Welcome to Stratum 0 in Braunschweig, Germany!

We had a bit of trouble finding this place — it’s around the side of a fairly large building that was once a piano factory. The main door was ajar, and it was pitch black inside. Do we enter? Do we call? We walked in a bit, and were met with more darkness. A bit too spooky for our tastes. Our wits got the better of us and we decided to call and make sure we had the right place and not the lair of some homicidal maniac… It turns out if you just ring the doorbell the lights come on. Whoops.

Up to the top floor we go!

The small display shows the status of the space — although you could just knock! We’re not too sure if the My Little Pony is a joke…

Here you can see a lovely array of wires controlling various things. You can spot the edge of an old Nokia phone on the right side of the door. It was originally used to unlock the door by vibrating and hitting a button! They’ve since upgraded the system though…

This space is equipped with a full kitchen, and Club-Mate — Obviously!

It also has a full bathroom with shower!

This wooden shelf serves as their temporary appliance repository — I don’t think we can call it a server rack just yet. They’re moving soon though so forgive the mess!

The first room is the main lounge with several couches, a nice projector and is a general hang out area.

The next room is where the magic happens. 3D printers, boxes of components, and soldering irons galore!

They admit the space is a bit too computer based, and are planning a much larger “dirty” workshop for bigger tools for hardware projects when they move.

More Ponies!

This switch powers the entire room. DO NOT TURN IT OFF IF THE 3D PRINTER IS PRINTING!

Otherwise you’ll end up with this. Half a Yoda head. Not to worry though, they quickly rectified the problem with the other half of an Android head.

These are super handy — 3D printed bottle labels. Snap them to the neck of your drink of choice and always know where it is!

It’s a bit hard to see here, but that is an LED score board from one of the local schools — they haven’t gotten it working just quite yet, but it’ll be pretty awesome when it’s done!

A close up of one of the juicey-LED-ridden-panels.

As it turns out, there’s another space twice as large available for rent just downstairs. It’s unfinished and the landlord is willing to give it to them for the same rent — awesome! These are the blueprints they are working on — when it’s done the space will be 160 square meters, including a nice workshop area for laser cutters, power tools, and other fun stuff that just doesn’t fit in the current space.

We really enjoyed our visit to Stratum0 — great people and a great outlook for the future. We can’t wait to see their new space! Thanks for the tour guys!