Best of MAKE: Top 10 Hackerspace Posts

2011 was an important year for hackerspaces, with many new spaces being founded and existing spaces growing in membership and in capabilities. The MAKE blog covered this important part of the maker scene throughout the year. Here were some of our best posts.

#10

Store Front Music: The DIY Edition — Store Front Music is a great project hackerspace CRASH Space L.A. created to let passers-by interact with the space via a musical instrument triggered by ultrasonic sensors.

#9

Mitch Altman Talks About The Hackerspace Movement — The Johnny Appleseed of hackerspaces, MAKE friend Mitch Altman talks up the scene.

#8

SpeedBall Transatlantic Balloon at Maker Faire Detroit — Louisville, KY, space LVL1 is working on a transatlantic balloon project, and brought it to Maker Faire Detroit to show off.

#7

What Does it Mean to be a Woman Hackerspace Member? — The hackerspace scene is mostly male. How can we get more women involved? We got all sorts of responses to this one, ranging from the thoughtful to the indignant.

#6

A History of the Hackerspace Movement, Circa 2008 — Hackerspace pioneers assembled a book describing the scene in its (relative) infancy. Most of 2011’s hackerspaces weren’t even around then.

#5

The Bureaucrat – A Hackerspace Passport Date-Stamping Machine — As hackerspaces spring up in (seemingly) every city, folks are visiting spaces when they’re in town. To keep track of these visits, they’re bringing “hackerspace passports” along with to get stamped. This project, “The Bureaucrat,” takes the work out of stamping by doing it automatically!

#4

Mitch Altman’s Hacker Trip to Egypt — Mitch continues his seemingly endless pilgrimage by visiting Cairo Hackerspace in Egypt.

#3

Make: Live Hackerspace Roadshow — Make: Live visits five hackerspaces around the world, checking out the scene and the spaces’ cool projects.

#2

Hackerspace Happenings: MAKE Interviews Tokyo’s Akiba — We interview Tokyo Hackerspace cofounder Akiba and hear about what his group is doing to help earthquake victims in Japan.

#1

Libraries Create Hackerspaces — Could this be the next wave of hackerspaces, and of libraries? Combine the two!