The 3D printer hummed merrily in the corner of the cavernous workshop while several people hunched over their laptops, intent on uploading code to the gum stick-sized embedded computer boards they’d built earlier that week.
On another table, a guy in a flannel shirt was assembling a bunch of LED-encrusted welding goggles he was making for an upcoming steampunk event. Meanwhile, back in the metal shop, a woman approached an innocent-looking battery-powered kiddie car which sat on a work table, contemplating its transformation into a fire-breathing electric race cart, capable of 30+ mph.
While this might resemble a scene from the TV series “Mr. Robot”, it’s just another Thursday night at FUBAR Labs, New Jersey’s premier Hackerspace.
Like most Hackerspaces (aka Makerspaces), the Fair Use Building and Research (FUBAR) Labs is sort of a community center with tools. Established in 2009, it was formed as a non-profit community based organization with the purpose of bringing makers, hackers, and tinkerers together to collaborate and share ideas and knowledge.
Since then, it’s attracted a diverse community of people who pay $75/month for access to the space and the chance to participate in classes, workshops, study groups, and long term projects.
On the night I visited, I encountered a neurobiologist working on an accelerometer-based motion-capture system, an English major building an electric race car, a lawyer learning to weld, and a farmer taking his first tentative steps into the world of embedded computing. The Labs also opens its doors to non-members on a regular basis, offering a Thursday “Open Hack Night” and a “Solder Sunday” program where grade-schoolers and adults alike can learn to assemble basic electric circuits.
But Hackerspaces are much more than a trendy form of recreation for the “Big Bang Theory” set. They are socially transformative because they democratize design, engineering, fabrication, and education. They make science and technology approachable and interesting for kids, and provide adults with an easy way to acquire new skills that they can apply in their personal and professional lives. They also provide a focal point for activities that get people out and involved with their communities.
Besides enabling ordinary people to create extraordinary things, they arm would-be entrepreneurs with the intellectual and technical resources needed to collaborate, create, and bring unique products to market.
Meanwhile, crowdfunding has democratized capital, enabling Makers to reach out directly to the public for the funds they need to realize their vision. As a result, there’s been a small, but rapidly-growing number of successful products that didn’t rely on a corporate design center’s approval or a big bank’s blessing for their existence. In fact, members of FUBAR Labs have already launched several successful ventures, including the highly-popular ChipKit series of DIY computer boards and accessories.
It may not be entirely coincidental that the Labs happen to be located in New Brunswick, NJ, a stone’s throw from Menlo Park, where Thomas Edison’s “Invention Factory” unleashed a series of technological wonders that transformed America’s society and economy at the close of the 19th century. Now, nearly 150 years later, Hackerspaces like FUBAR Labs are incubating a new generation of DIY entrepreneurs which are helping transform the 21st-century economy.
Do you have a DIY project you’d like to share, or a Hackerspace you’d like the world to know about? Please write me at lee.goldberg@advantagemedia.com.
This blog originally appeared in the April 2016 print issue of Product Design & Development.