The Space has now made available an XTools S1 Laser Cutter with 20W Diode Laser. Able to cut pine wood up to a thickness of 15mm, as well as engrave metal it includes a base for larger objects and lots of great features to ensure predictable and clean cutting and engraving.
You will need to talk to a member to be inducted in the use of any Laser Cutter, and pay a per minute charge for use, to pay for ongoing maintainance.
One of our directors has been recognised for his voluntary work with LAMM with two certificates from Lancaster District CVS. He didn’t win in either category, but it was great to get nominated! Maybe next year?
Are you a Student at Lancaster University? Would you like 24/7 access to the Space2 Makerspace?
Good news! you now have free access to the space whenever you need it. You don’t have to be an Engineer or Computer Scientist, just someone looking for a friendly and inclusive space to work on technology, art, or manufacturing projects.
To join, come to the space on any Wednesday open day and sign up as a student member, agree to the terms and conditions of the space, and attend any safety training needed for equipment. Storage space can be arranged for small projects, and specialist tools stored.
Would you like to say hello? Ask a question. Join the telegram channel and tell the other members what you are working on. Often members will meet up outside of the Wednesday sessions to work on specific projects, you might find a like-minded maker
Access to all equipment is free, except the laser cutter which is ‘pay as you go’ to fund laser servicing. The MakerSpace sometimes has free consumables such as printer resin and filament, but you may have to purchase your own.
Contact Space2 with any questions at https://lamm.space/contact/
Enabled with thanks to the financial support from the Faculty of Science and Technology, Lancaster University.
If you haven’t seen the space recently, and are curious about how many abandoned laptops are scattered around (Surprisingly, not as many as last year) take a look at https://lamm.space/about/ for updated images of the space, and the new PCs, 3D printers and equipment.
We have also been given a very kind donation of a dual extruder 3D printer. It is a bit dusty, but think of the possibilities!
Last night (Monday 4th October) LAMM was able to hold its first AGM in twenty months. Our rules state that the AGMs are an in-person affair with a set number of attendees needed to achieve quorum, and although we could have used on-line event conferencing during the lockdowns we held the physical meeting for a period when we could be truly in person.
As part of that meeting I prepared and gave a report, more a round up, from the board to the members. LAMM tries to be as transparent an organisation as possible, and in that light I present that report for distribution via our blog.
I wanted to start today with some meaningful quote, Like ‘it was the best of times, it was the worst of times’. However, to be honest, it’s been mostly just awful and we still seemed to be mired within issues so let’s skip that.
So while I quit moping I want to welcome you back to LAMM and our AGM. During the last twenty months since our last meeting you would think that life at LAMM would have been quiet. But we did not let a global pandemic and political upheaval stop us from showing how good a community we can be. Which allows me to segway into my first thanks.
I want to thank all the members who have stayed with us through these challenging years. I also want to especially thank those who were able to keep up payments. This in no way is meant to disregard those who could not manage, everyone had their own fiscal circumstances to navigate. But, those of you that were able to keep paying your fees kept LAMM alive. So you have the deepest regard and warmest thanks from the Board.
My second thanks goes to those who ran a successful campaign to get laptop and devices into schools and into the community. We had several hundred donated machines and over one hundred and fifty of these were repurposed for Schools. A further batch were given to those that are disadvantaged members of the wider community. You have our respect and grateful thanks. The continuing project will carry on as we hope to build on that in the future.
LAMM has moved in the last six weeks. We now have a bigger Space, SPACE 2, or Space Squared or Space to do. Whatever you want it to mean. A lot of you gave your time, your strength and mostly everyone gave their positivity to the effort. It has been greatly appreciated and the new Space is already looking great and we look forward to completing the organisation, bringing tools back online in readiness for re-opening to the general public. All members are welcome back into the Space and we’d appreciate any suggestions. Bil has already built a new moveable wood store. So that is my third thanks.
Lastly I want to single out Bil who also ran our first outside event post-pandemic last weekend at the Fun Palace. He once again engaged with young people and the wider community and had them destroying laptops. Every effort is appreciated and the board are grateful that we have a membership who are willing to get involved, organise and run events.
To the future we look to you. Hopefully we will now have more face to face contact. I encourage you all to use the Telegram channel and notice boards (when it is put up) to leave messages and suggestions and I dearly hope that we can all start to get our own projects completed. But we also need to grow our numbers and show what a great community workshop we can be. In the coming year we hope to form alliances and cooperative projects with other groups and with local academic institutions.
Finally, I want to say something personal from me. Not from the board. I want to share a fear. I worried at the start of the lockdowns. I felt that this may end our organisation. We would struggle to survive and this left me feeling helpless. But we have come through, we have contributed to a positive change in our local community and we are now in a stronger position to grow. So thank you all.
LAMM is very dear to me and to see it not only survive but become greater has been a very bright light in what has been a dismal time.
So you all have my personal thanks.
Space2 is coming soon!! Yes, LAMM is moving to a bigger and better unit. 👍
We will shortly be getting keys to our new and improved workshop space in Harpers Mill on White Cross Industrial Estate in Lancaster. (Same business park, different building)
Space 2 will be a much larger unit, and we are very excited that it will be much more accessible too. We have spent years looking for an affordable upgrade, and we have finally found it. There is a lift in the new building so people who can’t do stairs will be able to come and join in the fun too! We will still be easily accessible on foot from the city centre and the buses stop right by White Cross business park (opposite the RLI).
So what comes next? Well, members please watch your email for details about when to move your personal projects etc. to the new unit and to volunteer for moving the communal tools and equipment. We will have some setting up to do in the new unit but the first couple of weeks in September are moving weeks!
Space2 should be open for members general usage from Oct and to the general public shortly after that. Full details on how to find us in the swanky new space will be posted as soon as we can open Space2. And, as some of you have been waiting a while, we are happy to say that we will be able to welcome new members as soon as we are in Space2. Use the contact form on the main page to get in touch
In the meantime, we will be proudly waving our banner on Sunday 22nd August as Lancaster Pride returns. Join us from 11am for the March (Sulyard Street starting point). As you can see from the photo of the 2019 event, it’s quite easy to spot out fabulous banner!
Yay! Space mk 2… Space to make… Space squared…
We at LAMM have been overwhelmed by the community response to our request for old laptops and tablets for school kids to use during lockdown. As most pupils will be returning to school from the 8th March we are suspending donations for the time being. We still have a stack of older laptops and tablets that need repair and refurbishment and we will continue to work on these and give them to local schools. Even if all pupils are back in school, there’s still going to be the inevitable ‘bubble closures’ and periods of self-isolation, not to mention that doing your homework in normal circumstances is much easier with a laptop!
We hope that we will take in donations again in the future to support all pupils having a suitable device at home for their school learning, but for now, please use other methods for recycling or reusing your old devices.
Thank you again, love from LAMM
This is a quick update for all those who have been asking how our “donate a device” project is going. The short version is: very well and we’re very busy! But read on for the longer version…
In the three weeks since first seeing Dan’s tweet asking for 10 devices to urgently help for his school (he’s school governor for Trumacar Primary in Heysham), and our first requests for donations, we have been overwhelmed by the generosity of our local community. You are all wonderful generous people!
We have now given refurbished donated devices to 6 local primary schools, and they are all very grateful for the support of their community in helping out families in need. Here are some pictures:
And this is an example of what our workshop looks like these days!
LAMM’s project has been featured in the Lancaster Guardian here and on BBC Radio Lancashire, Heart Radio, Smooth Radio and even BBC North West! We are grateful to everyone who has passed on the message to their friends and colleagues about the project and to everyone who has emailed, messaged and contacted us about making a donation.
A couple of practical updates and FAQs too:
As you can see from the photos of our workshop, we are busy working to repair and refurbish a lot of donated devices at the moment. We are a small community group and everyone one working on this project has full-time jobs and family responsibilities, and is using their spare time to do the necessary work on the donated devices.
When will you pick up my device?
We have had far more requests for Covid-secure pickups than we originally expected and so we would ask everyone to be a little patient if it takes us some days to get around to collecting your device. We are only letting our members and DBS cleared volunteers collect your donations. This is a standard safeguarding measure for community volunteers visiting private houses, and we want everyone to feel safe with their donations! We currently aim to collect donations within 7 days.
If you can use the Drop Boxes in White Cross Business Park, then please do. The Gatehouse reception has security personnel there around the clock, so anytime is suitable to drop your device in our boxes in the main reception (Gatehouse) building.
Where will you pick up from?
We are following lockdown regulations and can pick up up only from the Lancaster and Morecambe area. Postcode areas: LA1, LA2 (West half only), LA3, LA4, LA5, LA6 (West half only). If you live outside of these areas we suggest you use this link to find a nearest scheme to donate to: https://techforuk.com/donate-your-tech/
Is my device suitable for donation?
In order of preference, we welcome the following donations:
1. Working Laptops which originally ran Windows 7 or later.
2. Tablets less than 5 years old (unpaired from your Apple ID if iPads)
Please note, we cannot unlock iPads ourselves unless we have an original proof of purchase and a signed receipt transferring ownership to LAMM. This is because only Apple can unpair a device from the original Apple ID if it is locked, and they (quite naturally) want to make sure it was legally acquired!
Finally, thank you again to everyone supporting this project. We are working hard to process all the donations from private individuals as quickly as we can, and get them to the children who need them. For any local companies wishing to make bulk donations, please visit this page: Laptops for Kids
Lancaster and Morecambe Makers says:
With LAMM recently taking on the task of revitalising and preparing laptops for schools in the local area, one of the first things we are doing — before anything else — is securely wiping all data on them. This lengthy process writes random data (using the same techniques as the US’ Department of Defence) across the whole disk, ensuring that nothing can be recovered from storage, and giving donors the piece of mind that none of their data will be accessed.
To accomplish this, we’re using a tool called DBAN which specialises in securely erasing hard disks. Normally, you’d write this to a USB drive, plug it in to the ‘destructee’ computer, and boot off of it, but I didn’t really fancy buying 25 USB sticks for the current stock of laptops in the Space. So, a better solution was needed…
Many Laptops at the Same Time
Thankfully, I’d brought my laptop with me, which I could run a PXE netboot server on – this would allow any devices connected to the same network to boot from anything I liked, as long as I had it on my laptop. I went about setting up a PXE server (configured as a proxyDHCP server pointing to a DBAN boot image on a TFTP server), tested it out, and was ready to roll. This solution meant that no USB drives were needed at all. All that I’d have to do is plug a to-wipe laptop into ethernet, and turn it on. (Perhaps also configure the boot options to use PXE.)
We’d been (and still are being) given quite a range of laptops at this point – everything from this extremely pink laptop:
…to this teeny tiny little machine:
But thanks to how widely adopted PXE is, all the laptops (bar 1, boot password) were as simple as ‘plug in, power on, data gone’. The first stage of a thorough process to get these laptops to in-need school pupils.
The boot server running on the host laptop (and an iPad for music of course):
There were laptops everywhere, from on top of the laser cutter:
To on top of the fridge:
There were even a few that had decided to sit around and have a meeting.
In the end, around 20 laptops were wiped that day. They’re good and ready for the next stage of cleaning up, and then installing an operating system to. Check LAMM for updates!
It doesn’t need us to say that we are all living in rather exceptional times. Recently LAMM was approached by a local school, via a governor, to give help to some of the pupils.
The Government has an initiative whereby Secondary Years pupils can apply for a laptop to work from home and maintain some connection to their education. However, there is very limited provision for Primary Years children.
There are many children in the local area, and nationally, below year 7 who are being left behind in these times. We have started an initiative to collect unwanted digital devices (Laptops and Tablets) that have the ability to connect these children to their schools. We have gained the support of a number of people.
In the past few days the initiative has started to take hold and Kay (a director at LAMM) will be appearing on the local Heart radio. Local businesses and Erica Lewis (leader of the Council) has given vocal support to our efforts.
We have a drop off point at the Gatehouse in White Cross (White Cross Industrial Estate, South Road, Lancaster, LA1 4XQ) and we can also do a doorstep collection of your device if that is required (especially for those of you who are vulnerable or shielding. Please note we can only pick up from LA1, LA2, LA3, LA4, LA5, LA6 areas.
We are taking any machines that can be made to use a modern browser which is the requirement needed to run the software that connects children to their teachers. We will even take machines that need some repair as we have a growing number of parts and members willing to volunteer their time. Note that because we are volunteers we may take slightly longer than expected to respond to any communication.
All machines will have their data wiped using a secure wiping program before the system has a new operating system installed ensuring your data is safe. If you can donate then please do so. We are also interested in any parts such as RAM, hard drives and essentially laptop chargers. These can help revitalise an old machine by adding more physical memory of a bigger/faster disk and by having a safe power supply.
The first of the laptops are being prepared this week for delivery to school next week. Please note that we are not taking desktop machines at this time as they are too cumbersome and need a separate devices to be functional.
If you can donate please fill out the form here. We will keep any information you submit safe and will ensure any personal details are only used by directors or those tasked with collecting machines. All personal data will be deleted after the minimum legal period required by a business to hold data or on request.
Thank you for your time.
