Engage Making

Published by

211 South Broad Street, 5th FloorPhiladelphia, PA 19102

Copyright © 2012

Wan-Ting Chang

Engage Making

Copyright © 2012 by Wan-Ting ChangIllustrations copyright © 2012 by Wan-Ting Chang

Photography credits:Pages 1-?? © 2012 Wan-Ting Chang

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced–mechanically, elec-tronically, or by any other means, including photocopying–without written permis-sion of the publisher.

Cover design by Wan-Ting ChangBook design by Wan-Ting Chang

Masters of Industrial Design at The University of the Arts212 South Broad Street, 5th FloorPhiladelphia, PA 19102

First printing June 2012

03 Chapter 1 Introduction07 Chapter 2 Research33 Chapter 3 Synthesis 61 Chapter 4 Portotype86 Chapter 5 Looking Forward

Table of Contents

4

5

Introduction

4

As a designer and a staff in a makerspace, I have been hearing

the craving for making stuff of their own from not only my friends

but also my family and co-workers for a long time. My assumption

was that everyone must have their own idea for making or designing

a physical object of their own. Therefore, I would like to make the

information among these makerspaces more transparent, more

available to people whom are interested in making stuff of their

own. The goal of this project is to bring more people on board and

to allow them to do their own projects.

“I have a lot of ideas, but I don’t know where to go and what should I do.”

Introduction

5

6

7

ResearchUnderstand the Space

Interview the Stakeholder

8

Research

To start the research I first looked at the hacker and maker

spaces in Philadelphia. Then I approached to the stakeholders

of the space and interviewed them. This research section will be

separated into two focuses, the first one is looking at the space,

finding out what strength they have; what speciality they have to

differ from each other and the history of these spaces. The second

one is the interview. Through contextual interviews, I can get to

know more hidden opportunities behind the scene.

9

10

The Hacktory NextFab Studio

Hive 76 Philadelhia Sculpture Gym

These are my four focus spaces: The Hacktory, Hive 67, Next-Fab Studio and Philadelphia Sculpture Gym. They are the most ac-tive hacker or maker spaces in Philadelphia. I also looked at Indy-Hall but they are more of a co-working environment for people to come. It is not like a hackerspace or makerspace.

Understand the Space

11

The Hacktory NextFab Studio

Hive 76 Philadelhia Sculpture Gym

12

•Founded in 2007 •Seperated from Nonprofit Technology

Resources (NTR)•Non-Profit•Volunteer-based•5-10 Volunteers•Class-oriented•Focus on Technology

The Hacktory was formed in November 2007 by a group of art and technology enthusiasts who frequented monthly MakePhilly meetings. The Hacktory wanted to provide formal instruction in technical topics and a central meeting place with accessible, sophisticated tools.


13

Pictures of their space

14

NTR and the Hacktory both provide classes for people to learn

more about the technology but NTR’s mission is slightly different.

NTR’s mission is to promote information like awareness and give

technology to low-income people. NTR’s audiences are different

than the Hacktory. The Hacktory’s audience could be anyone,

a wider range of people. People at the Hacktory try to do more

creative things. It’s not just about education. The Hacktory does

arts and some education. They are trying to get people to be more

creative.

V.S.


15

A comparison diagram of NTR and the Hacktory

16

•Founded in 2009•Non-Profit•Membership-based•18 Members•Project-oriented•Open to core members and basic members 24/7•Focus on Technology


Hive76 is a community of makers and crafters organized around a shared workspace. They enable their members to invent, build, collaborate, and share skills. Hive76 promotes science education and the do-it-yourself spirit in their greater community to enable people to make things awesome and make awesome things.

17

Pictures of Hive76’s space

18

•Open since 2010•For-profit•Membership-based•100+ Members•18 Staff•Personal interest-oriented•Focus on fabrication making


NextFab Studio is a membership-based, high-tech workshop and prototyping center- it’s Philadelphia’s “gym for innovators”. They provide hand tools, 3D printers, computer controlled machine tools, software, and electronics workbenches.

19

Pictures of the old and new space of NextFab Studio

20

•Open in May 2012 •For-Profit•Membership-based•2 Staff•Personal Interest-oriented•More artistic based


A community based sculpture workshop that would operate similar to a gym membership. Sculptors and craftspeople would pay for a membership and get access to the tools.

21

Pictures of their space on 3/31/2012

22

The Hacktory

Hive 76

NextFab Studio

NextFab Studio II

Sculpture Gym

November 2007 Summer 2009 January 2010 2012 May 2012 Summer

The Hacktory was the earliest organization founded among these spaces but it still has not grown as prosperous as other spaces like NextFab Studio or Hive 76. This led me to the question: Why can’t they?


23

The Hacktory

Hive 76

NextFab Studio

NextFab Studio II

Sculpture Gym

November 2007 Summer 2009 January 2010 2012 May 2012 Summer

The map of the history and the location of each space

24

Hive 76

NextFab Studio&

Sculpture Gym

Provide Classes+

Hands-on Projects

The Hacktory

Non-profitHackerspace

Membership Based

VolunteerStaff

Member


25

After looking at all the spaces, I started to layout a diagram

of their features that overlap with others. Then I found out the two

most common things they all have are first, providing classes;

second, doing hands-on projects.

26

Interview

To start the interview, I need to define the stakeholders in

this project. I mapped out this mind map and tried to find them

for interviews.

Stakeholder Mind Map

27

Before executing the interview, I generated the interview

questions. Here are the questions that I tackled:

• How did you find out/know about this place?• Have you heard about any other places?• What do you do here? What is your interest/focus area? • If you want to make this place better, what would you do/

recommend?• Would you like to collaborate with others? If not, why? If so, how?

What’s the biggest obstacle while you were in the space or doing the projects?

• What’s the greatest part of being here and doing these things?• Would you like to grow the membership here?• What do you think what’s the difference between Fab Lab and

Hackerspace?• How do you imagine the future of this movement?

The question may be changed based on the flow of the interview.

28

Interview

To initiate an interview, I tried to get in touch with the

members from these hacker and maker spaces. The first

thing I did is that I went to NextFab’s social event. NextFab

has one social event every month. Because I did not have

much chance to talk with members while I was working

there, I think this social event is a great opportunity to

have more understanding of what our members are

doing. Secondly, I went to the Hacktory and Hive76’s open

house. Every time I talked to different people, I felt

more confident and the process became more fluent for

me. I think I did learned a great amount of new experience

from interviewing people from the beginning of initiating

an interview with a stranger to becoming a friend with

them. As the process went, I also used e-mail to contact

people I heard or mentioned from the previous interviews.

The next spread will show the overall interviewees

that I have interviewed.

29

30

{ {

Darla JacksonOwner of Philadel-phia Sculpture Gym

Georgia Guthrie Director of the Hacktory

Berney Volunteer at the Hacktory

Tim BieniosekVolunteer at the Hacktory

Interview

31

{ { {Brad LitwinKinetic Sculptor

Sean McBethCore member of Hive 76

PJ SantoroCore member of Hive 76

BrendanCore member of Hive 76

David Beard and Dan (left)Member of NextFab Studio

Scott (lower left)Interested in becoming a member

32

33

SynthesisSynthesize Interview Data

Synthesize SurveyFinal Synthesis Result

34

Synthesis I synthesized and then combined two

data I gathered from the research. The first

one is the interview data. The second one is

the survey I got from Georgia that they did in

2009 and some of the questions are related

to this project.

35

36

Synthesize Interview Data

I first transcribed the audio

I recorded from the interview

into text transcripts.

Then I pulled out the similar

subjects under these 7 focus

areas using different color of

post-it notes:

• Obstacle

• Positive Part

• Unmet Needs

• Future

• Collaboration

• Things They Do/ Interests

• How Did They Know Here

37

38


Here are the results of the synthesis of the interviews.

How Did They Know Here

39

Things They Do / Interests

40


Collaboration

41

Future

42


Unmet Needs

43

44


Positive Part

45

46


Obstacle

47

48

Synthesize Survey

49

Where do you go for information or events similar to what The Hacktory provides?

•Other similar organizations: 29• Internet: 26•Magazine: 13 •Nowhere: 8•Friends: 4•Media: 3•Event: 1

Total: 84

50

Synthesize Survey

51

What interests you most about The Hacktory?

•People: 24•Class/learning opportunity: 23•Fame: 14•Other: 10•Tech + Art: 8•Resource: 6

Total: 85

52

Final Synthesis Result

I tried to cluster them and

this led to these 7 catagories:

1. Learning Opportunity

2. Collaboration

3. Public Awareness

4. Internal Issue

5. Value of the Space

6. Open-mindedness

7. Fear to come

53

Learning Opportunity

54


Collaboration

55

Public Awareness

56


Internal Issue

57

Value of the Space

58


Open-mindedness

59

Fear to Come

60

61

v

PrototypeDevelopment

Current PrototypeUser Scenario

Implementation and Test Result

62

Prototype

After I went through these interviews and events

and also the experience I had when I was working at

Nextfab Studio, I found out the easiest way to start a

conversation is by asking “What are you working on?“

By asking questions like this you can learn from others.

It will give you the idea or interests for doing projects or

making things.

63

What Are You

Working On?

64

DevelopmentCover

First page

65

Cover

I also found out that taking notes is essential during this

kind of conversation becasue if you did not take notes you will

forget what the details of the conversation were. Therefore, I

started to brainstorm a “conversation card”.Basically, there

will be tips for having a conversation in the social settings, a

note section and a place to show more events for people to go

and explore more.

This prototype will fit the needs of generating ideas for

coming up a project, bringing public awareness by handing

the booklet to others, getting more people to join and the

most important thing, learning something new.

66

Development

Here are some iterations I generated:

67

68

Current Prototype

I have thought about a lot of phrases to describe the feeling of being intimidated by the environment or the experienced makers/hackers. Because we do not want people to be informed that they might be intimidated or be social-awkward. I tried to make the booklet to be a step-by-step board game that it would involve play in the activity. Also, exploring new things is like playing with scratchy cards

My final prototype is like the images from the right. I designed it to be a vague sense at first for the cover and used the style of conversation blub through out the whole booklet, trying to provide the feeling of having a conversation to the user.

I also developed the 5-whats question. I think maybe because English is not my first language, sometimes I did not know the terms in English so I would ask “what is that?” I believe this gave me more chances to learn more.

69

Step 2. Take down notes for your discovery

29 30 1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26

27 28

SU M T W TH F SA

Every Tuesday: The Hacktory’s open houseEvery Wednesday: Hive 76’s open house

5/5: Intro to Arduino @The Hacktory5/12: Soft Circuit Saturday @The Hacktory5/14: Microcontroller @Hive 76 5/17: Philadelphia Robotics Group Meetup @Hive 765/17: NextFab Social @Barcade5/23: Android Alliance Meeting @Comcast Center, Floor 45

Keep the wheels turning.

Step 3. Go to other events

May’s Event Calendar

What Are You

Working On?

To continue the conversation, follow with 5-what-questions. For example, what does that project do; what inspired you; what is the material you were using?

Step1. Start a conversationto find out what interests you by asking...

Because maker people love to share!

29 30 31

Start Here

Exploring the Magic of Making

NextFab Studio Membership-based, high-tech workshop and prototyping center - it’s Philadelphia’s “gym for innovators.”

nextfabstudio.com

Philadelphia Woodworks Membership-based professional woodshop.

philadelphiawoodworks.com m

The Hacktory

A group of hackers, artists

and technology enthusiasts

working together on

interesting projects.

thehacktory.org

Hive 76 Non-profit, membership-based hackerspace. Collection of hackers, inventors, artists and volunteers.

hive76.org

Philadelphia Sculpture Gym Membership-based sculpture workshop.

philadelphiasculpturegym.com/

Add more...

Glossary of the Month

Hackerspace: is a community-operated physical place, where people can meet and work on their projects. The projects usually related to computers, technology, science, digital or electronic art .

Open Source: is a philosophy that promotes free redistribution and access to an end product's design and implementation details in production and development.

Arduino: is an open-source single-board microcontroller, descendant of the open-source Wiring platform, designed to make the process of using electronics in multidisciplinary projects more accessible.

CNC: stands for "Computer Numeric Control." Instead of you turning the handwheels, a computer determines the speed and distance and drives DC motors called "stepper motors" or "servos" to move the lathe for you.

Kinetic sculpture: Examples of kinetic art in the form of sculpture or three dimensions. In common with other types of kinetic art, kinetic sculptures have parts that move or that are in motion.

It’s all about learning.

70

When a person enters a new environment he/she might feel anxious due to the unfamiliar people or environment he/she will be facing.

User Scenario

71

Here!

If this time, there is a member or staff who can greet him/her and hand him/her this conversation pamphlet, the person who is new here will feel more comfortable because he/she has something to read and has a guideline to follow instead of being overwhelmed by the environment.

72

When a conversation happens between people, the person who is new here can follow 5-whats like the 5-whys we learned before by asking “what is that you are talking about” to keep the conversation going and perhaps dig deeper to gain information or knowledge from others. The person can also take down notes on the prototype while he/she hears something that is new to him/her.

User Scenario

73

After the event is over, the person will leave with a fulfilling smile and a pocket of new information or knowledge.

74

Hey, I have this useful and interesting information Let me see!

User Scenario

75

The next time the person talks about these kinds of hackerspaces with a friend, he/she can have a physical reference to show his/her friend. Hopefully this action will spread the information to the rest of the world.

76


I brought approximately 16 pieces of the booklet to the NextFab Preview Party. I handed out some also put about 5 on the register table. Unfortunately, the environment was very distractive and I was busy taking care of my project at the booth

77

that I was not able to shadow any of the participants. Otherwise, I think this is a good opportunity for testing my prototype. Because a lot of public came and they are

the targets that I was looking for, people who are interested in making stuff but have not started yet. At the end, I did not get any feedback back to me, which was kind of frustrated. I decided to test it again at Andrew’s HACK event. Although the environment might be the same but this time I would be able to shadow people.

78


“No one came to me because of the sticker.”

“It’s not my way to start a conversation.”

79

At “HACK” I was able to hand the prototype and the “What

are you working on?“ sticker to someone and get a real test out.

I met Tim when I came into the space, so I asked him if he would

be interested to particapate the activity and he agreed. He also

let me shadow him. From my observation by shadowing Tim,

he did start a lot of conversation with different people. When I

ask him did anyone come to him and ask what was he working

on because of the sticker. Regrettably, no one did. I believe it

was because of the environment that was too dark even I use

the brightest color for the sticker. I put on both stickers on my

chest, too. No one came to me either.

I asked how he feels about it in the middle of shadowing,

he said it’s not his way to start a conversation.

I asked him to fill out the feedback form before he left. It

was quite a bit of surprise that he wrote he felt more confident.

The comments were all very positive. The result of the feedback

form can seen at next page.

80


81

82

“You need a website so people can see more events.”

“The content is too much for people to read under certain circumstances.”

“You could put a simple tutorial like how to solder iron”

“Put more information about what equipments each space has.”

“You can pair up the novice and experienced makers before they start the conversation.”


I also presented to some of the stakeholders and here are some of the feedback I got from them.

83

“You could build an app or just use a text system as a reminder for people who register to the system and are interested to go to these events.”

“Put the original Adobe Illustrator file on the website so that people from different hackerspaces can also download it and modify it together, just like the open-source spirit.”

Here is one of my ideas:

84

85

Looking Forward

86

Looking Forward While I was presenting my prtootype at the Hacktory, I met 3

people from other cities in the country. They are Daniel, Christalee

and Rubin. Daniel and Christalee just moved to Philadelphia from

Boston and were looking for a hackerspace to join. I asked them

about the situation of the hackerspace in Boston. They said they do

not have outreach problem there. Rubin was visiting New York and

Philadelphia. He is one of the voluteer’s friends from the Hacktory.

Talking to them, I felt mind-blown. Apparently, the problem for

getting more people seems to be a Philadelphia specific problem.

It gave me another scope to view this project.

87

Daniel Christalee

“We don’t have outreach problems.”

“The problem is you have to know enough to know well. Like when you face a problem, you know whom to go to for answers.”

88

Rubin Starset from Noisebridge in San Francisco

“We have like 150 - 200 active members right now.”

“We give out the key of the space to anyone that is interested. It’s very risky but fortunately nothing bad had happened yet.”

89

I started to think why they have gotten so much people but we

never did? I looked at the population and the density of population

of these three cities. I discovered an interesting fact. Although

Philadelphia is the sixth biggest city in the U.S. and it is also bigger

than Boston and San Francisco. However, the density of population

is lower than these two cities. A comparing chart is provided at

the next spread. The population density might be one reason. For

further development, I think I need to consider a lot of different

aspect such as geography and the structure of the resident. Then

hopefully a different direction can lead to a solution that is specific

addressing problems here in Philadelphia.

90

Land Area: 48.43 sq mi Population: 617,594 Population Density: 12.7 k /sq mi

Boston

Land Area: 46.87 sq miPopulation: 7,563,460Population Density: 17 k /sq mi

San Francisco

91

Land Area: 48.43 sq mi Population: 617,594 Population Density: 12.7 k /sq mi

Boston

Land Area: 135.1 sq miPopulation: 1,526,006 Population Density: 11.4 k/sq mi

Philadelphia

Documents

Engage Making