The assortment of 3D printers and other inventions involving a meld of human and electronic brains gave the weekendās sixth annual Ā鶹“«Ć½Ó³»Mini Maker Faire its usual futuristic flavour. For balance, there was the āstitch and bitchā corner with loomers and seamstresses along with the delightfully antiquated-themed Times Past booth, which featured an adorably cartoonish robotic barking dog named M.U.T. (Mechanical Universal Tracker) created by the husband-wife team of Christina Carr and Martin Hunger who met at a Doctor Who convention in ā87.
At yet another makers table, worklamps provided light in the otherwise dim PNE Forum where children and adults hunched over a small circuit board with soldering gun in hand.
The instructions led to the completion of a blinking button featuring the Ā鶹“«Ć½Ó³»Hack Space logo in a type font familiar to those who lived in the olden days of VHS tapes.
The space itself is on Cook Street and is advertised on its website as āthe community garage for a community without garages.ā Still, an improvement over its first location in 2008 off Hastings Street where it was a back-alley entrance and members were let inside by using a key dropped down on a string from the window.
The collective has no hierarchy beyond a two-tiered membership system of keyholders and regular members. Being a keyholder is as straightforward as it sounds ā the space can be used at any time. Itās especially handy if your name happens to be Jade Andersen and you need to keep a 2002 Volkswagen Jetta alive.
āIāve brought my car into Hack Space ā thereās one loading bay for the entire building so I always do it late at night,ā said Andersen. āIāve got to fix these holes in the radiator, Iāve got to figure out whatās wrong with my transmission. I can say, āYou guys! My carās messed up!āā¦ Itās nice to have people around who love tinkering and taking things apart. We donāt necessarily know what weāre doing but weāre all really cool about exploring and figuring things out. Weāre good at figuring things out.ā
Besides fixing a couple of radiator holes, members have built remote-controlled helicopters, a vintage arcade game cabinet that runs 100 vintage games, a drawing robot and plans are in the works for a ānear-space balloon.ā
The list of Andersenās creations is a glimpse into the creative and brilliant spark of her brain; it comes as no surprise sheās a mechatronic engineering student at BCIT as of this fall. Some of those items include: bunkbeds in the shape of a treehouse, a light-therapy alarm clock and a 3D printer. Itās important to note the word āhackingā in this world is defined by tinkering, exploring and reconfiguring existing systems so they work in different ways than intended. Members have a wide range of interests, from crafting and machining to electronic music and robotics. So donāt ask VHS members to hack into your girlfriendās email account.
āHack Space appeals to people like me. Iām a broke university student so once a year I buy myself a new tool. Iāll save up and by myself a really fantastic miter saw or something like that, but I canāt afford the kind of tools that I like to use so itās nice to go to a space where theyāre not expensive to use,ā Andersen said. āA lot of people have good ideas, and they would like to make something. The limitation is not their skills, the limitation is the fact they donāt have the tools so they canāt go and develop the skills in the first place. Weāre all around to help, weāre about skill-sharing, too.ā
Tools available at VHS include laser cutters, 3D printers, sewing machines, silk-screening supplies, bandsaws and grinders. There is even a button-maker, which one of VHSās members, a 13-year-old girl, made good use of as she turned her artwork into buttons that she then sells to her schoolmates.
āItās unlimited because we donāt let ourselves have barriers,ā said Andersen. āIf thereās a will, thereās a way.ā
VHS hosts an open house Tuesday evenings. Find out more at .
@rebeccablissett
