My Dad Asks HN: Should I Build A Hackerspace?

Re:My Dad Asks HN: Should I Build A Hackerspace? by eugenejen on Tuesday September 22, 2009 @03:23PM (#837708)

I am not sure will this be useful. But if you are interested in making a hardware hacker space, The FabLab is a good reference point. They have listing of the basic equipments. You probably can find the community of the FabLab(http://fab.cba.mit.edu/).

How to make the community self sustaining is a big question. My opinion is in the long run the hackerspace has to be profitable for its operation. At the other hand, everyone likes to take advantage of low cost/free resources without accountability. So how to design a system to encourage those startups to grow and be profitable, taking accountability and give it back to others, in order to create a positive feedback loop is really important.

I think the system can't not be centrally planning ahead, so you'd better to be keen on community in the long run.

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Re:My Dad Asks HN: Should I Build A Hackerspace? by nickmolnar2 on Tuesday September 22, 2009 @03:45PM (#837763)

In my ideal vision of the hackerspace, the decisionmaking would be highly decentralized. This would require a few hundred members, which would undoubtedly take time. As an example, I would like to see a Donor's Choose style approach to ongoing purchasing, where a portion of member dues is pre-allocated to buying common goods.

Thanks for pointing out the FabLab. I'm familiar with the concept, but had never read their complete inventory. Very helpful.

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