Some questions for the Biolab Automation & Robotics Community Project

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

Hi all,

We have another community meeting coming up this Saturday, and the topic of non-members in community projects is bound to come up yet again. So I figured I would poll you about how things are going in the Biolab Automation & Robotics Community Project, to help me be a better advocate for the community projects.

Couple questions for you - feel free to give me your best guess:

- How many people do you typically have show up for the meetup on Sundays?

- How many first-timers, on average?

- How many people who are regular contributors, but not members?

- How many people would you claim have become members thanks to the Lab Automation project?

- Are you charging anything? If not, do you have any specific mechanism to collect money for the project?

- How many of your non-member regulars would object to paying a small fee ($10?) per meetup (first 1 or 2 visits are free)

And a couple more open-ended ones:

- Any suggestions for how best to deal with newbies?

- Any suggestions for how best to "upgrade" regular project contributors to members?

- Any suggestions on working with non-members in the wetlab?

- Any suggestions for making the Lab Automation group even more successful?

Thanks a bunch!

Patrik

[Alex Alekseyenko]

Things are going well. We've started to meet up multiple times during the week and we're making lots of progress. In response to the questions:

• 5ish
  
• 1ish
  
• 4ish
  
• 0ish
  
• No charge. When we have something we need to build, we bring it up with the group and people volunteer to cover the cost
  
• I'd have to ask them. In my case, it wouldn't be a big deal because I'll be spending the gas money driving down on Sundays anyway. But since most are driving down from SF or thereabouts, it might make less sense to meet up in Sunnyvale on Sundays
  

- Any suggestions for how best to deal with newbies?

I've been especially mediocre on this point. I think that, ideally, one would have things prepared such that newcomers can get started working on something right away

- Any suggestions for how best to "upgrade" regular project contributors to members?

The following doesn't really apply in our case, since we mostly just need Wi-Fi and 120VAC, but I think it's pretty easy to make the case for someone who has a project that requires what the lab offers. Also, if we had classes and membership somehow counted toward classes, we'd have more members, more students, more classes, and so on

- Any suggestions on working with non-members in the wetlab?

Don't have experience working with non-members in the wetlab

- Any suggestions for making the Lab Automation group even more successful?

Start working more with all of the other similarly aimed projects. Develop a process for getting newcomers involved. Start using the robot for laboratory automation so that we get more members :D

Thanks for taking the initiative!

Alex

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

Hm - so there are no members involved in the project at the moment, and there are no new members being created? 

That doesn't really sound like what the community project were intended to do. The whole goal for the community projects was to get new people in the door, allow them to start participating right away, and eventually attract them as new members. 

I think we should consider having a separate membership fee structure for people who don't use the wetlab. This has come up with the bioprinter project as well, since we've been spending so long upgrading the hardware, and we can't do much in the wetlab unless we have enough people who have safety training. 

How close are you guys to being able to start using the robot for something in the lab? 

To better serve newcomers, would it be useful to have a cheap robot arm that people could play with? Seems like it would be useful to integrate a general-purpose arm into the larger robot anyway.

Patrik

[Alex Alekseyenko]

Yep, I'd say that's a fair assessment. I can't say that people haven't been introduced to BioCurious as a result of this project (or that people who walked in on a Sunday morning didn't decide to become members), but I don't have any knowledge of it

I didn't realize there was a mission statement for community projects, but that sounds like a reasonable goal. My assumptions was that having active projects at all would help to make the space relevant, and that just having new people come through the door would be net positive (snack money, donations, word-of-mouth, making the space feel more active, etc.)

I definitely support having a membership for people not using the wet lab. I think this would make membership make more sense to more people

I would guess we're a couple of months away from having the robot do useful work in the wet lab

The robot arm is absolutely in our backlog. We still have some work to do on the software side before we can integrate the arm in a useful way, but it would be helpful to start working on that module independently. Any suggestions for a good, entry-level arm?

[Dietrich Dehlinger]

I'm somewhat involved, and am also a member.

 

In general, I think it is a hard sell to get people to pay $100 a month when they don't need a lab. At that point they can bail and go to a place like Hacker dojo for free. Unfortunately it seems an all or nothing proposition. Biocurious doen't really even officially appear to ask for donation in the space itself, all we have is a a little box that asks you to pay $1 for drinks. We probably need a large banner that says something like "Biocurious exists on the funding from memberships and donations. Please consider becoming a member or donating $10 when you visit." There should be one in the entryway and one in the main room.

[Alex Alekseyenko]

Agreed on all points

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

All excellent points.

One of the main reasons for people in the lab automation group to stay here should be that it's a *lab* automation project. So the sooner we can link what people are working on in the robotics side to actual experiments requiring a lab, the better.

I've long been thinking of buying a collapsible tophat or something, so we could literally "pass the hat" at events. I love having more people working in the space, but we had never expected to have this many non-members working on projects.

To avoid any criticism that we're not "pulling our weight", I think we should try to at least make the community projects self-sustaining, not only in terms of buying equipment for the projects, but also in covering the overhead for BioCurious during those hours. Next time I see the BioC financials, I'll try to do a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation of what BioC's burn rate per hour is, just to keep the lights on and take out the trash etc. for a couple extra hours.

Patrik

PS: Just ordered a top hat to pass around. I may buy another donation box for the space as well - I think I got the last one at OfficeMax or something.

On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 8:43 AM, Dietrich Dehlinger <ddeh...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

The robot arm is absolutely in our backlog. We still have some work to do on the software side before we can integrate the arm in a useful way, but it would be helpful to start working on that module independently. Any suggestions for a good, entry-level arm?

There's a nice $185 industrial robot arm on Kickstarter right now:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ufactory/uarm-put-a-miniature-industrial-robot-arm-on-your

I also like EZ-Robot, because you can just buy their Developers Kit with all the electronics (including some very reasonably priced high torque servos), and then download STL's to 3D print all the mechanical components. Very modular system, so you can build anything from hexapod walker to a 13 DOF robot hand, and they have a nice GUI that allows you to build and control all sorts of different configurations.

I haven't played with either of these yet, but they've both gotten a lot of positive press lately, and they're what I've personally been drooling for.

There's also some cheaper toy robot arms available, like this $40 Robotic Arm Engineering Kit. No idea how useful this one would be, but it might come in handy to kickstart newbies on controlling a robot, especially once you replace that controller box with an Arduino.

Patrik

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

Hi guys,

Wonder whether you've had the chance to discuss the issue of having a $50 non-wetlab membership at the lab automation meeting last Sunday. Or of asking for donations on a more consistent basis. (You may have noticed I brought in a second donation box on Saturday, which I'm planning to label with Diethrich's suggested "Biocurious is funded by memberships and donations. Please consider becoming a member or donating $10 when you visit.")

I'm just trying to brainstorm some ways to improve things, and the issue with having regular non-members comes up every week in my own bioprinter community project as well - so please don't feel I'm picking on the lab automation group! Personally, I think the more people we get in the door, the merrier. But I do think we should be able to offer a better path to "upgrade" those people to members. And it would be good to at least be able to cover the small marginal cost to BioC to keep the non-wetlab side of the space open for those couple of extra hours - which would make it much easier to tell the occasional naysayers to shut up. ;-)

Patrik

[Dietrich Dehlinger]

Donation box is a good start.  I was thinking the text should be on a banner a couple of feet tall and 10 feet long above the whiteboards. In my opinion,  we need more than a whispered suggestion. The exact text can be up for discussion,  but I need a big prop that has biocurious behind me. Otherwise I'm too much of a wuss to push it.

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

For me, it's not so much needing moral support to ask for donations - more a need of a physical reminder so I don't forget to do so.

Let's see how the donation box works. I was thinking of putting it either on the table closest to the entrance so it's the first thing see when people enter he main space (at least during community projects and other events), or on the front desk next to the signup sheets.

I also just got my collapsible tophat, which I'll be labeling on the rim with "Feed the Hat - Feed the Lab. Leave a donation to help support your community projects".

Patrik

[Jenney Choi - McNaughton]

This conversation is interesting and very helpful, thanks for starting it Patrik.

My two cents:

We need to cultivate a culture of donation/volunteering/giving not just when it comes to community projects, but with BioCurious as a whole.

Right now the model for BioCurious seem to be rather transactional where some ppl think of BioCurious membership like a gym membership. I think that's a mistake to create a product/service/consumer model for non-profit community lab. 

Definitely more obvious signage about donations and contributions is needed at BioCurious. Also I think we need to change the dialogue entirely at many levels.

Instead of saying anything is "free", we emphasize the "by donation" always.

I think it's important to have community projects that are open to the community. And I don't mean the current members/volunteers. When I first started at BioCurious, the way community projects were explained to me was that there was some aspect of an outreach project. And this aspect really appealed to me, because one of the reasons I was volunteering at BioCurious was because I wanted to contribute to something in my immediate community of Sunnyvale. I know many people come quite a distance to come to BioCurious, so obviously it's not the only reason to get involved. But for myself personally, it was a real bonus.

IMHO, I don't think that the current community projects need to justify their existence or show some kind of non-member to member conversion. That being said, the number of people who have become members via the biolab automation community projects is not actually zero. I can think of two off the top of my head, though I'm uncertain that they are still both current members (Micheon Eubanks, Avinash Rajput). I'm not certain about Micheon, but Avi is no longer a member.

The non-member participation should not be a cause of contention when there is no wet lab component. I think if the community projects open the door to non-members where they get more exposure to BioCurious and then become members, that's just a bonus. Really, BioCurious should be a place where curiosity is sparked and once you're in the door you can't help but want to be more involved.  

I think the only community project in the past that created issues was the Bioluminescence project, because there was a strong wet lab component. It created issues of competition for lab space (with members), increased usage of lab consumables (which cost money), and safety compliance issues where people without safety orientation were not always well supervised in the lab (increases liability). Ultimately Biolum was not put on hiatus not because of any of those reasons, but rather no one stepped up to lead the group after Cameron could not. Since people take their time/money to travel to BioCurious, it seems rather bad form when we don't have anything properly organized for them.   

The actionable things coming from this discussion:

1) Increased signage and receptacles re: donations. 

2) Change the Meetup events to include the language "By donation".

3) Seek all avenues where people can donate, i.e. drinks in the fridge, snacks, even the BioCurious stickers* that are now "free" can be "by donation.

I can't help so much on (1) though it sounds like Patrik has that well underway. But I can deal with (2) if that's okay? I'd like to propose (3) to the board and the Fundraising working group. 

* The current stickers are relatively expensive. We could have different stickers that are cheaper and come in rolls for promotional/marketing use at events like Maker Faire. Other orgs like Hacker Dojo have higher quality stickers that they sell and less expensive stickers that they give away. I know a very small thing, but to me it's about cultivating giving in as many ways as possible, while keeping things financially sustainable.

[Dietrich Dehlinger]

In addition, put up something like a paypal address to receive donations.

[Jenney Choi - McNaughton]

That's a great idea (re: Paypal), I'll set it up.

[Jenney Choi - McNaughton]

Well I've asked Eri and Tito if it's okay to use the Paypal account in the Meetup description. I didn't want to use the Meetup Payment system, bec. it looks too much like we're charging for the Meetup.

[Patrik D'haeseleer]

By the way, we got $25 in the new donation box at the last BioPrinter meeting - just by having it sit there prominently displayed at the entrance to the main space. I had "primed the pump" by putting in a $20 myself first - it's always easier to get people to donate when they see other people have done so as well. Feel free to drop in a $10 and take it out again at the end ;-)

I didn't explicitly pass the tophat last week, but it's sitting on the small book rack next to the first lab bench on the right.

Also, Shashank was strongly opposed to asking people if they would be ok with a $50 non-wetlab membership. He says he needs to do some financial modeling around that first, and doesn't want to set an expectation that $50 will be the final number. Personally, I don't see the big deal, but since he's stepped up to figure out our financials, I'd recommend we honor his request. There's no hurry in nailing down that number anyway.

Patrik

[Jenney Choi - McNaughton]

Sweet! Small things can make a big difference. 

Do we still have the donation flask at the front desk where people sign in? I have a rather large Erlenmeyer flask at home that isn't doing anything and can get it to you Thursday if more large flasks are needed.

 

[Jenney Choi - McNaughton]

The flask not as large as the really big one, but maybe there isn't enough space at the front desk.

[patrikd]

Not sure I've seen the donation flask lately. It may just be sitting at the front desk.

The flask is cute, but it doesn't send an obvious "please donate" message like the box does.

Patrik

Sent from my Samsung Epic™ 4G Touch

[Jenney Choi - McNaughton]

But the flask had a sign on it saying something like "please donate" ... not sure. We did/do get some donations in it just by virtue of being at the front.

[Jenney Choi - McNaughton]

I'm not suggesting we have donation flasks all over the lab though.

[Anitha Bodepudi]

For the past few months, I've never seen it upfront... but rather sitting on the ground behind the desk.

Flask or box, it'd be nice for the suggestion to be more powerful than it has previously. If it's presence is acknowledged at each gathering in a formal way, I think the likelihood of accruing donations would go up.

Cheers!
Anitha

[Alex Alekseyenko]

Sorry for the slow communication. I was out of town and now I'm catching up on emails

Just out of curiosity, who are the "occasional naysayers" you're referencing? I've heard nothing but positive things so far

I'm entirely in agreement with what's been said above and below on the topic of donations. People are willing to support our cause and we should make it easier for them to do so

I would be happy to sign up for a non-wet lab membership, since I'm going to be there every Sunday regardless. I'm not sure if you were suggesting that other regulars would sign up for this membership as well(?) I ask because I don't know if it would make much sense for someone to become a member if they're driving down from SF once every two weeks to use our Wi-Fi for three hours (lately we've been meeting more often in the SF area, so I suspect it might only discourage folks from attending the Sunday meetups)

Anyway, I'm happy to help and I'm glad that we're having a conversation about this. Thanks everyone!