Here’s a piece talking about both the importance and practice of building community at a hackerspace or makerspace. From MAKE:
Occasionally, I’ll visit a frustrated makerspace. “We have a space. We have tools. Where are the members?” They describe how they’ve put energy into the physical aspects of the space and say nothing about the community building aspects. To this I typically reply that a makerspace without a community is a soulless place. Without a soul there’s little passion and therefore little stickiness for prospective members. It’s not easy to create community but it’s an important theme to develop. One way to do this is to tap into existing community. Below are some techniques we’ve used at Nova Labs.
Most cities have interest groups of many types. As a simple test, go to Meetup.com and do a search for what exists in your community. You may find several groups with maker instincts: woodworking, robotics, PHP coding, etc. On Meetup.com alone, the variety in major metropolitan areas is staggering. Identify a few and get to know them. By doing only this, you can discover mutually beneficial opportunity to nurture community.
Our makerspace was actually founded with one such group at its core: Northern Virginia RepRap Group. NovaRRG is a hub of 3D printing enthusiasts and experts who meet regularly and build Prusa 3D printers. As time has gone by, we’ve reached out to the DC/MD/VA Robotics and Automation Group because our robotics enthusiasts were champing at the bit to do things. It turned out the group needed a space to meet regularly so we offered our conference room and several collaborations have resulted. We also connected with the DC Area Drone User Group because, heck, we wanted to fly drones! Leveraging Nova Labs’ space, resources, and 3D printer group build expertise we collaborated on a kit build with great success. In each case, we’ve been careful to work together for mutual benefit so both communities continue to want to work together.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
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