Learning is for Everyone’s  LI4E Makerspace Project team – comprised largely of FTC Team Duct Tape members and mentors, including Tampa Technik! – will be representing Tampa Bay, and Florida as a finalist in the 2012 Red Bull Creation Contest.

Provided only with an arduino open source microcontroller – called a Bullduino, in Red Bull’s honor – teams from around the country put together a device of their choosing to try to impress judges with their creativity and engineering skills.   The FIRST Tech Challenge influence evident in the creative use of an NXT brick, and some LEGO motors to power a couple of different devices.

The LI4E Makerspace team created a Rube Goldberg-esque Red Bull Wake-Up Call alarm clock, and entered a video of their contraption into the competition on July 3.  The clock, in their words, is “an over-engineered beauty … Since anything worth doing is worth over-doing, this Bullduino-driven morning persuader is configured out a variety of repurposed items, including:

• a 60 year old Seth Thomas travel clock
• a Yamaha stage piano with speaker and woofer
• an NXT brick
• a couple of LEGO motors
• a steel trap triggered by a falling anvil
• and lots of duct tape!”

Red Bull Creation judges selected the LI4E Makerspace team and 11 other teams from around the country as finalists, who will now compete in a 72 themed build that kicks off July 19.  The three day build is co-hosted by Popular Science and will be livestreamed. After a public voting period, top scoring teams get to take their creations the World Maker Faire 2012 in New York, in September. Besides getting to showcase their creations, Red Bull Creation finalists will be vying for a top prize of $10,000.

The LI4E Makerspace Project is an effort by Learning is for Everyone (LI4E) to bring community makerspaces to Tampa Bay –  public spaces equipped with tools, machines and other resources that can be used by Makers of all ages, and by all types of groups, from FIRST teams to local inventors . The LI4E Makerspace team is an intergenerational, multi-talented crew of youth and adults, who are students, writers, artists, programmers, engineers, craftspeople and all-purpose tinkerers – a cross section of the community that would value and use a makerspace.

Check the Red Bull Creation page starting July 19 to keep up with the 72 hour build and cheer on the LI4E Makerspace Team, and participating Team Duct Tape members!

LI4E’s motto is “No Limits!” and the Red Bull Creation team, like Team Duct Tape itself,  exemplifies that no-holds-barred creativity in all they do.