Fwd: [hackerspaces] Repair Cafes - A great idea for hackerspaces

[Phillip Rhodes]

Perhaps something worth discussing @ SplatSpace? "Repair Cafes" sounds
like a pretty interesting idea...



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Buddy Smith <buddy...@ieee.org>
Date: Wed, May 9, 2012 at 12:57 PM
Subject: [hackerspaces] Repair Cafes - A great idea for hackerspaces
To: Hackerspaces General Discussion List
<dis...@lists.hackerspaces.org>, Freeside Atlanta
<freesid...@googlegroups.com>


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/world/europe/amsterdam-tries-to-change-culture-with-repair-cafes.html?_r=1

When I saw this, I immediately thought that we should begin discussing it.

A snippet:

At Amsterdam’s first Repair Cafe, an event originally held in a
theater’s foyer, then in a rented room in a former hotel and now in a
community center a couple of times a month, people can bring in
whatever they want to have repaired, at no cost, by volunteers who
just like to fix things.

Conceived of as a way to help people reduce waste, the Repair Cafe
concept has taken off since its debut two and a half years ago. The
Repair Cafe Foundation has raised about $525,000 through a grant from
the Dutch government, support from foundations and small donations,
all of which pay for staffing, marketing and even a Repair Cafe bus.

--buddy
_______________________________________________
Discuss mailing list
Dis...@lists.hackerspaces.org
http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

[Jeffrey Crews]

Hmmm... could go either way, from "OMG these peoples are amazing" to a situation where 25 people came in with totally unfixable items and were thereby disgruntled. But as a long-time scavenger and fixer I would be willing to risk it and put in the time.

JSC

PS Yesterday my boy borrowed my tools so that he could fix his math teacher's new electric pencil sharpener. I supervised- he was successful. No word yet on whether this will get him into the advanced algebra class or not.

[Dara]

I love this idea. You know that the Charlotte hackerspace does this
with repairing laptops to send to 3rd world countries for kids to use
to learn in school in? Great idea in my book.

On May 9, 5:20 pm, Jeffrey Crews <cruze...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hmmm... could go either way, from "OMG these peoples are amazing" to a
> situation where 25 people came in with totally unfixable items and were
> thereby disgruntled. But as a long-time scavenger and fixer I would be
> willing to risk it and put in the time.
>
> JSC
>
> PS Yesterday my boy borrowed my tools so that he could fix his math
> teacher's new electric pencil sharpener. I supervised- he was successful.
> No word yet on whether this will get him into the advanced algebra class or
> not.
>

> On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 2:03 PM, Phillip Rhodes <motley.crue....@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Perhaps something worth discussing @ SplatSpace?  "Repair Cafes" sounds
> > like a pretty interesting idea...
>
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: Buddy Smith <buddy.sm...@ieee.org>
> > Date: Wed, May 9, 2012 at 12:57 PM
> > Subject: [hackerspaces] Repair Cafes - A great idea for hackerspaces
> > To: Hackerspaces General Discussion List
> > <disc...@lists.hackerspaces.org>, Freeside Atlanta
> > <freesid...@googlegroups.com>
>

> >http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/world/europe/amsterdam-tries-to-cha...

>
> > When I saw this, I immediately thought that we should begin discussing it.
>
> > A snippet:
>
> > At Amsterdam’s first Repair Cafe, an event originally held in a
> > theater’s foyer, then in a rented room in a former hotel and now in a
> > community center a couple of times a month, people can bring in
> > whatever they want to have repaired, at no cost, by volunteers who
> > just like to fix things.
>
> > Conceived of as a way to help people reduce waste, the Repair Cafe
> > concept has taken off since its debut two and a half years ago. The
> > Repair Cafe Foundation has raised about $525,000 through a grant from
> > the Dutch government, support from foundations and small donations,
> > all of which pay for staffing, marketing and even a Repair Cafe bus.
>
> > --buddy
> > _______________________________________________
> > Discuss mailing list

> > Disc...@lists.hackerspaces.org
> >http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

[Jeffrey Crews]

So how do we position and/or advertise this? Start as a Meetup and see how it goes? Probably not a bad idea; that might keep it small until we figure it out.

jsc

[Drew]

I like this as well. Mainly because it'd give me the chance to try
to fix new and excitingly broken things.

I definitely like the idea of keeping it small to start. That lets us
build our own fixit capabilities as we go. This whole idea reminds me
of the way the Durham Bike coop work. Of course they only repair and
recondition bicycles. I'm curious to know how they got rolling
(ahem), their website is a bit bare on their early details. I'll
bother one of their old hands tomorrow at their public workshop and
see what I can dig up.

Best,
Drew

[Drew]

Their website is a bit tricky to find (have to search in Dutch), and
to save everyone the trouble, here it is:

http://repaircafe.nl/

and the google translate link:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=nl&u=http://repaircafe.nl/&ei=-T-rT-rxFqmf6QHXpoTDCQ&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CEUQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3DHet%2BRepair%2BCafe%2BStichting%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D612%26prmd%3Dimvns

[Scott Hall]

I'm all for the idea. You know that I like to mostly fix electronic
things as I somehow have a mechanical deficiency..

Anyway I have book that codifies a lot of what I have learned, and
adds some things I didn't, that I would like to share with all
electronics fixers:

"How To Diagnose And Fix Everything Electronic", by Michael Jay Geier
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/192-1610058-4930852?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=%22How+To+Diagnose+And+Fix+Everything+Electronic%22%2C+by+Michael+Jay+Geier
(about $15 at Amazon) -- something that I think useful enough to
add to the Splat*Space library... From the cover:
"Have fun and save money by repairing you own electronics",
"Learn to use test equipment, including the oscilloscope",
"See how an expert pinpoints circuit faults quickly"

Now I need to find a book on fixing small gas engines (like a lawn
mower engine or in my case a power washer and roto-tiller motors)...

- sgh

On 05/09/2012 11:58 PM, Drew wrote:
> I like this as well. Mainly because it'd give me the chance to
> try to fix new and excitingly broken things.
>
> I definitely like the idea of keeping it small to start. That
> lets us build our own fixit capabilities as we go. This whole
> idea reminds me of the way the Durham Bike coop work. Of course
> they only repair and recondition bicycles. I'm curious to know
> how they got rolling (ahem), their website is a bit bare on their
> early details. I'll bother one of their old hands tomorrow at
> their public workshop and see what I can dig up.
>

> On May 9, 10:32 pm, Jeffrey Crews wrote:
>> So how do we position and/or advertise this? Start as a Meetup
>> and see how it goes? Probably not a bad idea; that might keep it
>> small until we figure it out.
>>

>> On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 5:46 PM, Dara wrote:
>>> I love this idea. You know that the Charlotte hackerspace does
>>> this with repairing laptops to send to 3rd world countries for
>>> kids to use to learn in school in? Great idea in my book.
>>>
>>> On May 9, 5:20 pm, Jeffrey Crews <cruze...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Hmmm... could go either way, from "OMG these peoples are
>>>> amazing" to a situation where 25 people came in with totally
>>>> unfixable items and were thereby disgruntled. But as a long-time
>>>> scavenger and fixer I would be willing to risk it and put in the
>>>> time.
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 2:03 PM, Phillip Rhodes wrote:
>>>>> Perhaps something worth discussing @ SplatSpace? "Repair Cafes"
>>>>> sounds like a pretty interesting idea...
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>

--

Scott G. Hall
Raleigh, NC, USA
Scott...@GMail.Com

[Pete Soper]

On Tuesday somebody asked if the TI MSP430 can do PWM well and I came
across this forum article about running 16 PWM channels simultaneously
with a single timer (using a max of 2.6% of the CPU). So the answer is
"yes." :-)

http://www.43oh.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2207

However as with many aspect of this chip it requires very dirty hands vs
the corresponding black box functions available on Arduino.

Aside one: The guy that wrote this code provides a classic demonstration
of how good algorithm design tends to stomp hell out of other forms of
optimization.

-Pete

[Scott Hall]

Here is another good article on creating PWM with the on-board timers:
http://www.msp430launchpad.com/2010/07/timers-and-clocks-and-pwm-oh-my.html

[Drew]

The fine folks at the Stichting (foundation) Repair Café, have gotten back to me with some additional information / requirements.

Clearly, we need to ask them if co-branding events with Splatspace (ie Repair Cafe presented by Splatspace) would be acceptable, but that's the only big hangup I see, although if you've got questions I should forward to Meik, I'll gladly do so.

Also I've added this to our consent agenda for next month, as we're entering into a relationship with another organization and we're discussing it here.  Right?

Email text follows:

Dear Drew,

It’s wonderful that you want to start your own Repair Café in Durham!
Stichting Repair Café happily supports local groups all over the world to start their own Repair Café.

We offer the following free of charge:

·       a comprehensive information package;
·       customised advice;
·       posters and flyers;
·       publicity via our network.

All services by Stichting Repair Café are free of charge, on three conditions:

·       When we support an initiative and help to it get started, it must be called Repair Café (and not DIY workplace, Odd Job cafe or any other such name);

·       The Repair Café logo must always be used for publicity and any communications. It’s not permitted to make changes in the logo, the logo is protected by copyright.

·       Publicity and communications must always refer to www.repaircafe.org

The idea behind these conditions is that we can all jointly build up a network of active Repair Cafés, and that information about them remains together (and can therefore easily be found by outsiders) via the Repair Café site.

Before we can send you our information package we would like to receive a confirmation (through e-mail) that you agree to our conditions.

We would love to hear more about your initiative. If you have any questions please let us know.


Best regards,
Miek ten Brummelhuis.

[Nettie]

From a Recyclique/Communecos email I received today:

Repair Café: I met Sunday with three people interested in starting a “Repair Café” in Durham – http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/world/europe/amsterdam-tries-to-change-culture-with-repair-cafes.html?pagewanted=all.  This is a European model where groups of volunteers hold social events (or drive a repair café bus) to repair broken items brought by the public while teaching others how to fix things. There are now five of them in cities in the US.  We have offered to help with the organizing by sponsoring several skill-shares at our site on how to repair common household items – starting with a sewing repair workshop that will be taught by Lakisha Mauldin (one of the folks at the meeting) later this summer. Anyone out there want to teach one?  We’re scheduling another meeting in the next couple weeks, so email me if you’d like to be put on the list: yikes....@gmail.com