WE DID IT! We made it to 2013. To celebrate, Milwaukee Makerspace built the New Year’s Hop Drop. This was epic from the beginning. Jeremy from Art Milwaukee asked me if I wanted to build a giant beer hop for new years. LOL, What? Sure! So here goes the process…

This is the concept rendered by the great Ali Carlucci.

Victory shot after set-up at The Milwaukee Art Museum.

We started out with the skeleton for the hop. Designed by Makerspace’s own Shane Thelen.

Here’s another Maker, Matt Wittmann, attaching the leaves on the hop.

After attaching the leaves we built the base to support the hop. The hop will rise 20 feet and get lowered at the 30 second countdown to the new year.

Here’s Shane painting the base.

Now, to test the motor.

WooHoo it works! Here is a video of us doing a test,

Hoppy New Year! Stay safe, Stay classy.