The latest Makespace activity
- The Big Clean 2022
Every year we take a day and focus on cleaning up our Space.
Makespace is what you make it…
- Boxing Day at Makespace
Even on Boxing day Someone is Tinkering in Makespace.
- Friday Evening in Makespace
- October Members Show and Tell Photos
Lots of great things and chat at the October Makespace Members Show and Tell – thanks to everyone who made the effort!
Below are a few photos of some of the things; Jewellery, Robots, Shoes, Woodwork, Board Games, Motion Tracking…
I had some requests to run this again, so next one is now live on meetup:
- Makespace Show and Tell – Thursday 11th November – Signup Now!
Jewellery 
Printers and CNC 
RPi Projects 
Woodwork 
Robots and Light Sabre 
Shoes 
Motion Tracking 
Board Game 
Light Cubes
- Seamless Backdrops Installed!
Harry H is working on the Studio to refine setups and recipes for making product or training videos/photos, live streaming, podcasts etc.
As part of that, last night all the bits for a seamless backdrop setup finally arrived! (via a mis-delivery to mill road!)
With a little help from his friends, the mounts were put in place to hold up to 3 backdrops at a time in the classroom – they can be individually rolled up and down using a chain, and swapped for different colours (we have 6 atm – black, white, orange, blue, purple, and a chroma-green that can also be used for green screen work)
These are seamless backgrounds, so they can be pulled down for just a backdrop, or out on to a table or on the floor for a big swoop continuous background. If they get too dirty, a section can be cut off. And they can be rolled up out the way, so the whiteboards can be accessed as normal.
Harry is going to be making his own podcasts and testing different setups, and is willing to help anyone else who wants to try using the kit.
So if you want to experiment with making a product video, live-stream, podcast or some form of photography, email studio@makespace.org and arrange to have a go!
- New Wood Lathe and Sanders
Woodshop members Tom Herbstein, Stefan Ross, Alaric Worrod and Matt Jaworski took delivery of Makespace’s new wood lathe, disc and belt sanders!
The packaging was quickly ripped open and now all three are in place in the workshop. Have a look for yourself at the unboxing video to see what a couple of hours of lifting, grunting, swearing and bolting parts together can achieve.
What did we get?
The wood lathe is an Axminster Trade AT406WL and has variable speed control, a more powerful motor and larger capacity than the previous one.
The disc and belt sanders are larger and more robust in a concious move to upgrade the Woodshop equipment to “Trade” quality.
How did it happen?
Stefan, Matt and Allen Kaye polled members needs, identified the best lathe and wrote a short business case for investing in it, including the appropriate H&S, Training and Maintenance considerations. You can take a look at it here:
The proposal was approved by the Makespace directors and then equipment was ordered and fitted!
Tom did the same for the two sanders.
If you want to get involved in improving the woodshop further, come along to the Woodshop club meetings where all this was organised.
How do I get trained?
The training to learn from scatch or transition from the old lathe is now live:
Thanks to all who made this happen, and Happy Making!
- Welcome back!
Makespace and Biomakespace are back open! We’ve missed you. Hopefully you missed us too!
The spaces have now moved to “LIMITED ACCESS”, so that means any individual activities are fine, plus see the space tours on both sites, inductions and training:
After a year of payment holidays, we’ll also be restarting membership fees to cover the space operating costs.
Full details are available on our Covid-19 page – please have a read before you come in.
We also did an update from the space showing you some of the things that have changed, including a very special announcement…
Any questions, email info@makespace.org
See you all soon!
- Mayor’s Award for Makespace
Makespace has been awarded a Mayor’s “Volunteer for Cambridge” award!
This recognises the amazing effort and dedication of over 100 Makespace members and supporters who pulled together this year to support the local community through a series of projects, including:
- The community visor project: Designing protective visors in collaboration with the medical and technical teams at Addenbrooke’s hospital to deliver to NHS staff and key workers during the PPE shortage in April. About 5000 visors were made in Makespace and free issued to Addenbrooke’s and other schools and local institutions, and the design and process were made freely available to companies who then produced many more.
- The face mask kit project: Making and distributing over 2000 free fabric face masks kits (for over 10K people) to slow community transmission in summer.
- The cardboard mask fitter project: Designing and making over 20k disposable surgical mask fasteners to make available PPE more comfortable and safe for NHS staff.
- Test tube holders project: for the university to support the testing regime, designing and laser cutting test tube holders for university halls.
More details of the projects can be found on our Covid Response and Activities page.
Thanks to everyone for stepping up and contributing your time and skills to make great things happen!