About

What is Spacebrew?

Spacebrew is an open, dynamically re-routable software toolkit for choreographing interactive spaces. Or, in other words, a simple way to connect interactive things to one another. Every element you hook up to the system is identified as either a subscriber (reading data in) or a publisher (pushing data out). Data is in one of three standardized formats: a boolean (true/false), a number range (0-1023) or a string (text); it can also be sent as a custom format you specify. Once these elements are set up, you can use a web based visual switchboard to connect or disconnect publishers and subscribers to each other.

Why did you make it?

At LAB at Rockwell Group, we focus on blurring the line between physical and virtual spaces. We think about choreographing environments and the interaction of the objects, people, and stories within them. We spend a lot of time making things - both physical and digital - talk to each other.

When exploring tools to help make these type of Internet of Things environments, we were frustrated by the abundance of closed solutions that didn't play well with others. In response, we developed Spacebrew - an MIT licensed open software toolkit free for use in commercial and non-commercial projects.

Spacebrew bridges the gap between the physical and virtual, making it easy for things from both worlds to talk to each other. Our hope is that Spacebrew becomes something that can link groups together, allowing them to focus on the creation of new and meaningful experiences.

How Can I Get It?

Spacebrew is not yet publicly launched, but we’d like to give our friends and peers in the industry access to Spacebrew Beta 0.1 as we continue development. We know that Spacebrew is currently under-documented, and we're sharing it early to get feedback and involvement from the larger community of people interested in interactive spaces—help us make your ideal toolkit.

How do I Use It?

There are two ways to launch and start playing with Spacebrew - check out our Getting Started tutorial here.

We have also posted examples for Processing, Javascript, and connecting Arduino, as well a link to our source code on Github. We are currently working on more examples and tutorials with Openframeworks, Python, Electric Imp, and Cosm that we will publish soon.

I Want to Get Involved!

Awesome, we are hosting workshops and jam session in NYC every month. To find out more details, just join our meet-up group and you'll be notified whenever we schedule a new session.

We are always looking for help with documentation, for example projects to share with the community, and for tutorials to teach people different ways to use Spacebrew. If you’d like help out any of these ways (or other ways we haven't thought of yet), just let us know at lab@rockwellgroup.com.

Contributors

James Tichenor
Joshua Walton

Zachary Boka
Eric Ishii Eckhardt
Jessica Edmiston
Hendrik Gerrits
Erin Gouveia
Quin Kennedy
Adi Marom
Meghna Pathak
Brett Renfer
Julio Terra
Lucas Vickers