In early March 2010, just before the UK Maker Faire in Newcastle, four hansom young men met in a Nottingham pub. It was a heady time for hacking in the city with another group, LAB just starting up in the very same week! Having met up on MEETUP.COM on the now defunct Nottinghack Meetup page they decided to start a sort of club with the idea of meeting and making things. It would be like a hackspace but in a room somewhere behind a bar no doubt.
JP (front right) and myself went to the Maker Faire in Newcastle driving up so early that it wasn't open when we arrived. We had a pretty good time meeting all the makers and it only fired our enthusiasm for Nottinghack all the more. The four of us in the picture above met up at The Art Org cafe in the Hopkinson Building on Station Street to plan a meetup at the Navigation pub. It wasn't much later that we had that first meetup, the show and tell when we met other founders of Nottingham Hackspace like Matt Lloyd and John Crouchley.
The picture above was taken at the Nottingham Hackspace 2.0 BIG OPEN DAY event on the 28th May 2011. It shows Me (front left) Matt Little (back left), David Hayward (very back right) and JP Hastings (front right). Matt, David and I are all now trustees of the Hackspace, JP next did become a member but remains a supporter of the space and a good friend.
It's been an amazing journey and it's getting better all the time. I've met so many great people and good friends through Hackspace and I hope it continues for a very long time. We've some super things coming up like the BIG OPEN DAY II which will be on the 5th May 2012 and the Derby Mini Maker Faire which is on Sunday 3rd June 2012 at the Old Silk Mill Museum.
Next week I hope to tell you a little more about Bristol Hackspace and also about my visit to Cardiff Hackspace planned for Tuesday 20th March.
On Sunday 11th March 2012 we had (what I think was) our 5th Hack-the-Space day at the Nottingham Hackspace. A Hack-the-Space day is a day dedicated to the larger project of making the Hackspace more awesome.
Nottinghack (as ever) is in need of a good tidy and sort out. After months of cold weather making the Hackspace occasionally less than pleasant to be in and after a few good large hauls of donations we have virtually no clear space left in the workshop.
The area between the metal working bench and the bike repair/storage area in particular needs attentions. Part of the problem is one that every Hackerspace probably faces. The sort of people who like Hackspaces are the self same sort of people who like to hoard stuff... I'm not sure if there is an anti-pattern here but I always think of it as "Don't Touch the Precious Things!" Basically it's a large amount of junk that is both at the same time completely useless and potentially useful. We try and address this problem at the Nottingham Hackspace by having several rules which include:
The 35L Rule which is probably the worst enforced rule we have. The rule basically says that every member should use one or more 35L jelly boxes to store their projects in and no more. However in reality lots of members have much larger projects and WIPs that need stashing about the space. I'm probably as guilty of that as anyone is!
Probably the better rule to help us is the No CRTs Thank You rule which pretty much says what it is in the name of the rule. At London Hackspace (I think) this has been stretched to include PC tower units and laptops. At Bristol Hackspace there is a shelf literally piled with about 60 laptops circa 1990 and of a type we recently threw 2 away of! Stuff that is just a little too good to throw away but that NO ONE WILL USE any more........ usually.... but that is the
problem. Sometimes WE DO use these obsolete items and where else would you expect to find them but in a Hackerspace?
Jake Howe spent a considerable amount of time and effort on the donations boxes, putting up signs as well as slips to be filled in when items are donated. As a Hackspace we've been fairly soft on the donations box. The idea is that items are put in it for a limited amount of time, and if members what the items they take them and use them. Anything that is in there for a month or more gets thrown away. The items is considered to have had a long enough amount of time to sit and wait to be appropriated. Items will then either be stripped for useful parts for the Hackspace parts bins or taken for appropriate disposal.
Filling the parts tubs and bins is an ongoing
ordeal and to help with this David Clarke has provided two milk cages so we can remove the plastic and metal for hacking from the large
shelving unit behind the electronics bench. As the milk cages have 3 shelves it should be easier to retrieve items, we also sorted through and took out anything that could go in a storage box of it's own.
I was pleased to be able to sort out the laser cutter area making it a lot clearer and further from the woodworking area. I've set up an area where the materials for sale are much easier to find and much more straightforward to see what the prices are too. The shelf consists of an area with a black bin for large off cuts of various materials at 50p each as well as a rack I hacked out of a VHS tape holder from Ikea which holds individually prices sheets of perspex, birch ply and MDF. The prices are written on the top left corner of each item! There are 2 black bins on the floor with scraps of material that you can use for small parts or cuts for free. Please do save any useless scraps of ply or MDF waste for me to put in the wood burner on my boat as kindling! You can put this in the small pink trug-tub that is under the desk.
These Hack-all-the-space days are always enjoyable though we may have made more mess than we cleared up! We did however make a start of organising and sorting. Over the next few weeks when possible we can try and finish the job.
In February I moved from Nottingham to Bristol. Though I will miss Nottingham Hackspace very much I am delighted that there is a Hackspace in Bristol. I visited them on Thursday 23rd February. They are located in Bedminster just close to the Asda and unwittingly I'd walked past their door about a year earlier without knowing it. It's just 15 minutes walk from my work and new home down by the harbour.
You can become a member from as little as £10 a month, though they say it's 24hr access you can not get keys without having to be approved by a particular member who *might* give you the keys *if* they feel it's right!?
The Hackspace itself is not large, but is well appointed and well equipped with an emphasis on electronics and test. There are a number of scopes, bench power supplies and the like. Additionally there is a band saw and a bench pillar drill. They have *A LOT* of junk taking up the shelving. Additionally they have a good amount of bench space and some table top space to work at a laptop or on a project.
The space is in a room shared with an artist and some architects who work there in the daytime. It has access to a kitchenette and a very remote toilet. There is WiFi for all (not just members) and they occasionally run workshops.
The natives seem friendly but isolated from the rest of the UK movement I think perhaps because they feel a closer kinship to the Dorkbot movement. They have recently re-elected their directors and this could be a time of great change and growth for Bristol Hackspace as myself and Barney (a director from Build Brighton) join the membership with perhaps a greater Hackerspace world view? Bristol is a vibrant city and I am looking forward to running some
workshops there.
On Wednesday 29th February I visited FizzPop for their show-and-tell which they have on the last Wednesday at the end of each month. I did a
talk on Nottingham Hackspace and how we got started and the Hackerspace movement in general. This started a debate about how to increase the membership of FizzPop which is the Birmingham Hackspace as well as how to go forward and get a space for themselves available 24 hours a day like that of Nottingham, London, Bristol and others.
In the last few weeks I've spoken to folk all over the country about Hackspaces and size. It's interesting to hear why some larger cities think they have smaller Hackspaces than other smaller cities. I've been amazed for instance by the amount of traffic and interest in the Reading Hackspace mailing list which has well over a 1000 posts and the list itself has more than 100 subscribers. It offers an interesting model in Hackerspace building and I will be watching them with interest!
Sometimes I get an idea in my head. They aren't generally very original. The important thing, the satisfying thing is making the idea real.
I'd been pondering doing another bit of decorating in the Hackspace after the satisfaction I got out of making 3 flying drills and I decided I might like to make something with telephones.
My inspiration was the decoration in one of the upstairs rooms at M5 Industries Inc that you can occasionally see on Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel. It's very hard to find a picture of it to show you.
When we had a recent donation of a load of stuff including a pile of telephones. So here is the result!
I took the phone apart including all the boards which are in two layers. I also dismantled the handset. I worked out where to run threaded rod to avoid parts that weren't suitable or too flimsy.
I then popped the whole thing on the Hackspace drill press and ran 8mm holes all the way through. I'm rather pleased with the result.
Editor ofWired Magazine, Chris Anderson tell us that “Atom are the new bits” in what he describes as “the next industrial revolution” (1). The last few decades has been a digital
revolution, the commodity is bits,
tiny pieces of information. Now in the new industrial revolution we are turning those bits, that information into a product, a thing we can touch. Atoms! But how?
Less than a decade ago digital fabrication was an impossible dream for the hobbyist. Only large companies, Universities and government research agencies had access to tools that could
interpret information from a data file and make that into a real touchable thing. Digital fabrication is likely to be as empowering to user as desktop publishing was in the 1990’s, desktop fabrication is set to revolutionise the way we think about what a computer can be used for.
All over the world places like theNottingham Hackspace are starting to provide anyone who wants it, access to these sorts of tools.
Computer Numeric
Control (CNC) Mill
If you can draw a graphical file on an ordinary desktop computer, the CNC machine and it’s software can interpret that file in the physical word, using a router or drill bit to create cuts and pockets on metal and wood. Shapes and holes are made in the material by very precisely controlling the position of the router head and the position of the workpiece in three dimensions, X, Y and Z or left to right, forward and back up and down. By controlling the Z access very thick materials can be cut layer by layer.
In early 2011 the Nottingham Hackspace invested in a project to develop a small CNC machine. A fabrication tool that was ch
eap and could be easily built by an a maker in their shed.My DIY
CNC started shipping their home invented and developed CNC machines in August 2011. The small machine is available at the Nottingham Hackspace along with 2 much larger milling machine capable of cutting tougher and larger workpieces.
Laser Engraver/Cutter
By positioning mirrors and lenses you can direct the beam of a
powerful laser. By mounting those lenses on a similar mechanism to the CNC machine you can control where that beam of laser goes very precisely. A laser beam from a 40w
laser is capable of vaporising plywood up to 6mm thick. As the laser can move very quickly and precisely and because the strength and speed can be controlled, very intricate designs can be cut in paper, card, felt and leather not to mention plywood, MDF and acrylic. We’ve even used the laser at Nottingham Hackspace to cut rice-paper for decorating a cake!
My favorite project on the laser
cutter has been the creation of a tactile birthday card for the wife of one of the members. As she is blind, the laser can make shapes and braille on plywood. The design was by Hackspace member Martin Raynesford
3D Printer
Perhaps the most futuristic and unimaginable new fabricating machine is the 3D printer. It works by using software to slice up a 3D graphic then heats ABS plastic, squirting it out and building the object layer by layer.
Matt Lloyds’ RepRap Mendle is the unofficial 3D printer of the Nottingham Hackspace. Most of the parts of this home built machine were printed on another RepRap machine or printed as replacements on this machine. When you start to talk about a
machine that can replicate itself you can see a whole load of geeks go weak at the knee and get misty eyed at the prospect. The Nottingham Hackspace is in the process of printing parts for a new 3D printer called a RepRap Prusa named for it’s inventor.
These tools are very empowering and easy to use. With practice and a little software knowledge the ability to prototype almost
anything is with in grasp of almost any boffin. Site like
THINGYVERSE.COM are a superb resource for the sharing of open source fabrication projects. Hackers love to share
their intellectual property and let their designs have a life beyond
that of their makers imagining.
It’s an exciting time. I can only image the tools that will be available in the next decade. Perhaps Star Trek like replicators are not so far in the distant future!
(1) Atoms are the new bits by Chris Anderson Wired Magazine UK March 2010
the author (2nd from left at back) with Tim Hunkin (3rd from right) and members of Nottingham Hackspace at Tim Hunkin's workshop Suffolk October 2011
Having heroes is healthy, heroes are to be emulated and not passively adored. We should choose to live our lives as we imagine our heroes would. I want to tell you a little about three heroes who have been a great inspiration to me in the last few years and I hope they will inspire you too.
Savage is best known as the co-host of Discoveries “Mythbusters” to which since 2003 he has brought a humour and vigour making it a highly entertaining show. For those who might dismiss the show as being a whoopy, dumbed down explosion-fest, I’d ask you to consider the techniques, thought, maths, rigour and time that goes into the builds for small scale testing. A particularly memorable maker moment for me is the episode called “Lead Balloon” which as you might image involves a balloon made out of lead.
Mythbusters is filmed at M5 Industries in San Francisco, California. M5, the workshop of co-host and special effects artist Jamie Hyneman, is a workshop kitted out with almost everything you could need to build almost anything at all and it’s not a great leap of the imagination to see that the Nottingham Hackspace has the same aspirations and asthetic.
Adam’s work on the show is well documented. His skills as a professional (and hobbyist) prop maker, sculptor and artist are not so well known. From the age of 15 he has spent many hours trying to recreate Deckard’s blaster the gun prop from the film “Blade Runner”. Which he documented in great detail on “The Replica Props Forum”. He built a full scale model of R2D2 as well as sculpting a replica of “The Maltese Falcon” which formed the basis of his excellent talk on obsession that can be seen on Fora.tv. Adam makes the very valid point that making something isn’t really about finishing it, it’s about the act of making it.
Adam has written for Make Magazine on several occasions and has recently started to perform stand-up as well as fronting a stage show with Wil Wheaton (yes from Star Trek) called w00tstock. I have heard that Adam intends to do more public speaking and teaching, specifically sculpture at a local college in California. He would of course always be welcome to speak at Hackspace.
MIT graduate and New Yorker Fried is an engineer and business women who should be emulated. Self styled as Lady Ada after the first programmer Lady Ada Lovelace, Limor runs a successful web based educational electronics company from a low rent office in an empty block in New York’s financial district (they were going cheap after the credit crunch).
Fried’s company Ada Fruit Industries sells their kits online (http://www.adafruit.com/) but also shares all the information you’d need to copy and make that kit for yourself. Just like Open-Source Software, Ada Fruit are pioneering Open Source Hardware. By sharing her electronics work on a Creative Commons Licence she no longer cares that her work might be ripped off by a corporate giants. This strategy has benefited Ada Fruit Industries who provide an excellent service. Limor was named “Most Influential Woman in Technology” this year as well as being featured on the cover of Wired Magazine in the USA
You have probably seen some of Tim Hunkin’s work, his career has been prolific and has included architectural sized bonfires, a variety of mechanical clocks including the water clock on the Holland & Barrett shop in Covent Garden, mechanical collecting boxes, interactive museum exhibits and cartoons (until 1987 he drew “The Rudiments of Wisdom” in The Observer.) He’s responsible for the flying pigs and sheep used by Pink Flloyd on tour, which was parodied in The Simpsons as well as for his arcade machines at Southwold pier in Suffolk.
We’ve been lucky to host a talk by Tim at the Nottingham Hackspace in August 2011. Tim spoke enthusiastically and animatedly about the “Under the Pier Show” a rather Pythonesk collection of arcade machines and simulators Tim has adapted in cunning and amusing ways. Hackers were lucky enough to be included on a trip there run by “Engagement Party” a Nottingham based artist’s group I would encourage anyone to visit the pier it’s well worth the journey and Southwold is a lovely town (with a brewery tour too!)
Tim’s approach to making is very pragmatic, when discussing welding I said I’d not tried it yet, as I’d not been trained, Tim laughed “it’s like a glue gun for metal”. On a trip to his workshop he simply handed me a plasma cutter nozzle (a high voltage metal cutting tool) and encouraged me to get on with it, no health and safety briefing or risk assessment needed!
I think in common with all prolific and successful makers, Tim isn’t afraid of failure. After-all if you aren’t making mistakes, you aren’t making anything. He has a wicked sense of humour and I think he finds messing things up a great joke. In his workshop there were about 8 small angle grinders, when asked why he had so many he explained “you can’t have to many, they are so useful to cut apart messed up welding!” He also has a great optimism in reflection of the great projects he has worked on, even when eventual and inevitably they fold and reach their end.
Hunkin is best known for his television work from the late 80s “The Secret Life of Machines” which you are encouraged to download or watch on You Tube. The secret life is the best primer I know into learning how to understanding the way things work short of taking them apart yourself (do that too!).
When you have somewhere like Nottingham Hackspace with it's tools and TARDIS like workshop and you see something like a 1960's ESSO diesel pump about to be thrown into a skip as scrap it's nearly impossible not to entertain the idea of acquiring it.
This pump made by the Wayne company had been ripped from it's fixings and was still leaking a slippery mix of diesel and rainwater when I arranged to move it to the Hackspace.
Friends Martin and David helped move the pump on a hand cart from a former lock gate works on the River Trent the half mile or so to Hackspace HQ in Sneinton.
Unfortunately the back panel had been smashed off and lost and the front panel was bent and detached. In an aborted attempt to remove all the innards to clear space inside I removed a huge electric motor.
I can confirm that every nut and bolt inside the pump appears to be it's own bastard size and in spite of Hackspace's extensive collection of spanners, sockets both metric and imperial, removing the innards would allow the placement of a beer barrel or shelves or something... truth is that in Hackspace everyone wants to know what you are going to do with anything that looks remotely interesting. This is usually follow by the
words "You should...(then insert any number of ideas here)" spouting RULE 3 always seems somewhat futile in these cases. If you've gone to the amount of effort to bring a heavy, diesel shedding, lump of pump into the space you must be planning something! Right?
Somehow and I don't know how this has happened, I seem to be the Hacker who makes lamps. I've now made four since I started going to the Hackspace, two for our station street neighbour Venus Pole Dancing Academy, one out of a street bollard in the comfy area at Hackspace.
Because the pump already had lamps inside it, it seemed the obvious thing to do. All of the internal electronics is shielded inside copper pipes packed with Magnesium Oxide. Having ripped out the junction box from the unit already and struggling to pop open any of the compression fittings, I decided to rewire the insides choosing to earth the body of the pump at the same time. At least if anyone asked what I was going to do with it I could say "Make it into a lamp."
In truth the next step is to continue to work on removing the guts of the pumping mechanism I've played with the idea of putting a TFT monitor inside the front of it and having it as a sort of digital photo frame. A very ambitious project that has been suggested is to put a barrel in it and run a bear pump through the original hose. What I imagine will happen is that I will leave it just as it is for at least the next few months.
Besides I now have my eyes on something else I want to bring back to the space...
