Latest member news 6 June 2016

Hello! we hope you're enjoying the sunshine but don't forget to come and make things too. Here is the latest news from Makespace.

Members' meeting

It is quite a while since there has been a Makespace Members' Meeting, and it seems like a good time to have another one. So this will be held on Thursday 21 July, at 7.30pm, in the Classroom. This is a good opportunity to raise questions to the directors, discuss what is working well and what could be changed, thrash out proposals for new equipment, as well as meet fellow members and eat pizza. This meeting will replace the July social which would normally be on the 28th.

All members are welcome, and there is no need to sign up, but for estimating quantities of pizza it would be helpful to do so here.

If you have any items you'd like added to the agenda for the formal part of the meeting, please send them to admin@makespace.org. You may wish to discuss them in advance on the Google group to enable everyone to contribute.

New director

We are very pleased and lucky to be able to welcome Ward Hills onto the Makespace board, filling the void left by Laura's recent departure. Ward is a director, entrepreneur and investor who is actively involved with a number of technology start-ups. His interests include self-driving vehicles, remote sensing, rapid prototyping, signal processing, and more. He is an Entrepreneur in Residence at Cambridge University's Judge Business School.

Ward first joined Makespace in May 2013 to bring his daughters to Family Makers events, and has since become a familiar member of the community. He is currently collaborating professionally on various projects with partners that he's met through Makespace, and in his spare time is building a Raspberry-Pi-based telescope out of parts printed on the Ultimakers and some bits of bathroom tubing.

Ward says: 'What I love about Makespace is the attitude people have, that there's nothing that isn't possible.' Ward's management expertise will help keep Makespace on a secure and sustainable footing and ensure that even fewer things are impossible. He becomes the fourth member of the board, alongside Jonny Austin, Simon Ford and Adrian van den Heever.

Forthcoming events

Megaprocessor talk, June 9

James Newman has built a 16 bit processor from scratch - out of transistors. It's featured in the Register which noted that the finished circuitry will weigh about half a ton. He will be giving a talk on how and why he did it on June 9 at 7.30pm. All welcome but please sign up.

Building a business, 16 June

A free morning event at the Hauser Forum, the University's centre for entrepreneurship. Booking required.

Startupbootcamp IOT accelerator

Startupbootcamp is running an accelerator programme that provides IoT hardware startups with $15K in cash and mentoring, partners, manufacturing support, etc. It is in London and runs for three months from September. The deadline for applications is 13 June.

Contacting Makespace

If you have an administrative problem or query, contact admin (at) makespace (dot) org. Mark, the administrator, will be away for two weeks at the end of June but the admin@ e-mail address will still be monitored (anything sent to Mark's personal address, and other non-urgent queries, will wait till he is back). For any concerns or problems about the space, purchase requests, etc, as usual contact management (at) makespace (dot) org.

Reminders

No alcohol

Please remember that Makespace's rules do not allow alcohol in the space at any time, except at events (normally including the monthly socials) where it has been explicitly authorised by the Directors. Machinery must never be used after drinking alcohol on or off the premises.

Storage

Space for the boxes is running tight, so if you have anything stored on the shelves, please ensure that it is limited to one standard 35-litre box. If you do not have a box and need one, get in touch.

Larger projects that are being actively currently worked on may be stored temporarily in the Trove, if there is space for them. Anything stored in the Trove should be clearly marked with your name, a phone number or e-mail address and a date by which you expect it to be gone. Anything unmarked in the Trove is up for grabs for another project, so make sure your label is securely attached, otherwise someone might cannibalise your world-changing invention and turn it into a bit of their latest robotic chocolate teapot.

Data protection

In response to a recent question about member's personal data and the UK Data Protection Act (1988): Makespace is committed to and compliant with the requirements of the act (and will be making all necessary changes over the next 24 months to ensure that we will be compliant with the act's pending replacement - the General Data Protection Regulation). Makespace only collects information about and from you that is needed to manage and operate Makespace Cambridge Ltd. Most of this personal data is managed directly by Makespace. To meet the UK/EU/International requirements needed to accept payment by credit card, Makespace makes use of a PCI-DSS compliant merchant service provider to process card payments - Recurly. In order to keep your credit card data safe, Recurly's data security standards meet and in most cases exceed industry requirements. To process the periodic card transactions and provide Makespace with the service it requires, Recurly transmits and stores your credit card and necessary associated information to its PCI-DSS compliant server infrastructure in the USA. Recurly does not store any additional personal information about members on behalf of Makespace.