Starting a Maker Space

Resources for Creating A New Space

Use Maker Nexus Documents

Part of the Maker Nexus mission is to help other non-profit makerspaces. This wiki of information is one example. We also release all of our documents under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. You can see the material we have released at this public repository. We usually keep our documents in our members-only share while we develop them and move them into the public space when they are pretty much complete. If you want some kind of document not in the public repository, please send an email to info@makernexus.org and we'll see if we can help.

Great Examples

• Walkthrough the Urban Workshop space. A very inspiring tour.
• Why do we need makerspaces?

Organizing

• Nation of Makers US non-profit helping maker spaces.
• How-to guide from Nation of Makers, an excellent document.
• How to set your membership price
• A presentation on the process of organizing, help guiding the conversation with your initial group of friends.
• Non-profit real estate development
• APROE, a company the specializes in machine shop set-up
• Open Works Baltimore, blog on how they started
• A guide from FormLabs: Incentives and Ingredients for Building a Makerspace
• Makerspace organizing experiences
• Tax Exempt Status
• Getting City Help in Opening a Makerspace

Infrastucture

• Access Control Systems - For doors and machines
• Machine Maintenance Tracking
• Managing Your Membership List
• Scheduling Software - To make reservations
• Asset Tracking
• Maker Network is creating free software for makerspaces
• Online class repository
• Member Handbook for Maker Works.

Suites

These solutions cover several functions you might need.

• Cobot
• Club Express
• EZFacility

Tools

• An interesting concept: Standard Operating Procedures
• A great safety guide from Berkeley
• Safety training from Power Tool Institute
• Safety Training

Fixtures

• Make your own sturdy tables

Education

Links to several kinds of education:

• Basic Operation Safety Standard (BOSS) - Use a piece of equipment safely.
• Skill Improvement - Projects aimed at improving a particular maker skill. Dovetail joints, Laser Cutter use of color, 3D printer wall thickness, anything you can think of.
• Project Classes - Classes where the students build some specific thing. Personalized 3D printed key fob, book case, bird feeder, purse, etc.
• Merit Badges - Classes for scouts that help them earn a specific merit badge.
• Other
  • Gravity Games has a team of teens make a game for printing and playing in space.
  • Nuts Bolts and Things. You can host one of their camps.