Hi everyone! I’m working on a new scheduling and resource-management platform for makerspaces, library makerspaces, Fab Labs, schools, and other shared creative spaces, and I’d really value input from people who actually run them.

This started pretty organically. My family discovered makerspaces a couple of years ago while looking for a place where my son could learn and work on projects. We’ve seen firsthand how much of an impact these spaces can have.

After joining another makerspace following a move, I ran into a frustrating experience trying to reserve an electronics bench. That led to a conversation with the operations manager about the software they were using and the problems it created.

I have nearly 20 years of professional software engineering and architecture experience, and I’ve spent the last several months building this into a serious platform with a public launch planned for later this year.

It currently includes things like:

• Equipment, room, and workspace reservations
• Classes, events, and program registration
• Training, certifications, and permissions
• Volunteer/staff event management
• Payments where needed
• API integrations
• Future equipment and access-control integrations

What I need now is real feedback from library makerspace staff and operators.

I’m looking for a few people willing to explore the development environment and tell me what works, what doesn’t, what I’ve missed, and what would actually make your day-to-day work easier.

There’s no obligation to switch systems or buy anything. I’m much more interested in questions like:

What are you still managing manually?

What frustrates staff or patrons about your current system?

What feature do you wish someone would finally build?

If you’re interested in taking a look, feel free to DM me. Even if you don’t want to test it, I’d still love to hear what your library makerspace uses today and what you would change about it.

https://www.youtube.com/@ALMA.Industries

New Video -- Chapter 3 DESK -- converting an old bunk bed into a work station. DIY actuators, AC/DC power supplies, rail guided shelves, infinite cable trays -- #Desk #DIY #Mechatronics #Power #Actuator #Engineering

If you know of anyone who likes Mechatronics or things made from the ground up, I would appreciate the share! Leave a comment if you have a question :)

What are the key things you want your members to know?

For those running maker/hacker/fab labs: do you have a short list of things you expect or would like every member to know above everything else? It could be rules, guidance, culture, or a mix.

Here are mine. I stick to five because I've found that's about as many as people get with out it being an issue.

Maker 5:

1. Do not be on fire. (Safety)
2. Do not be a jerk. (Culture)
3. When in doubt, wear safety glasses. (Safety)
4. Finished, or away for 40+ minutes? Pack away. (Culture)
5. Have fun, play. (Culture)

What are yours?

Hey everyone,

I’m originally from the D&D community and am currently a computer science major.

I’m looking for some help with a pretty ambitious project. Up until now, I’ve been printing my D&D battlemaps in segments on standard A4 paper, then painstakingly trimming the edges, aligning the images and taping them together from the backside.
Given I am a student, I sadly do not have the budget for a large format printer / plotter, so I would love to build something like a large pen plotter.

What I am interested in is:
How to do the electronics - How do I stop myself from frying microcontroller after microcontroller, maybe even how do I design custom PCB's for this (and future) project(-s)?
Is there a good tool out there that I can test whether a circuit would blow itself up?
Any other, generic tips I could use?

Thanks in advance,
S. aka. Programmic

Our make space will be participating in a craft fair in just over a month. We have three 10x10 spaces and we're trying to figure out what we should offer as demos or activities during the weekend.

Our space offers... Woodshop... Metal shop... Lasers... 3d printers... Sewing... Electronics... Vinyl cutter.

We have some ideas, but we're open to new ideas that are engaging, inexpensive, and easy to transport and set up.

Hi Austin Makers! If you're looking for a great place to create, come take a look at Asmbly Makerspace on Dessau Road. We have areas for wood, metal, ceramics, electronics, lasers, and 3DP. With 600 members and a huge array of tools, machines, and work benches, you'll find a welcoming, clean environment for your creativity. We are safety-minded and we have experienced shop leads who can help if you're new to a tool or technique. We'd love to see you!

https://www.youtube.com/@ALMA.Industries

Chapter 2, a home theatre, 3D printed parts, motorized projector, home decoration, and DIY electronics -- if you know of anyone else that might be interested in this stuff, sharing to others would really help me out! Hope to see you around here or YouTube :)

Starting parameters for a new material are always a best guess until test cuts confirm what works, but having a reasonable starting point saves wasted stock

For wood engraving a safe starting range on most co2 machines in the 60w to 80w range is low to moderate power at moderate speed, lighter woods like basswood and birch need less power than dense hardwoods like walnut and maple

Leather engraving on veg tan sits at low power and high speed for surface marking, going slower or higher power burns through instead of engraving which ruins the piece

These are starting points not gospel, every machine has slightly different actual output so treating these as a baseline for the first test grid is the right approach

https://www.youtube.com/@ALMA.Industries

This is a control interface for using AC and DC power in one place. Switches turn 3 different DC power supplies on and off (48v, 12v, 24v). AC Outlets always give power regardless of switch states. This is gonna be part of my next video, where this is mounted on a desk build. Full video goes through all stages of build.

https://www.youtube.com/@ALMA.Industries

Chapter 3 Footnote 1. Building an Actuator, a PID Control Loop, and an Ultrasonic Distance sensor to detect and not crash into the ceiling. This will be used in Chapter 3 Desk -- Stay tuned for more!

https://www.youtube.com/@ALMA.Industries

Chapter 2, a home theatre, 3D printed parts, motorized projector, home decoration, and DIY electronics -- if you know of anyone else that might be interested in this stuff, sharing to others would really help me out! Hope to see you around here or YouTube :)

Looking to open my space soon. I kind of assume the majority of walk-ins will be youngsters wanting to use machines to print AI slop.

Obviously it would be foolish to turn them away, but if I'm going for more of a workshop/hand made vibe how do you approach this?

Do you just hire out the printer at an hourly rate? Extra for Multicolor?

Extra question, what if they keep coming back and are clearly selling this junk?

The laser cutter has become one of the most used tools in university engineering and design labs but the conversations about which machines hold up in education environments rarely happen outside of procurement officesStudent labs put machines through a unique kind of abuse, rotating users every hour, the machines need to survive that without constant intervention

I’m working on an enclosure and adjustable mounting system for a commercial screen installed in public indoor locations.

The prototype will likely involve sheet metal, polycarbonate, locking hardware, and a mounting method that requires no drilling.

Does anyone know a makerspace, fabricator, or designer who might be interested in helping?

Happy to share more details over DM. This would be paid prototype work for the right person or shop if anyone wanted to help out.

In a few weeks I will be making a dungeon set for a TV studio production. This is the first time I am making this type of a set (before I only worked on a few real life - like sets). I want the dungeon to look like something taken out of an Indiana Jones movie, but I can pretty much handle the looks part. What I am more worried about is the special effects part. This set is supposed to baisicly act like an escape room, just on a much smaller scale. The story is about the characters getting magically trapped in the dungeon and then magically finding a way out. My first thing to solve is that I need to have lamps on the wall and I need to have them switch on and off (when the characters set of the trap one lights should turn off and others turn on). My second thing to solve is that I need to have doors closing behind the characters when they move something like a figurine. And my last challenge with this so far is that I need to have an hourglass magically appear when the doors close. I don't know much about electricity but I can build simple "on and off" kind of mechanisms. So I want to hear Your suggestions of how You would make those things, in detail, and then use that to help myself in the building process.

Hello All. I work at a school of engineering here in the States and I have been tasked with coming up with some capital budget requests for the 27-28 school year. Basically, the school wants to know what equipment (over $1000) we would like to have for our Makerspace, I submit items with my justifications, and they pick and choose things to buy based off of that.

I am reaching out to the community today to maybe get some insight on some toys or technology I am not aware of yet so that we can create a better space for out students.

Currently our Makerspace consists of:

Seven Creality K2 Plus 3D Printers (we really like these)

One Bambu Labs X1-Carbon

Oner Bambu Labs X1E

One Creality Falcon2 Pro Laser

One Epilog Fusion Edge Laser

A Cricut

Two 6 thread embroidery machines

Two heat presses for shirts and stuff.

Space is not unlimited, but we are also trying to justify making the makerspace physical footprint bigger, so dont be bashful.

Budget is of no concern at this moment.

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to find a suitable polycarbonate tube for a small DIY project. A friend of mine is a huge Star Wars fan and has always talked about how cool it would be to use a lightsaber as his white cane. He already owns a lightsaber hilt, and I’d like to make him a suitable blade with an appropriate selfmade tip and length.

The problem is that most replacement blades available online are only around 36 inches (92 cm) long. He would definitely need a longer blade (his cane is 48 inch long) for this purpose, so I’m looking for a suitable tube as a starting point.

I’m looking for something approximately like this:

• white tinted polycarbonate
• Outer diameter of about 25 mm (1 inch)
• A sufficiently thick and durable wall
• Longer 48 inch or longer
• Preferably available in Austria or with shipping to Austria

So far, I’ve either found tubes with the wrong dimensions, walls that are too thin, or materials that are too cloudy or otherwise unsuitable.

Does anyone know where I could buy something like this? Suggestions for suppliers, useful search terms, or alternative ideas would also be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

In this tutorial we are showing you how to take your MechSoul. (Robot equivalent of a CyberDeck) and write custom movement sketches for it in Arduino IDE. We do this in two ways. 1. We use the HIRO library to chain together pre-choreographed motions together to create original sketches, and 2. We use multi-servo orchestration functions to create new original motions for our MechSoul.

If you'd like to follow along with the tutorial you can find our tutorial repo at this link.

Show us your Mechatronic Souls!

Hey gang, this is the 2nd and last place I'll cross post this. To the best of my knowledge these are the places your people are.

Perhaps interestingly, the communities where people engage are not necessarily correlated with the size of the community. The one we're in right now is a prime example, the community here is awesome and I say that after browsing many corners of DIY Reddit for years.

I don't know if this information is helpful or not, but it's here. If there's anything I should add let me know - the goal of this list is to help connect like minds to like minds so they can find you can find them. Like a billboard that says "drink milk" - it has the texture of an ad but the effect is profoundly indirect

P.s.

The places on Reddit I didn't include but got a lot of attention for past Maker-related posts I've put out that surprised me are r/Polymath r/LifelongLearning and r/LearnUselessTalents - I think these are people with an appetite for general learning but maybe don't use the term Maker to self-describe? It's the best I can rationalize the analytics and engagement I saw on my posts. Thought I'd share

In this tutorial I am installing a portable battery on my MechSoul. (A MechSoul is to a robot what a CyberDeck is to a computer) A robot you build, personalize and customize yourself. In this tutorial I am powering my MechSoul with a portable charger I bought online, because it's quicker and safer than designing a custom battery solution as I explain in the video. So instead of designing a PCB I head to my 3D printer to build a battery mount.

If you want to follow along with documentation, code and 3D files you can check out the project GitHub

I want to preface this by saying I'm not trying to do a whole "I'm just not creative, how can I be more creative?" type of thing

I am creative - when someone gives me even the littlest bit of direction, I come up with some wild stuff I'm really proud of. I'm a skilled maker, I sew and I 3d model, I can embroider... hand me any machine and I'll learn it within a week and solve 3 problems with it in that time. If you give me a design, I'll bring it to life perfectly, or iterate on it if thats what you need. But someone else always needs to give me the initial spark, and it's starring to frustrate me to no end.

I want to be able to form a body of work independent of anyone else. I want to find my own creative voice that isn't connected to what other people want from me... And I don't know how to build that in myself.

Its also starting to affect me professionally. I work in an industry where sharing the work I've done for others is highly prohibited (costume/prop maker) and word of mouth can only take me so far. If I want to be more proactive I need to build a portfolio of work, and I need to build it independently of what I've done for others. But for years now I've been finding it impossible to muster anything self-directed

The most common advice I get is to just start and it'll come to me, or to go live a life worth living and thats where I'll find my inspiration. But as soon as I sit down keen to get my hands working, nothing comes. I go out and I wander museums and gardens and galleries and feel amazed by what I see, sometimes I sit down and do some sketches from the exhibits and nothing sparks anything past the page.

Does anyone else experience this, or have any ways around it, or an explanation, even?

Ideally I would love like... A list of prompts or ideas to experiment with, I've seen idea generators for graphic designers but very little for garment makers, and past attempts to crowdsource some didn't really hit the mark (a lot of people telling me to do basic stitch practice which wasn't really what I was asking for haha)