hackerspace

132 Articles

The Nottingham Hackspace

February 17, 2013 by 28 Comments

nottinghack

Hackerspaces (or hackspace in this case) come in all shapes and sizes, from those just starting up, to some that are very impressively equipped. [Dominic] wrote in to tell us about the Nottingham Hackspace, which would fall solidly into the second category. We’d invite you to take a look at their intro video after the break, but be prepared to wish you lived near their location.

If you do happen to live there, in addition to a nicely polished website and intro video, they have nearly 4500 square feet of space at their facility. Naturally they have the now ubiquitous 3D printers, but they also have an impressive array of more traditional as well as computer-controlled tools. These include a lathe, welders, CNC router, laser cutter, and even basic PCB-making facilities. Storage space is also included, both for member projects and bicycles.

So be sure to check them out. They have around 130 members right now, but naturally would love to see you there! Continue reading “The Nottingham Hackspace” →

Hackaday-proofing Your Hackerspace’s Server

October 6, 2012 by 24 Comments

Last month we posted a tutorial from Hub City Labs on making your own PCBs at home. At the time, Hub City was hosting their hackerspace web site on a tiny vps graciously provided by a member. As you might expect, the throngs of Hackaday readers turned Hub City Labs’ server into a pile of molten slag and made their admin’s hair a little more gray. Their web site is up again, and Hub City provided a tutorial on protecting your server from the ravages of being Slashdotted, Farked, Reddited, and even Hackaday’d.

The solution for the first few hours was to transfer Hub City Labs’ site to an Amazon EC2 instance. Since then, they’ve moved over to a Debian EC2 instance that is able to handle half a million pageviews an hour for a WordPress site.

This amazing capability required a good bit of optimizations. A WordPress installation is set to run cron tasks on every page load; not good if you’re going to see thousands of hits every minute. The guys added define(‘DISABLE_WP_CRON’, true) to their wp-config.php file and set all the background tasks – checking to see if a page should be updated – to a fixed schedule every minute or so. Along with an increase in the WordPress cache, these optimizations increased the number of pageviews an hour from 1500 to 60000.

To get up to half a million pageviews an hour, the EC2 instance was loaded up with Varnish, a front-end cache that really speeds things up.

The result – 375 million pageviews for $15 a month – is more than Hub City Labs will probably ever need. The nature of hackerspace web sites, though – light load until Hackaday, Slashdot, or Reddit figure out you did something cool – means hosting on an expandable EC2 instance is probably the way to go.

Monetizing A Hackerspace With A 3D Printer Store

September 21, 2012 by 30 Comments

Starting a hackerspace is easy, but maintaining it is a pain in the rear. Not only do you need to pay the gas, water, and electric bills, but you’ll also need to have enough members to keep the whole operation afloat. Deezmaker might have a solution to this problem: have a hackerspace double up as a 3D printing store.

Deezmaker is the creator of the Bukobot 3D printer seen at Maker Faire San Francisco and successfully funded on Kickstarter. The new store/hackerspace will sell Bukobot 3D printers (as well as other brands if another company wishes), filaments, Kapton tape, electronic parts, and other random electronic paraphernalia to people on the street.

Alongside the 3D printer store, Deezmaker will also be running a hackerspace for anyone who needs something printed, a work table, or even just the use of a few tools. The grand opening will be this Sunday, Sept 23, in Pasadena, CA.

We’re really liking the idea of a store/hackerspace, if only because Deezmaker’s store will provide a wonderful case study for anyone with a similar business plan. It would be very nice to have a an independent hackerstore in every city, selling everything from 3D printers to batteries and LEDs. Yes, it’s sounds like a throwback to the RadioShack of the 70s, but that doesn’t mean the idea couldn’t succeed today.

Hackerspace Grand Opening Tonight In Portsmouth NH

August 24, 2012 by 18 Comments

The Port City hackerspace will be opening its doors tonight at 7pm for their grand opening party.  Judging from the pictures on their site, they’ve actually had the space long enough to get the tools set up and even do a few projects. This should be a good way to jump start the membership though.  Like most hackerspaces should, they are offering classes to people to educate them on the use of the tools and proper safety.

They have the usual full shop, but they also have a designated bike shop, where they will have several custom bikes on display. If you’re in the area, you should be sure to swing by and check it out. You are assured to at least get some delicious bar-b-que out of the deal.

Southwest Tour: Quelab In Albuquerque New Mexico

August 7, 2012 by 11 Comments

Our travels brought us to Quelab in Albuquerque New Mexico for the 2nd stop on our southwest tour. [Adric] agreed to give us a tour of this really cool space and a few other folks were there working on various projects. There were several things I really enjoyed that will hopefully be gracing our pages soon with full writeups.

The Quelab hackerspace has a small machine shop area as well as a few collaborative spaces. They occasionally hold events where you can come and learn different skills as well. While I was there, I saw some cool high altitude balloon projects, a teletype playing Zork, and a 3d printer spitting out some custom Quelab tokens.

The group seemed to be very a really cool bunch. Everyone was enthusiastic about their projects and their space. They even tried to feed us (but the timing just wasn’t right). If you ever make it by, be sure to go play with the phosphorescent wall in their bathroom. Easily one of my favorite simple projects.

Southwest Tour: OhmSpace In Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

August 6, 2012 by 12 Comments

OhmSpace in Oklahoma City is the very first stop on our southwest tour.

When we arrived it was around 2 in the afternoon and the temperature outside was nearly 110 degrees. It was HOT. [Stan] met up with us to give us a tour of the space.  As you can see, the facility is huge. While at first glance it may appear somewhat disheveled, there is order to the madness. There is a nice community work area set up in the middle as well as several different stations throughout. Since the facility is almost just one giant room, storage is out in the open giving the illusion of a mess. We were there in the early afternoon, so there wasn’t anyone around working on anything, but you can see projects in various states of progress throughout the tour.

Continue reading “Southwest Tour: OhmSpace In Oklahoma City, Oklahoma” →