“What the hell is he building in there? We have a right to know.”

These spooky lyrics from Tom Waits may apply to the neighbors of 814 E. Broadway, where the LVL1 Hackerspace is located.

What may look like an assortment of mad-scientists coming and going at all hours of the night is in fact an organized group of like-minded, passionate and creative individuals. Luckily this unique group is hard at work in the name of education, community and hacking.

LVL1 is ‘leetspeak’ for Level-One. Leetspeak is a way of naming forums and projects that hackers in the 80s developed to keep them low profile. ‘Hacking,’ in the context of L1V1, means to take something old, broken, both or neither, and find a new, novel use for it.

Much like the character in the song, unsuspecting people near the mysterious LVL1 Hackerspace are treated to sounds of drill presses, saws, hammers and even explosions (followed by cheers).

Similar to Wikipedia or other collaborative non-profit operations, the Hackerspace is a co-op-style club driven by professionals, retired and active, as well as students and up-and-coming artists who are brimming with a passion to see ideas come to life, sometimes just for the hell of it.

Brian Harper, professor of fine arts and ceramic area coordinator, is involved with the LVL1 Hackerspace.

“I’ve never been involved in a group so diverse and dynamic,” Harper said. One of Harper’s current and ongoing projects, The Open Crowd Project, was on display at the Maker Faire. With a 3D printer purchased through a grant in aide for research, Brian is creating busts of participants from all over the country to display together in the form of a crowd. The idea is that though these people may never congregate in a real-life situation, it shows the “innate human sense of togetherness.” Visit opencrowdproject.com to submit a photo and become part of the crowd.

I was welcomed into a different sort of night-life when I attended the weekly meeting of the minds which was led by president Brad Luyster and Jose “no last names,” the director of legal evil. The regular Tuesday meetings are a chance for the 60 plus members of Hackerspace to discuss old and new business as well as to welcome new faces.

“Be excellent to each other,” was displayed in bold at the top of the projected list of things to discuss and events to mention.

“LVL1 is a do-acracy,” Luyster announced to the attendees.

Various workshops and causes were brought to the attention of those in attendance. This included initiatives, in conjunction with other co-ops such as MuddyTech, to provide computers and computer knowledge to low-income families. In the past, LVL1 has been responsible for procuring grants that ultimately provided 3D printers to The Kentucky Science Center and The Louisville Library.

After the meeting, people familiar with Hackerspace went their separate ways within the facility to work on, show off, and talk about projects while new people were taken on a tour led by Joseph Clagg, member, and Raj Shah, one of the directors at large. Our tour group of seven was shown the impressive amount of available equipment and supplies hiding deep inside the organized chaos of the three floors of what could be called a warehouse. Our guides showed off a plasma-cutter welder that Shah said is perfect for beginners and a programmable laser cutter that Clagg called “the coolest piece of equipment you never knew you needed.”

Along with the cutting-edge, available machinery was a wide variety of useful junk resting in semi-organized piles waiting to be selected for a project.

While showing off the equipment, Raj Shah and Joseph Clagg also explained upcoming workshops including themes such as JavaScript, open-source computing and even game design.

“We have workshops that range in subjects from how to make an LED blink to urban chicken husbandry,” Shah said.

During the tour we saw a rocket that has been a mile into our atmosphere, co-designed by member John Simpson, a J.B. Speed School graduate. The project earned rookie of the year and then second place in a nation-wide competition in Hunstville, Ala.

The University Student Launch Initiative rocket competed against other notable engineering schools such as MIT. LVL1 also put together a team to compete in the Redbull, Flugtag event held in Chicago this past September. Engineers, designers and artists put together a flying machine that, “got in front of 5 million people,” as Vice President Josh Wilcox put it to give an idea of the scope of the project.

Clagg showed off a hacked Fisher Price Power Wheels fire engine that, though slow, won a Moxy award at the Power Racing Series held in Detroit. Piloted by Danielle Blank, the engine, though unable to keep up with Power Wheels going in excess of 25mph, was able to save the day by putting out a small fire with the use of a working fire hose.

In the same giant room, Brian Wagner, seventh grade teacher at the Kentucky Country Day School, demonstrated his sumo-bot. The bots are being designed by students of his as well as other participants to compete in an annual competition at Hackerspace.

Also, in the same room, were two members doing re-works on a life-sized re-boot of the popular game Operation, called Alien Autopsy.

Wilcox said he helped put amenities such as electricity, gas and kitchen-space into the gutted warehouse

“We basically built it from the inside out,” Wilcox said. Wilcox’s intensity while speaking shows a devout belief in the mission statement of LVL1, which, though ever-evolving, is to provide “a self-inflicted, learning environment,” and to “generate ideas through general discourse.”

Later in the evening, I spoke with the Director of Legal Evil who asked if I wanted to see some experiments. How could I say no? Within seconds, plastic tubs were being pulled from seemingly nowhere and gadgets capable of generating 120,000 volts of electricity emerged, along with samples of Carnotite, better known as Uranium.

With the Uranium, he set up a cloud chamber which was the “first way to visualize radiation.” I saw electrons from unstable material firing off to join other atoms. Jose is akin to your cool science teacher but instead of Breaking Bad, he’s at LVL1 performing experiments at 11:20 in the evening.

Some of these projects and several others that originated within the Hackerspace were displayed at the inaugural Maker Faire in Louisville on Sept. 28.

Jose described his table at the Maker Faire as “The most dangerous table,” as it incorporated the horrors of information, high-voltage and radiation.

LVL1 Hackerspace has an open door policy. To learn more, visit the location on any Tuesday or Friday evening, visit LVL1.org to see a current list of workshops and events or go to LVL1@google groups to ask questions about your own projects.