If you’re looking for a hackerspace while on your travels, there is more than one website which shows them on a map, and even tells you whether or not they are open. This last feature is powered by SpaceAPI, a standard way for hackerspaces to publish information about themselves, including whether or not they are closed.
Given such a trove of data then it’s hardly surprising that [S3lph] would use it to create a gigantic map of central Europe with lights in the appropriate places (German language, Google Translate link) to show the spaces and their status.
The lights are a set of addressable LEDs and the brain is an ESP32, making this an accessible project for most hackers with the time to assemble it. Unsurprisingly then it’s not the first such map we’ve seen, though it’s considerably more ambitious than the last one. Meanwhile if your hackerspace doesn’t have SpaceAPI yet or you’re simply curious about the whole thing, we took a look at it back in 2021.
Thanks [Dave] for the tip.
Nice project. I just wish it contained at least Poland (which often is considered Eastern Europe):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Europe
Yeah, calling it “international” seems a bit misleading….
It’s more than one country. But yes, a pan-european one of these would be really cool.
Poland.. That’s German (land), under Polish administration. No offense, it’s just an old gag. ;)
Seriously, though. Many of us born in cold war times still think of Western Europe
in a political sense when we think of countries like England, Italy, Belgium, France, Holland, Luxembourg, or Germany (W-Germany).
That’s why “Central Europe” seems like an odd description to some of us, because we consider being part of “Western Europe” (political) rather.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_European_Union
That’s nicely done. I just wish the local makerspace wasn’t so crazy expensive. 400 euro’s a year is a bit much. I get that they got expenses, but still.
That would be AWESOME!
Our local maker space is more like €2,600 a year.
https://www.artisansasylum.com/individual-memberships
Wut? Das-Labor is 120€ a year or 60€ a year if you are financially troubled. o.o
https://wiki.das-labor.org/w/Mitglied_werden
“Unser empfohlener monatlicher Mitgliedsbeitrag liegt bei 10€, kann aber je nach individueller finanzieller Lage ab einer Höhe von 5€ frei gewählt werden. “
Good Lord they’d better have a full machine shop and not just a couple 3d printers
The website claims 52,000 sq ft – in Boston. The membership price is expensive, but again, so is Boston. Looking at their floorplans, they seem to have two different buildings, a “clean” building where the heaviest industry is probably in the jewelry fab, and a “dirty” building with separate machine, metal, and wood shops.
I dare say that they probably cater more to the “take a business idea to the prototype stage” branch of makerspacing. They have lots of office spaces that are almost certainly running a waiting list. Tx/Rx Labs in Houston ended up following that path, and they’re also huge and fully kitted out (with for-profit full memberships at $250, with deep discounts for additonal persons under the same membership.) This is actually more expensive than AA upthread by $10/month for a single person.
Incubator Spaces are pricey, but nice. (By comparison, the largest actual makerspace in the extended Houston surrounds is much cheaper at $40/month for a basic membership.)
Yeah but it looks a lot different. This one is more like a table and a fridge
My local hackerspace has possibilities for low/no budget members. Their thinking is that a low paying members is more worth than no member.
The only one near me is $400/month!
About 35 euros a month? That’s not too bad for a hackerspace, and yes, it’s about what it costs to rent and run a space with several tens of members. I consider mine worth it if I’m there at least once a week, and many weeks I’m there more than that.
https://www.maker-works.com/ (Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA) is $110/mo. That stings a bit, but it’s one fantastic space; wood, metal, textiles, electronics and more. Extremely well run. Highly recommended. (Though anybody who might be able to use it probably already knows about it)
33 euro a month? That’s less than I spend on coffee.
Then you have a serious coffee problem. Based on current prices and using 10gr a cup, you are drinking 30 cups a day, every day. That’s not healthy