Maker Nexus History: Difference between revisions

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September 1, 2021 we reopen the makerspace in 21,000 square feet at 1330 Orleans Drive, Sunnyvale, California. We are building it bigger and better than ever!
September 1, 2021 we reopen the makerspace in 21,000 square feet at 1330 Orleans Drive, Sunnyvale, California. We are building it bigger and better than ever!


A $1m capital campaign in 2022 let Maker Nexus build walls, electrical, dust collection and more into the location.
As of November 2022 Maker Nexus had about 325 paying members.


== We're Open at 234 ==
== We're Open at 234 ==

Revision as of 16:31, 22 November 2022

We Move to 1330

September 1, 2021 we reopen the makerspace in 21,000 square feet at 1330 Orleans Drive, Sunnyvale, California. We are building it bigger and better than ever!

A $1m capital campaign in 2022 let Maker Nexus build walls, electrical, dust collection and more into the location.

As of November 2022 Maker Nexus had about 325 paying members.

We're Open at 234

In April 2019 we opened a full makerspace in 7,000 square feet at 234 East Caribbean Drive, Sunnyvale, California.

In March 2020 we close for the COVID pandemic. We quickly switch to use our equipment and community to make face shields and face masks to give away. We make and give away over 80,000 face shields all across the country. The memorialized site

June 2020 we reopen with limited total attendance and strict social distancing protocols.

December 2020 COVID protocols close us again.

January 2021 We reopen, again with limited total attendance. At least we're open!

August 2021 We close to make a move to a much bigger location, just three blocks from our existing place.

The History - Town Halls

The 6 member Maker Nexus (MN) board has been working on our plan since the day TechShop closed. We've had the help of several other people. We would be happy to have a board member speak to any group that is interested in our new shop.

To get the shop open we need a minimum of 150 members and $125,000 in donations. You can track our progress on the Maker Nexus web site.

  • March 28, 2018: We appreciate the Homebrew Robotics Club for letting us talk at their monthly members meeting. It's a spirited group of people, passionate about home built robots. The meeting was very interesting. The presentation is online.
  • March 11, 2018: We met at the Art Ventures Gallery in Menlo Park. A great location for a meetup like this (with some great maker-like photographic art on exhibit). About 35 people were there with 10 new people. You can view the slides online
  • February 25, 2018: We met again in the Palo Alto Riconada Library. We had about 50 people, more than half of whom were new. We updated the community with our progress in securing a location, including information on two sites we are pursuing. You can view the slides here.
  • February 15, 2018: We met in Palo Alto Riconada Library. We had about 40 people, many new faces. Eric's update included information on our site selection and equipment acquisition. You can view the slides online.
  • January 28, 2018: We held our second town hall. (Thanks to [https://altoschool.org/ Alto International School). About 40 new faces showed up. It was a lively crowd with a lot of laughs and questions. This community is really amazing.
  • January 19, 2018: We held our first open town hall meeting. (Thanks to Hacker Dojo for hosting us.) About 80 people attended - the room was packed with some people sitting on the floor.

History of Makerspaces in general

Craig Colvin started The Sawdust Shop in 2005 and The Crucible was the only maker space that he knew of in the Bay Area. They started in 1999 and moved to Oakland in 2003. There were 11 other shops around the country at the time that he could find.

After he opened he would get a few calls a month from others around the country who wanted to start something similar. There were a few contacts in 2006, but most that actually opened were in 2007 and 2008.

Jim Newton and Ridge McGhee visited Craig in early 2006 wanting to do a Battle Bot space where people could build and battle robots. He suggested that the market size for such an endeavor would probably not sustain the business and suggested they expand their plan to include other disciplines. They would come back a couple more times and they eventually settled on the plan for the TechShop which opened that October.