Southwest Tour: Heatsync Labs In Mesa Arizona

With temperatures rising to around 117degrees, we arrived in Mesa Arizona to visit Heatsync Labs as part of our Southwest Tour.  We have actually seen a tour of Heatsync in the past, and you should probably refer back to it for the quick run-through of the facility. When I was there, there was simply so much to see and talk about that the video ended up running over 10 minutes and I feel we barely scratched the surface of what was going on.

Check out the video above to see a few things, like the giant laser cutter, the electron microscope, some mold making, the beat lab (called “Beatsync”, and the 3d printing. We briefly walk through the facility, but mainly I spent time letting people tell me about what they were making.

I have to give them credit, the entire trip my sons were disappointed that they couldn’t find their names on the tourist attraction keychains available all over. The folks at Heatsync remedied that by cutting some custom keychains with their names on them.

11 thoughts on “Southwest Tour: Heatsync Labs In Mesa Arizona

      1. Pleased to have Caleb to visit might be the better term, but Heatsync members can’t deny they where happily anticipating the visit, given the Hackaday logo work ready to show off. Anyway a nice looking space, where cute women strike somewhat sexy poses with their projects.

    1. I don’t know, but it looks like a lock pick training station of some kind. I would guess that the numbered locks have that number of pins inside. This way you can start with an easy lock and get progressively more difficult. Just my guess.

      1. Ok… Learning or testing lockpicking skills was my first thought but it didn’t seem to sync with any other photos or anything else in the video.

        So it seems one would have to actually be in Mesa to see Austin Appel’s 101 and 201 sessions. Any chance videos will be made? I’m curious if what he does and which locks he works with is any different from what I already know from several years back.

  1. When I first noted it, I refrained from mentioning, but now I’m seeing more and more of them I have to comment on them. Stairs and/or steps, that exclude a portion of the population from participation. A population that has an aging segment that may have to give up their home shops. Shops,other basement shops, that largely are single level shops.
    Disclaimer; While I’m now generally ambulatory, there was a short period where I was sitting in a wheelchair that I couldn’t operate well, wondering how F’d up my life is going to be.

    1. n0lkk I can empathize. It is a very inaccessible staircase. However better than 90% of all the activities at HeatSync are on the ground floor and easily accessible. As I am sure it is for many hackerspaces space is at a premium.

      While it might not be obvious from the video. HeatSync labs is in the heart of Downtown Mesa, and the space itself is a former retail store, long and narrow and the small upstairs is the former storage and office area. While that small part of it is inaccessible, certainly for the less ambulatory, the area and space itself is very accessible. Within the next couple of years a light rail line will stop literally right outside the front door. This will make the 90% of the space that is accessible even more accessible.

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