Is anyone interested in fun?

[Dave Harvey]

TL;DR Do you want to race autonomous model sailboats against other hackerspaces?

As you may have heard, think|haus has had a bumpy road lately. Membership has dropped, the space is underused and in need of general cleanup/fixup, etc. We were on the verge of closing, but have decided to give one last shot at revitalizing the space. One of the things people have suggested/requested was to have some group projects to help rebuild a sense of community. To that end, I'd like to seek feedback/expressions of interest from the various hackerspaces in Ontario for the following idea:

WHAT:

An autonomous model sailboat race. In September, think|haus would sponsor a race on Hamilton Harbour. Each hackerspace would enter a boat. If your space is extremely enthusiastic, maybe enter more than one. The rules would be simple: boats no more than 2m in length, must be powered by the wind only. 3 buoys would be placed in the Harbour setting out a triangular course. Teams would be provided the GPS co-ordinates of the 3 buoys. Boats must make it around the course without any remote control - telemetry & video links would be permitted, but no control links. Attacking other boats would not be permitted (though that may be an idea for another side competition - robot wars, boat edition).

think|haus would provide a chase boat to go out & retrieve any model sailboat that got into trouble. We'd also host a BBQ party afterwards.

WHY:

Well, I like sailing, and it's my idea, so there's that. But also, the project has roles for the electronics types, the software types, and the mechanical types who would have to all work together on a common fun project. It would likely involve laser cutting, 3D printing, woodworking, sewing, microcontroller programming, and maybe vacuum forming, fiberglass work, etc. so there would be lots of opportunity to get everyone involved regardless of skill level. It can be as simple or as complicated as you want - stick a dowel with sail made from a plastic bag  in a big hunk of foam, or meticulously model a rigid wing carbon fiber hydrofoiling catamaran - it depends on what your team wants to do.

The main reason why, though, is to have fun working on a project together over the summer, learn new things, and have a good day outdoors followed by food & beverage. Maybe this could be SoonCon 2016?

So: interested? Ideas? Suggestions? Please let me know what you think. If we're going to do this

Dave Harvey

think|haus

PS. I've tried to hit most of the southern Ontario hackerspaces that I know of & have contact info for, but if there's anyone else or another list you can think of, please feel free to forward this email.

[Matt Freund]

Sorry to hear about your troubles. Best of luck with them.

Anything you'd like to elaborate for us? It's the first I've heard of
it, and, "Learn from the mistakes of others, you won't live long
enough to make them all yourself" comes to mind. What went wrong, what
did you try, why didn't it really work (yet), that kind of stuff.

Maybe there's some advice some of us could share on the situation too.

[Dave Harvey]

Well, without getting into a long story, it can be summed up as lack of supervision. Things we learned: spaces don't run themselves, not everyone is excellent to each other, a room full of tools without a community is not a hacker space. What led to the crisis was not keeping a close enough eye on membership levels & revenue, to the point of not being able to pay the rent. 

We're addressing all of these things, and hope to turn them around by the end of the year. 

Dave

Thinkhaus 

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[Matt Freund]

We (Protospace, Calgary) had the same issue for years. We survived
financially blind, on luck. Just so happened, while knowing nothing
about our finances, to always have some in the bank. Today we have a
great system for keeping track of all of this, a membership database,
automatic payments, financial reports for us to see which way the
numbers are moving, ways for people to find out how much they owe,
etc.

A room full of tools and no community sounds like a marketing problem.
Most spaces have community but no tools and survive on charity without
providing much value. They hope to build value and attract the less
passionate and more practical members.

Sadly, in our experience marketing is a years-long thing. People don't
come out the first time they see us, they show up the 3rd time they've
heard of us. That means hitting all the events we can in the city,
over and over. It's not abnormal to hear "Oh yeah I've been meaning to
come down for 2 years..."