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“Hack Your Half Term!”: Kids Open Afternoon @ the Space

Nothing to do during half term? Want to come and find out what you can do in a Makerspace?

One of our smaller LAMM members will be hosting an open session aimed at younger people who want to learn what a Makerspace is and there will be hands on stuff to do, play with and make. Adults also welcome, especially if accompanied by a young person 😉

When: Wednesday 17th Feb from 12pm to 5pm.

Where: LAMM Space, Unit 5 Sharpes Mill, White Cross Business Park, Lancaster, LA1 4XS

What: A whole host of interesting possibilities!

We will have small robots to play with like the MBot. You can use an app or a remote control to send it around the Space, or you can programme it to follow the path you want:

building the Mbot
Building the MBot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or maybe you want to have a go at making yourself a key ring on the laser cutter or a paper shape on the Silhouette cutter…

acrylic laser cut star keyrings
acrylic laser cut star key rings
A mirrored acrylic keyring
A mirrored acrylic keyring
rainbow paper cut skull containers
rainbow paper cut skull containers

Or have a school bag that lights up in the dark…

Backpack with electroluminescent wire
Backpack with electroluminescent wire

Or maybe you just have some almost-broken charger cables that need a little Sugru to “hack it better”…

How to fix a cable with Sugru
How to fix a cable with Sugru (from Instructables.com)

Or maybe you have something you want to take to bits to see how it’s made, or learn to solder, or learn how to use a 3D printer (we have several 3D printers in the Space).

Come with a plan, or come to experiment.

Most of all, come and be a Maker!

(For the health and safety conscious, there will be at least one adult full member present at all times, and children must be accompanied by an adult.)

 

 

Wine and Cheese Night

So recently we decided to run a Wine and Cheese night, for all the members to get together and chat, drink wine, and eat cheese! Helpful, as several of us members enjoy Cheese, Wine (or in this case, Port), and each others company.

After the initial sorting out, including Claire cutting some signs for each Cheese out of Acrylic on the Laser Cutter, we started digging in – many thanks to Ian and Claire for sourcing the Cheese, and Mark and Louis for sourcing many of the Chutneys on show.

There was a large selection of cheese, as can be seen above – the most popular was unarguably the Snowdonia Original, although the Irish Original Porter dissapeared soon after. An unusual one was the Sticky Toffee Cheddar, which was… well, sticky and tasted of toffee. Interesting in a non-disgusting way by all accounts.

All in all, a wonderful event, with only one dissapointed member – Ben the dog, who was on crumb watching duty the whole evening.

If you missed this event, and would like to see us do it again (or something completely different!) Then let us know, or if you would like to organise an event, then again, let us know!

Until next time!

Annual General Meeting

Hi All,
The time has come for us to all gather in one place for the Annual General Meeting ritual.
tl;dr:
When: Monday 15th February 2016 at 19:00 GMT
Where: Lancaster And Morecambe Makers, Unit 5 Sharpes Mill, LA1 4X
Proxy: If you can’t attend, let us know and we will arrange a proxy vote for you.
Agenda: If you have any items for the agenda, email them to lammspace@gmail.com.
Deadlines: Monday 8th of February at 19:00 GMT is the deadline for agenda items, registering for proxy voting and for board nominations.
Details:
What is this? We are required to meet once a year for the board to present the accounts, elect board members and discuss any items of significance that the members wish to raise. This is your chance to have your say in how the hackspace is run and decide on directions for the future.

Why should I attend? We will be discussing the future of the hackspace and importantly will be asking you the members to approve a new legal document on how the hackspace is run. We need a 75% majority of the membership to approve this for it to pass and be adopted. Also we’ll have some snacks and drinks for socialising afterwards 🙂
What legal document? The running of the ‘Lancaster And Morecambe Makers’ like all limited companies is governed by a document called the ‘Articles of Association’. When we founded the company, we chose to accept the model articles which are generic which is why we now want to change them for articles that have specifically been written with the hackspace in mind.
Why is this legal document thingy important? The articles of association set out the terms by which the company operates, how and when we elect board members, the purpose of the organisation and importantly how we hold elections. This document is the agreement between the board and the members for how the board should run the company on your behalf.
Where can I find the existing articles of association to read them? https://github.com/lammspace/documentation/blob/master/articles/Lancaster_And_Morecambe_Makers_M%26A.pdf
Where can I find the new articles of association to read them? https://github.com/lammspace/documentation/blob/master/articles/Proposed-Lancaster_And_Morecambe_Makers_M%26A.pdf
Printed copies of both of these documents are available for review in the hackspace, please don’t remove them 🙂
What should I do if I have questions about the changes in the Articles of Association? Please email lammspace@gmail.com with your questions as soon as possible, we’d very much like to avoid discussion of the details on the night of the meeting and want people to read these documents well before the meeting. The motion in front of the meeting will be to accept the new articles so please ask your questions early.
Who are the board and what do they do? The board is the group elected members responsible for the legal aspects of running the hackspace. This includes sorting out accounts, making sure our bills are paid and ensuring we have somewhere to hack.
How do people get on the board? The board is currently made up of the inaugural members of the hackspace. Our new articles of association say that we have to all step down at this AGM so that the members have the option to nominate and elect different people.
All the board are standing down at the AGM, why is that? At the moment the board aren’t elected and as such, we will all be standing down at the AGM because we want the members to make the decision on who those people should be. This is stated in the new articles of association that we hope to adopt at the meeting.
How do I nominate someone for election to the board and is there a deadline? You need to send an email tolammspace@gmail.com with your nomination. Nominations will only be accepted from and for current members of the hackspace and only if the person nominated is willing to stand for election. The deadline for nominations is at 19:00 on Monday 8th of February 2016.
When will this take place? Monday 15th of February 2016 at 19:00.
Where will this take place? The Hackspace, Unit 5 Sharpes Mill, LA1 4XS
What if I can’t attend? Let us know and we will sort out proxy voting for you and give your apologies for being unable to attend. You need to let us know if you want to proxy vote by 19:00 on Monday 8th of February 2016 so that we can get you the paperwork and have it returned before the meeting.
I want to talk about a thing, what should I do? Reply to this email before Monday 8th of February so that your item for discussion can be placed on the agenda. The agenda for the meeting will be announced in advance of the meeting and we won’t be taking new items for discussion on the night to keep the meeting short and focused. The reason for the deadline is that we need to circulate the agenda in advance and allow those who are unable to attend the ability to vote.
Look forward to seeing you on the 15th of February for this important inaugural meeting.
Kind regards,
Ian on behalf of the board.

LAMM Membership

Hey All,

This is not going to be a short message, however I will get straight to the point: We need more members. Without any more members, then there is a strong possibility that we will not be here in the next few months. So, if you are already a paying member, well done! Continue being awesome. If you are not a paying member, or know someone who would like to become a member, then please join up here: LAMM Membership Request

We have two payment levels, which depend on your circumstances.

The first one is the Standard Membership – this is £25 a month, and will get you full access to the space, meaning you can come and go as you want to work on your own projects.

The second one is for the following:

  • Young Members  – for those under 16, and will require a guardian present.
  • Student Members – those who are still in full time Education, at University, College, or another education establishment.
  • Supporting Members – for those who want to support the space.

This payment level is £10 a month, and in the case of the Young or Student member, will get you full access to the space as you would in the Standard Membership. The Supporting Member is meant for people who are not close enough to Lancaster to make use of the space, but would like to support us to allow us to keep doing awesome things.

To join, please go and fill in the following form, and we will get back to you as soon as possible with payment details!

LAMM Membership Request

Thanks,

Tom and all the Board at LAMM.

More ballz

As part of the continuing Manchester MakeFest preparations, and in particular the Amazeballs challenge from Manchester HACMan tonight I completed the next step of my marble (well pinball) run drop.

This is a large version of the version 2 Lammballz. So essentially a Version 3 Lammballs and is 555mm by 300mm made from a combination of perspex and birch.

Big thanks to the ever-wonderful Tom Bloor for help with the setting on the laser cutter, design done as always in Inkscape. Images of the unfinished (needs lots of glue/fixings) version with business card for scale, below.

20150617_204911

I Made a Thing

So last night I made a thing at the hackspace and although it is relatively simple and small I am inordinately proud of the thing that I made.

You may, or may not, have heard that there is a Makers event in Manchester (Manchester MakeFest, I believe this to be a faire or carnival of makers) that is to be held at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) on the 11-12th August. For that event the folks at Manchester HackSpace have created a AmazeBalls challenge and we at LAMM are trying to create something for it.

My small part in this is to create a small pair of ball drops. One of which I am cutting out of wood using the laser cutter and the other I am making from scratch (predominately) using a 3D printer. This challenge is a great way for me to start to play with both Laser and 3D printing.

Last night I designed a simple rail in Inkscape.

screen-shot-2015-06-11-at-14-25-20

I then took the simple rail and extruded it in OpenSCAD with a lot of patient and generous help from Tom Bloor (who guided this old duffer through the openSCAD way of doing things).

screen-shot-2015-06-11-at-14-26-00

screen-shot-2015-06-11-at-14-26-20

And then I sliced the resulting stl files in the 3D printer softare.

screen-shot-2015-06-11-at-14-27-25

Then I printed and played with them as they seem to work 😉

20150610_210705_012-animation

20150610_203541_1

It was a great achievement, I said it was small, for me and it was another example of how a place like the Lancaster Space can inspire you to create using a variety of tools even if you are new to them or an ‘old duffer’ like me. Thanks all for the pointers and help, a big thanks to Tom for all his gentle tutelage.

Stamp It

There was a small, determined, and succesful combined effort at the Lancaster Space this week.

Stamps

Those of you familiar with the MakerSpaces will know that there is a MakerSpace Passport. This is a copy of a traditional passport with the idea that you fill it with stamps from the various hackspaces you visit.

Hackspaces themselves are encouraged to make stamps for the visitors.

We at LAMM took this into hand and made a collective effort amongst some of the members to make a stamp for the Space and for the LAMM people.

Make It

  • Darren provided us with some laser-ready rubber from which to create the stamps.
  • Claire checked online for the details and did the organising of data and information.
  • Mark designed the logo in Inkscape.
  • Tom designed the handle and performed the Laser and 3D printer duties.
  • Ian drank coffee and cola and made jokes when we forgot to reverse the first cut.

The end result is something we are proud of and also means we have now costed the time, effort, process for creating custom stamps, which is another service we can provide or that we can teach to local people.

The Wonderful Chaps at Andrews and Arnold

andrews_and_arnold_ispStarting a Hackspace is a daunting task, there is the finding of a space itself, the tools, members, and then the inevitable bills to pay. Hackspaces tend to be run as businesses, as such they are liable to pay rates, they usually have rent, there is power and then the associated costs. There is little left over for luxuries such as Internet, which is a shame as the Internet and connectivity is an essential need in the modern world.[1]

We discovered that our budgets would likely suffer if we had to get an internet connection, however we approached some providers for their rates and explained our situation. That’s when those wonderful chaps at Andrews and Arnold came through for us.

Andrews and Arnold are renown in the community as a professional internet provider. They are not the cheapest service, and there is a reason for that, they focus on quality and not cutting corners or reducing customer service or satisfaction. For the Lancaster and Morecambe Makers they have generously agreed to provide us with a year of internet provision to help us establish ourselves.

We at LAMM and the Space in Lancaster are humbled by the generosity and it will help us settle and establish in our first year. We will raise a merry toast to our Internet Sponsors at Andrews and Arnold.

[1] This is especially true if you are trying to be a digital/creative hub and work space.

Bedside lighting

I am new to the whole hacking, making, playing, soldering and generally hands-on construction and so my time at the hackspace is always a steep learning curve.

One of the projects that I have been tinkering with was to take a couple of old, well toys really – but toys for me as an adult, and make them into something new. What i decided to do was build a bedside light with two switches, some ultra-bright LEDs and a blue LED. The toys were a Doctor (model of David Tennant’s doctor) and a TARDIS safe (that had stopped functioning).

I basically ripped the electronic guts out including the microchip board, added a bit of lego and Sugru’d LEGO in the TARDIS and to David’s feet so he would stand upright, and then made a board for the 5 lights in the doorway. A little tinkering with a drill got me the holes for two switches, a push button for the decorative lights and a two stage switch for the main ultra-brights, and we were done.

I have re-used something and made a useful light for my bedside. It is hardly on the same scale as the hacked sensors that have appeared on this blog in the last week, but I am still moderately pleased with the result.