Maker Nexus History
Where is home?
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.
How we started
Genesis
The day TechShop closed in November 2017, a number of staff and members went to a local beer garden to hold an impromptu wake. All lamented the loss of our makerspace. TechShop had not created a connected community and we were all afraid this group of like minded individuals would dissipate into the ether. The fact was, we didn't even know each other's last names. We didn't have email addresses. There was no Facebook group - no way to keep in touch to start something new.
There was a lot of loose talk about doing something new, getting rich sponsors, leaning on local governments - plenty of ideas, some better than others; some people more committed to doing something than others. Jim Schrempp remembers finding a few people who talked thoughtfully and realistically about what it would take to create a new makerspace.
Through the evening there coalesced a group of 5 people who decided to do something together: Robert Smith, Regina Sakols, Kirsten Winklebauer, Eric Hess, Jim Schrempp. They agreed to meet every weekend, and that next Sunday Jim hosted the first meeting of what became the "steering committee" at Angela Mallett's home in San Carlos. Two weeks later James Pistorino joined the steering committee. In January 2018, MN incorporated as non-profit in California and James opened a bank account so we could start raising money.
The first order of business was to form some connections between all the people who used TechShop; this would be the core of our new community. Eric and Jim formed a Facebook group called TechShop Orphans and Jim set up a free Mailchimp account so we could send emails to keep people informed. We started collecting interested people.
Much of what we did in the early days has been captured here to help other organizations get started.
Our History - Town Halls
The 6 member Maker Nexus (MN) board had been working on our plan since the day TechShop closed. We had the help of several other people. We offered to have a board member speak to any group that was interested in our new shop.
To get the shop open we decided we needed a minimum of 150 members and $125,000 in donations. The public could track our progress on the Maker Nexus web site.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
- March 23, 2018: Thanks to Art Ventures Gallery in Menlo Park for hosting us again. The presentation can be viewed online
- March 28, 2018: We appreciated 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.
The Formal Organization
You can read about the formal history of the organization.
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.