The Next Industrial Revolution will be FAB!

Editor of Wired 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 the Nottingham 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

Three creative, inspirational makers you should know about!

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.

Adam Savage

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.

Limor Fried

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

Tim Hunkin

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!).

Rescuing a 1960s ESSO Pump

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...

Hackerspaces in the Midlands!

Spring is clearly in the air with a lot of activity in the Midland's Hackerspace scene.

Nottingham just become the largest UK Hackerspace at 4300 sq Ft (in terms of floor space - 4300 sq Ft) celebrated at the very successful open day on Sunday 29th May. There were at least 100 visitors with Hackers from Birmingham, Leeds and London as well as friends from all over the region. We were pleased to see so many new faces who are interested in becoming members of the space. It look like we may have at least 8 new members joining up soon!

We are, almost certainly, having another Open Day later in the year. There are lots of events planned too for the coming months including Solder On, BarCamp Nottingham, Beading Workshop, Sew-Much-Fun, Sunrise Pinhole Camera and more check the calendar!

I've been following the Potteries Hackspace Google Group for a while and saw an article about a physical space they are taking in Tunstall to the North of Stoke-On-Trent. They are going to share some room with the The Ethical Computer Trust who recycle old computers. I'm sure we'll take the opportunity to pop over and visit them when they get things up and running.

FizzPop also known as Birmingham Hackspace looks to have reawakened too with several meetups happing in the last few days and talk of a proposed Hackerspace in the centre of Birmingham. I can't wait to be able to visit them as a Birmingham based Hackerspace is something I consider to be long overdue.

Thanks to Amr Behkit and the Leeds Hackspace for the photograph.

T-Shirt Printing on the Cheap!

So I've been experimenting with GIMP on my Ubuntu laptop as I no longer have access to any Photoshop software. I'm getting used to it and have made the following t-shirt designs that I intend to print and sell at the Hackspace (should anyone wish to buy them).

One is based on a t-shirt I see Adam Savage wearing on Mythbusters that reads

"Hacking is not a crime"

which seems appropriate for Hackspace. I've

shoved a load of noun-project symbols above the text. I like the symbols but the t-shirt would work just as well with fewer or non-at-all.

The noun project is an intere

sting web page that got it's funding on Kick Starter. I'll do this t-shirt in any colour btw.

The other t-shirt is a little more simple and is based on our Hackspace rule zero (robbed off London Hackspace)

DO NOT BE ON FIRE

Man on fire is a running man symbol from noun project with a fire design of my own. again will be avilable in any colours wanted.

There will be a how to screen print t-shirts on the cheap workshop at Nottingham Hackspace this summer!

Move Day Hackspace 2.0

When I arrived at the Hackspace my fellow Hackers were already feeding their faces with bacon cobs and coke. We'd agreed to a gathering at the Hackspace at 10:00.

So many little bits of junk had to be tidied up, boxed and carried out to cars for transport onto the new Hackspace. We were fortunate to have a glorious sunny day.

As the van was not due until 12:00 we got loading smaller estate cars for several journey with small items. Tony S to command the away team at Hackspace 2.0 and coordinated the unloading.

We had bad news about 11:30. The van couldn't be started. No one knew what to do. We started making contingencies. James however dipped into his "little black book" and called up a friend who'd house mate has a big van. Apparently they could decide what to do with their holiday weekend...

The van came not a moment too soon. We'd managed to get all the smaller stuff off in the estate cars (thanks John & Russell) poor old Michael looked truly gutted about the other van we couldn't start, but James' friends Katey and Matt seemed more than happy to help us with their Transit High-Cube.

Once we'd finished moving things into the space we had to start the Mammoth task of sorting through all that stuff and thinking where to put things.

Many arguments were caused by me and my OCD and bossy ways. We finally got some concensus about where to put different things (well at least for now)!

Jason and I spent an hour or two building big racking. David learned to do a bit more Unicycling (as well as doing a whole lot more organising and shifting stuff).

Matt and James made a start on surveying the lighting. All in all it was a very busy day.

Can't wait for Wednesday night open hack!

So What IS a Hackspace?

More often these days I have to try and explain to interested and official people what a Hackspace is...

Our new landlords agent described a Hackspace back to me as "An allotment with power tools" not a bad try, in many ways a Hackspace is like an allotment but instead of flowers and veg we make physical or data based things grow...

Here is a very good piece from motherboard.tv about NYC Resistor in New York

Hackspace 2.0

Why is Nottingham Hackspace moving?

The news in late March that the Nottingham Hackspace was to be evicted to make way for development of the Old Police Station didn't come as a total surprise. Nottinghack's Station Street locational had always been a massive bonus.

That the Hackspace was just a NERF dart shot from the station was no idle boast (though I never got around to trying it out). There is a lot of money being spent on the area around Nottingham Station (branded as The Hub). In the next few years the NET Tram phase 2 to Beeston and Clifton will place Station Street at the heart of what I hope will be one of the best public transport systems in any provincial city in Europe.

Originally we'd looked at and discussed with The Art Organisation a move into their Hopkinson Gallery. The basement level was kindly offered to the Nottingham Hackspace. Initially we were interested but after reflection rejected the basement as too dark and damp and no doubt cold in winter. We'd have spent all the money we had just to get the place suitable. The lack of natural light as well as uncertainty about access, sharing and availability of ablutions made the decision to look elsewhere fairly easy.

On Wednesday 13th April Matt Little and I visited BizSpace at Roden House in Sneinton just 0.8 miles from our current Hackspace. On viewing a large former woodwork shop on the 1st floor at BizSpace it immediately became apparent that we'd found a potential new home for Nottinghack. The space is 4000sq ft which is huge. Matt and I decided that there must be some way to bridge the gap between the groups finances and it's ambitions.

It's surely a truism that Geeks are by nature a cautious bunch, though able an analysis a situation fairly and with a measured unemotional approach. I must admit that any other space within our price range would have been under-ambitious and left us stuck in a comfort zone whereby we didn't have the money to expand into a space we need, but we didn't have the space needed to get the money to expand.

I arranged a viewing of a much smaller room at BizSpace for the other members of the Board of Trustees. I couldn't resist the urge to have another look at the 4000sq ft space too. Seeing the reaction of the others to the large space, I knew we were going to have to find a way to raise £2k in 2 weeks....

I'll tell you the rest of the story once we've moved in!