Our visit to Maker Station (by alaric)

As a member of two hack spaces (and co-founder, secretary, and treasurer of one), I couldn't pass up the opportunity to visit a local hack space during our visit to South Africa. A quick web search later and I found that Cape Town's hackspace is called Maker Station. I dropped them a message asking if I could drop by and say hi as an ambassador from the UK, and asking them to suggest a time - UK hack spaces tend to have an open evening sometime in the week when random people can turn up to look around and meet people; so I was expecting something like that, but didn't see a time advertised on the Web site. But they suggested I suggest a time, so I did.

If we'd planned this a bit better, we'd have brought stickers (a traditional hack space give-away gift) from Bristol and Cheltenham Hack Spaces, but we didn't - so, instead, Sarah painted a picture from each hack space:

For those not familiar with them, UK hack spaces tend to be run like a club or society - a constitution document of some kind sets out rules for people to become members, and for members to vote on a board who are in charge of making sure the space meets its legal obligations and controls the flow of money. Usually, members get unlimited access to the space and voting rights in exchange for a monthly membership fee (with some tools that use expensive consumables requiring extra usage fees on top to cover that). The monthly memberships go into a bank account, and the elected board choose to spend that on rent, insurance, electricity, broadband, consumables, and so on, and the money left over each month piles up until it's enough to buy a fancy new tool requested by the members. Most members have day jobs and hack on projects in their spare time, so hack spaces tend to be quiet during the day and busy in evenings and at weekends; and, as I mention above, there's usually an open evening every week for potential new members to come along and visit, which is also the day members come along to socialise, thereby ensuring there's a good population present to welcome new people. There are no paid staff; the board are all volunteers, and members are expected to unlock and lock up if they visit at a time when nobody else is around.

So I was quite interested to find out that Maker Station was different. We were met inside the entrance by Felix, one of the founders. The entrance led directly to a cafe area, with leaflets of hackerly interest lying around, and a range of drinks and crisps and stuff (including Maker Station logo biscuits they'd made in their own rocket oven!) for sale. The space is staffed and open during business hours; the two founders are there during the day as it's actually their day job, and they have two employees to help (the cost of living in South Africa is much lower than in the UK, which is what makes this practical).

Beyond the cafe was the hack space itself. Much of the space is divided into benches (or larger studios), which are either rented by the day in a sort of hot-desking arrangement:

...or dedicated to a single user who pays regularly for it, so has extensive tool and work-in-progress storage dedicated to them:

People normally used it during the day, but if people were still hacking when 6pm came, they'd keep it open in the evening as well. One user I spoke to there was making a commission for a client, suggesting that the member demographic was more people hacking on stuff for a living than evening hobbyists. Felix and his brother (the other founder) don't quite make enough to run the place from memberships alone; the shortfall is made up by them working on paid commissions of their own in the space. Felix showed us some current projects they were working on, an exhibit for a local science centre and a small wind tunnel for somebody experimenting with wind turbine designs:

I didn't get the impression there was quite the sense of community that UK hackspaces have, with their busy open evenings and highly decentralised governance; Felix said that he often found himself acting as a "broker" between people who wanted some skill and people who had it or who a good supplier was for something, while in the UK, such connections usually arise organically on the open evening, so I suggested he might like to set up a weekly social slot in the cafe (and maybe a wiki for sharing information like supplier lists, like we have at Cheltenham Hackspace).

I was very impressed by their facilities. A proper cafe! Lots of space! Many, many, tools, including a decent metal lathe, forge, foundry, and welding gear!

Interestingly, they didn't tend to go in for the stock UK hack space tools of laser cutters and 3D printers. It turns out that in Cape Town there are several suppliers who will do small-job CNC cutting and lasering and 3D printing at a reasonable price using high-end equipment, within easy travel of Maker Station. As far as I can tell, it's prohibitively expensive to get that sort of thing done in the UK other than in industrial quantities, which is why UK hack spaces end up buying their own equipment!

Felix seems to be really good at community outreach and education - something we're looking to expand at Cheltenham Hackspace, not to mention a speciality of Sarah's, so we were interested to hear about that. Here's a video of Felix giving a talk to students about prototyping. One thing that impressed me was that he runs things he calls "disassembly workshops"; take a pile of unwanted appliances, and unleash a bunch of children on them with screwdrivers (and some expert help) to tear them apart. This is fun in itself, and provides an opportunity to learn how the things you're taking apart work, as well as building skills in using the tools and working out how to get things to bits.

Once you have a pile of bits, depending on the age range and abilities, you can let the kids stick the bits together to make art to take home - or teach them electronics by wiring them up to do new things, maybe even so far as building robots out of the mechanical and electronic parts.

Here's some photos from a recent disassembly workshop they did: 1 2 3 4 5.

We enjoyed our visit to Maker Station. It was refreshing to see a different take on the usual hack space financial model, and interesting to see how the differing economics of South Africa affected what a hack space needed to be and could do. And Felix was inspiring as an educator and speaker! I'm keeping a close eye on his Twitter feed for good ideas to use in my own sci/tech outreach activities 🙂

The School Holidays Begin (by sarah)

It is that time of year again when there are no school runs and I have no completely free child time - Jean however is almost ten so I can work whilst she is around now. In fact at the moment she is helping me!

So we let Jean plan the first day of the holiday - it was without Mary for most of it as it was a pre-school day and they continue during the holidays.

We constructed a plan based on the sorts of things she wanted to do - namely Home School which she loves and I initially came up with when we were snowed in at The Bakery back in her infant school days.

We started with an American breakfast - Jean's school had done an Independance Day breakfast but the last term we have kept missing dates and time changing and the such like, probably due to my concussion. Jean was quiet upset about this so we investigated the sorts of things Americans eat for breakfast and decided it was a combo of a Canadian and Full English and set about creating our own probably very wrong breakfast!

This of course started with us grubbing up potatoes from the garden - I used the bags we had for moving (from Essex which then got used for lots of things but all had busted zips or handles etc...), to grow potatoes in - I am phasing this out as most of the bags have reached the end of their life, and we now have an allotment!

We were after the "new" white potatoes rather than the bigger potatoes and the pink/red potatoes so Jean kept checking with me she'd gotten the right type until I pointed out I was just grubbing up all useful potatoes as I needed to make a casserole with the turnips and beetroot from the allotment anyway.

We harvested an entire pot of tatties which Jean then selected the ones we wanted for breakfast - we went with sauteed potatoes rather than the chips we'd seen in some of the breakfasts as we just couldn't cope with the idea of chips for breakfast.

She then scrubbed them and chopped them whilst I started on the rest. Once that was done she mixed up the pancake mix, got plates out and general reminded me what I was doing! She also went to the shop to get three missing ingredients.

We used the flat bed sandwich toaster to cook the pancakes, this was the first time either of us had cooked this thicker type of pancake. It was fun and I put the coffee perculator on for me. Jean poured us juice.

She took a stack of ten pancakes so it would look like the photos! And she doesn't normally eat maple syrup but she poured it on. She made up a granola and home made yogurt mix too.

It was a HUGE breakfast - fresh sliced tomato, suateed potatoes, baked beans, 2 rashers bacon, 2 suasages, a fried egg, and 2 slices of toast! She basically ate the bacon and cereal and then nibbled on the pancakes all day. The rest did me and Mary for a meal each. 😀

We then learnt Latin, she did some at a language day at school and come home obsessed. She had a piece of paper she had already made notes on (mainly she observed that the Harry Potter series had used latin for the spells). When I say we learnt Latin, what actually happened was that I found a series on Youtube of which I followed the first lesson and then left her to it, she was on lesson 9 at the end with pages of notes.

I found her on google translate trying to check her own translation before she restated the vid to find out if she was right. Her translation was closer than google translates. I discovered I know random bits of latin - I assume from my Classical Civilization A'level. Later on I corrected Alaric's pronounciation as well coughs.

Then it was time for the first ever Stubby Marathon!

I am still struggling with reading and writing, I am using voice tech or just going really really slowly in short bursts. But it is easier for me to do long hand rather than typing and it is a writing challenge month so I looked around and thought "you know what I have a ream or two of lined paper and lots of pencils that haven't even been sharpened!" - BAM!!!

The idea?

It is a writing marathon that will last at least the summer holidays - me and Jean sit for at least an hour writing trying to wear the lead out in the freshly sharpened pencil. Each day we see who has used their lead the most - we re-sharpen the next day so the points are the same so there is a day to day winner and an over all winner (you can write outside of the allotted time and I can't write for very long at all and have to make coffee in the middle etc...). Jean has written 2 stories and twice as many pages as me so far. I am designing a medal for her 🙂

This summer is our marathon summer but more on that later.

I think we then mixed things up a bit by having our outside time and snack before we started on our hour of art. This was basically us working our way through various kits Jean's had for birthdays etc... WHY OH WHY are the instructions in kids craft kits so dire? I mean they really are bad and I think most people think it's the kids just not getting it but it really isn't - it's the instructions :/

It took me most of the hour and a very bad keyring, to remember some basic stuff that I could do before the concussion and have been doing since before I was Jean's age 🙁 This hour was frustrating for both of us but we decided to see it too the end and not jump kits and she at least made a lovely bracelet though with improvisation and not the technique that the kit was designed for!

She then played outside on the trampoline whilst I rested my brain, she then set herself up with her maths - these are GCSE level maths but with the questions in accessible easy comprehension which were ones my mum had for teaching those who had failed or not sat GCSE's the first time round. Some of them my mum had made herself and some were from packs provided by the college - the course was cut leaving my mum with all the teaching stuff and no one to teach 🙁

Then Al and Mary came home and we wizzed off to pick up some garden fairy lights which the girls put together whilst Daddy made dinner - they are bees and ladybirds and hopefully there will be a blog post on what we've done with the garden soon!

Mary went to bed and then Jean and Alaric played with the electronic kits and only got shouted at once by me for making the radio they'd just built too loud (issue was they couldn't work out how to control the sound level - or so they say!).

We forgot to practice the recorder which Jean was going to attempt at 9:30 but I banned!!!

So I think that was an epic start to the holidays - since I started writing this blog post she has been writing schedules and naming each day - this was Home School Monday. But we have also had:

Tidying Tuesday, Wet Wednesday, Friend Thursday and today which was going to be Allotment Friday but then got turned into Cinema Friday has actually been named Freedom Friday as she decided to go home with her friend for a sleep over instead and pointed out that me and Al (Who has a day off of work) do not have either kid with us today.