Firespinning by Sc00bz
  2. Taking inventory of PS1's stuff and how you can help by Tim
  3. The Space Shuttle and the Horse's Rear End by Jeff
  4. MakerBot by Patrick
  5. Audio Arduino by Joe Fallon

April 13, 2010

  1. tobtu.com by Sc00bz
  2. Welcome Tomerica by Tomer
  3. Tech Workers of the World Unite! by Steve Goodpaster
  4. Chip Decapping by Travis Goodspeed
  5. Creative Re-Use by Carl Boyd
  6. The Jew's Harp by Jimmy P. Rogers
  7. Malicious GPU Kernel by Travis Goodspeed

March 9, 2010

  1. First Robotics by Ryan Lanham
  2. A Hackerspace's Guide to... oh, you stopped reading, didn't you by Sacha De'Angeli
  3. 10 Awesome Things You Probably Didn't Know About Neuroanatomy by Frag
  4. Digeridoo by Geoffrey
  5. Arduino Radio by Joseph Fallon
  6. Please Pirate by Pete
  7. Fiddling Around by Sarah S.
  8. Things That Happen to Me at the Balloon Factory by Jim
  9. Democratizing Video Surveillance by Ella
  10. Fun Raising by Eric Hanley

February 9, 2010

  1. Peoplehacking II: A Numerically and Biologically Intensive Solution to Losing Weight or: The Engineers' Guide to Weight Loss or: Four Formulae For The Reduction Of Operational Mass by Sacha De'Angeli
  2. Maker Fair: Get Excited! by Ryan Lanham
  3. Photography Rights: an educational rant on where it's legal to take pictures by Anne Petersen
  4. RepRap report: progress! by camo
  5. Brawndo: The Messy Hackerspace MUTILATOR by Tim Saylor

Creative Commons licensing and attribution

Content is available under Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, cribbed generously from the wiki about Noisebridge's similar event.