When I was in second or third grade my dad built me a pretty cool fort. It consisted of two 4×8 rooms with walls made out of particle board and floors covered with giant rubber mats (old printing blankets from my dad’s work). It had an Army cot for sleeping and a long piece of PVC pipe that ran from the back window out into the creek that my friends and I could pee in. (When mom found out about the PVC pipe she made us get rid of it.) <\/p>\n

It’s easy to forget the details of a place like that, but you never forget the feelings associated with it. I miss those feelings. <\/p>\n

A Hackerspace, as defined by Wikipedia, is “a real (as opposed to virtual) place where people with common interests, usually in science, technology, or digital or electronic art can meet, socialise and collaborate. A hackerspace can be viewed as an open community lab, workbench, machine shop, workshop and\/or studio where people of diverse backgrounds can come together to share resources and knowledge to build\/make things.”<\/p>\n

The original hackerspace (as far as I am concerned) is the now infamous L0pht<\/a>. According to legend, the L0pht was originally formed back in the early 1990s when one of the group’s members (Brian Oblivion) was forced to relocate his extra computer equipment. “[He] had so many computers in the bathroom that his wife couldn\u2019t use it anymore.” (Link<\/a>) The L0pht originally referred to their organization as a “hacker think tank,” which is, to me, the point of a Hackerspace.<\/p>\n

The Wikipedia entry on Hackerspaces<\/a> lists around a dozen examples. The vast majority of these are warehouses that have been converted into places where people can work on projects, play games, or just hang out.<\/p>\n

I want one. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I recently found a usable space within 10 miles of my house. It’s right at 2,000 square feet, and with utilities (meaning electricity and Internet) would run me around $1,000\/month. Now all I need to get it off the ground are 9 other people who are willing to kick in $100\/month for their share of the space (or 4 people willing to kick in $200 …) Oh, and a cool name. Every hackerspace has a cool name. I was thinking Pee Wee’s Playhouse, but the domain is already taken. :\/<\/p>\n

In my mind I see weekly meetings and weekend bashes\/build parties. I see an entertainment area, with music and big video screens. I see a classroom area and a computer lab where people could learn and experiment and do all kinds of crazy things. I see late night gaming tournaments. I see open houses where my friends and I could show off our creations. I see lots and lots of shelves, full of old hardware and nuts and bolts and cool things with wires sticking out of them. I see killer robots. I don’t even know how to make a killer robot, but if I’m paying for this much real estate, I guess it’s time to learn.<\/p>\n

Really what I need is someone to talk me out of this stupid idea. <\/p>\n

More information: Hackerspaces.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was in second or third grade my dad built me a pretty cool fort. It consisted of two 4×8 rooms with walls made out of particle board and floors covered with giant rubber mats (old printing blankets from my dad’s work). It had an Army cot for sleeping and a long piece of PVC pipe that ran from the back window out into the creek that my friends and I could pee in. (When mom found out about the PVC pipe she made us get rid of it.) It’s easy to forget the details of a place like… (read more)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}