Makerspaces, sometimes called Hackerspaces or FabLabs, are places where people can gather to create, invent and share expertise. KMUW’s Abigail Wilson explores a makerspace in Wichita called MakeICT...
In the time since MakeICT started in 2012, members have built the electro-luminescent sign that hangs on the door. There’s a 3D printer with parts made by another 3D printer. A giant arduino, an open-source microcontroller development board, hangs on the wall.
Tonight is what’s called Open Hack night. People gather at MakeICT to work on projects and share ideas. There are a few dozen people hunched over workstations in groups.
“I built it at home, but somebody helped me make these brackets here so I brought it in so that they could see the final product,” says Kip Landwehr.
Landwehr, a sophomore at WSU, has brought in a project called a wave machine. It’s made of wood and has twelve balls suspended by different lengths of string. They swing like pendulums at different rates, going in and out of sync.
“I’ve brought projects here before and got help on them," he says. "I was troubleshooting a circuit board one day and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. There was a short, but I would’ve had no idea how to do that without the help of the community here.”
At MakeICT, the walls are lined with tools and equipment, CNC machines, foam cutters, 3D printers, lathes, dremels, computers. A classroom-type space has tables and chairs for people attending workshops. Here and there, signs say, “Don’t Hack.” Dominic Canare, the president of MakeICT, says the concept of “hacking” within their makerspace, is one that often requires explanation.
“There are a lot of very similar places to us, but they call themselves hackerspaces," Canare says. "We specifically chose not to call ourselves a hackerspace just because of the negative connotations that come with it. A lot of people think that hacking is bad, and certainly if you watch television or any movies then it would seem like hacking is a bad thing.”
“Hacking,” in the negative way, means getting into a computer or network where you’re not supposed to be. But at Make ICT, Canare says, it’s a good thing.
"When we say 'hack' what we're really talking about is modifying," he says. "And that could be something that you've made that you're modifying. It could be something that somebody else has made that you're modifying. Really anything that you're working on, you could say that you're hacking on it.”
Canare says the concept of a makerspace has exploded in the past few years. Canare says makerspaces are a worldwide concept. He refers to it as the “maker movement” and says it stems from the open-source culture, a trend in software that can be freely used, changed, and shared by anyone.
“Not only can you have access to the information about how to build and create and make things, but you can also have access to the actual tools and equipment," he says. "You don’t have to shell out thousands of dollars for factory line work just to produce a prototype, something that you think might be a cool invention. You can go down to your makerspace and make it out of 3D plastic and have it in a matter of hours instead of a matter of weeks.”
He shares an analogy used by another board member from MakeICT to illustrate the overall vision of their makerspace.
“They used to talk about the renaissance man and it's somebody who is sort of a jack of all trades, and maybe even a master of most of them, but now a days there's so much information out there, there's just so many things that's it's impossible to be a renaissance person," Canare says. "So instead, we have these renaissance communities that we build where you have people who have a lot of depth in maybe one or two areas, but they have enough breadth in other areas that they can have that conversation. And so by bringing those people together you build this renaissance community where great things can happen.”
MakeICT currently has 45 members and 3000 feet of space. Membership is just $10 a month, and most of the gently used complicated machines are donated. The organization is growing and is using a recent grant from the Wichita Community Foundation to move to a larger space and expand. Canare says the expansion includes adding workshops and classes on things they haven’t had the room to offer.
"We’ve never done like an introduction to clay, for example, and would love to see something that like that happen," he says. "Or a workshop on how to stretch canvas, we would love to see something like that happen."
