Difference between revisions of "Makespace"

Revision as of 13:28, 15 May 2011

What is Makespace?

Makespace is a community workshop in Cambridge, UK, for people to come and meet, learn and building (almost) anything.

It is currently being bootstrapped by its founders, and will be an industrial/warehouse building in the city, containing:

• A FabLab including a 2D laser cutter, 3D printer, CNC Router, Soldering stations, etc
• A meeting and training area including a projector, chairs, etc
• Flexible access control and facilities
• The surroundings to meet, work, build, socialise and do amazing things

And as a community resource, it'll bring together a network of enthusiasts and innovators, the prototyping industry, consultants, businesses and educational communities in a mutually beneficial way. It is aiming to reach people from all across the East of England, using Cambridge as the initial hub.

If this sounds interesting, you should join our Meetup group. You can also contact the founders through this group. The group can be found at

http://www.meetup.com/makespace

Who should be involved?

The space will be great for individuals wanting to experiment, startups or companies wanting access to prototyping equipment, companies in the business who can come and do training and provide services beyond Makespace, and groups that want space to meet. Anyone who could benefit from a shared space focused on making things.

At its core will be a membership-based structure, and we'll include a few distinctions such as:

• Individuals who want to support and make use the space, a bit like a gym (approximately £50/month)
• Potential "residents" who could make use the space in a relatively full-time way (e.g a startup, consultant, ...)

Help make sure everyone who should know about Makespace knows about Makespace!

Any individual or company interested in Makespace should join our Meetup group, where we can organise meetings and share progress.

Please pass it on, and encourage people to sign up!

And it doesn't just have to be electronic; here are some extra resources to help you spread the word in the real world:

• A5 Flyer
• A4 Poster

Please post them in offices, clubs, related shops, and anywhere you think will catch the eye of an interested person!

Getting involved

If you'd like to express interest in Makespace, keep up to date with how things are going, or find out about upcoming real-world meetings, please join our Meetup group.

This is our main community list and you can see archive update posts on meetup, or here.

For setting up Makespace and planning how things should work we have a different mailing list. Please join this list if you're looking to be a founder member or are interested in how things are being organised!

http://makespace.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/makespace

You can also view the list archive

For IRC you can use #makespace on Freenode

• You can also access this via your browser at http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=makespace

Progress so far

For a detailed look at the progress so far, see Updates.

Funding has been secured to help bootstrap Makespace, and a summary of the progress was presented at our Make-a-makespace event: Make-a-makespace Presentation

This means it is all going ahead, so get involved now to help create this thing!

Here are the working specification documents:

• Structure

We are also working on outreach activities as follows:

• Engineering Festival 2011

Meetings

There are brief write-ups of relevant meetings provided at Meetings, committee meeting minutes are also listed below:

• Founder Member Meeting, 21 October 2010

Sponsorship and Donations!

Makespace is made possible by membership fees and sponsorship. We gratefully receive any donations, however small, that can help with developing, running and improving Makespace for everyone.

• Donate to Makespace via Credit Card or Paypal

Also, we accept donations-in-kind. Head over to DonationsWelcome, where we're tracking the things we need and the things people have that we might need.

Thanks!