Hi there,
I just moved to Beacon, NY from Kingston[grew up in Duchess, bounced back and forth from MHV to NYC and back], ran across Squidwrench on one of the hackerspaces website.
The TI Launchpad prodded me to finally take the plunge into experimenting with circuits. After ordering a handful of them to play with, I discovered TI's free sample policy and went a little overboard....a bunch of different RF chips, a couple processors, etc. Unfortunately, being new I ended up with a lot of SMD chips, so I'm gonna be learning a lot of interesting new stuff.
I figured I'd also ask what local sources there are for components, and what websites people like to order from.
Sparkfun, Adafruit, etc are interesting and have some good, easy to use stuff.
Beyond that, http://www.newark.com/ seems to be good for components, there's another site I ran across which had cheap SMD to DIP breakout boards and components. Scientific America is ok for some stuff. Beyond that, I'm still looking around. Just got my first breadboard today, so I can start experimenting this weekend. Soldering iron coming over the weekend.
I'd also love to find local space for co-working/hacking. There is a local co-working center in Beacon, Beahive - but it's really for working at, not soldering chips and hacking around.
-Gary
Oh, I forgot to include parameters on my desire for workspace.
It doesn't have to be office quiet. I am looking for something with 24x5-7 access as I tend to work when inspiration strikes. Internet access is a must.
If in Beacon[ie walking distance], up to $250/month. Outside of Beacon, $100/month.
Gary,
Good to see you back in the area. Maria says "Hi!"
-Keith
We're still looking for a permanent home for our tools and activities. If you find something, feel free to post here and start a discussion. I will start doing the same again soon. If we can get some decent leads, several of us are willing to throw in toward a reasonable workshop type space. I (and I believe a few others) are also willing to share our tools and supplies as well.
Oh, yeah, and welcome to the sqwr forum. (-:
Hey Keith, good to hear from you. You should be able to email me via the forum....things are settling down. See ya soon.
Is there a location requirement for others looking for space or would Beacon be fine?
As long as we can get internet and wifi, since I can use space as an office as well as for hacking around, the amount I can spend is higher when it is closeby. :-)
It all depends, really. We have some folks coming from Kingston or Pine Plains area which would be about a 45min commute. I've been (somewhat selfishly) trying to focus in the Pok area because it's convenient for me and somewhat central. Still, if you find something in Beacon that you're willing to share, there's no harm in posting. At the very least, we could get a good discussion of requirements/commitment going.
The only thing I'm aware of that sounds affordable is this place, http://hudsonvalley.craigslist.org/off/2677527112.html - equally inconvenient for both Poughkeepsie and Beacon, but only 500/month for 1200 square feet.
This place has been up for a while, http://www.loopnet.com/Listing/14632358/20-West-Main-Street-Beacon-NY/ but even for only 1000 square feet, its still almost 1k/month which seems a little too high. OTOH since it's been up for a while they may be willing to go with a smaller subdivision at this point.
Of the 2, I'd lean towards the first one.
Hi Gary and Keith!
Here's a $700 space in Highland. http://hudsonvalley.craigslist.org/off/2711963415.html
Many hack and wack spaces have memberships set up for different levels. As in full time, pay a lot and come in and hang out sometimes, pay less.
Highland is somewhat central to many of us, but yeah, far away from Beacon. Are you moving back to Kingston any time soon? :)
Naaah.. moved to Beacon because I need to be commuting from NYC for work...and with the kids going to school in Brewster, it's unlikely I'll move away anytime soon.
I particularly like 3rd Ward, http://www.3rdward.com/ but cost is always dependent on how many active members a group can get, how many courses the group can run to raise outside funds, etc.
In any case, Highland is only half an hour away, so it's just as doable for me as is Poughkeepsie. I think that far away, my price range is 50-100/month. As in I would definitely do 50/month but might go up to 100/month if there was a good bit of equipment there.
It's not close enough to serve as an office for day to day work. Something close enough for that, I know I for one can do at least 150/month and possibly up to 250/month[considering Beahive runs 250/month for an office and would not be conducive to hardware hacking].
Got a return email about the place off Lime Kiln Road...gonna check it out early in Decemember and hopefully can chat about it in person one of these days at a meeting as life settles down.
Oh, as another possibility, apparently the old Beacon High School has been turned into "commercial studios".. space available varies, anywhere between 200sq feet and 2000 sq feet[not sure how "big" that is - my mind doesn't work that way....could be why I was never really good at Warhammer... :-)] That's located near downtown Beacon, at the intersection of Verplank Ave and Fishkill Ave.
Pricing there is 1.25/sq foot/month... so that would be from 250/month to 2,500 month[though I can't imagine needing 2k square feet?], so some quick breakdowns would be:
200 sq feet: 250/month
300 sq feet: 375/month
400 sq feet 500/month
800 sq feet: 1000/month
1000 sq feet: 1250/month
Includes utilities but not internet. I'll check out the spaces next week to get a better idea of usability at least for myself.
Once we're in the $2k/mo range there are several listings in Poughkeepsie in the < ~$1/sqft/mo range. Unfortunately, that's a little more than I'm confident we could support just yet...
Do you have an idea of what price range would be ok and the amount of space we would need?
Hi Gary-
Since we've only got about 5 members that come all the time, I'm thinking $700 range would be sustainable and 700+ square feet.
I'm sure others will comment as well.
Sophi
I'm shooting from the hip a bit here but $700 seems pretty reasonable to me for now. I suspect that we could get by effectively in about 400/sqft though. That would obviously preclude putting, for example, a woodshop in the space but it should allow plenty of space for several of us to work comfortably. Doubly so if we're smart about how we use the space.
400 square feet sounds a bit tight, especially if you want to do some larger projects (for example, a CNC router/lathe [not that I have an agenda or anything, nosiree]). Also, having a lounge/social area would be nice.
Consider the diversity of projects that people might pursue. So far I've heard people express interest in electronics, welding, building boats/carts, knitting, software development, electroformiing (that was me), and building functional Hoplite armor (also me). Welding and building things from lumber/other materials have a number of issues: they need space to work in; they need space for a safety zone; they need to avoid filling the workshop with fine particulate matter like sawdust, plaster dust, fiberglass, etc. that effs up electronics and lungs; they need space to store the raw materials, the intermediate parts of the project, and the final result; they need space for tools; they can be quite noisy. And other reasons to taste.
Given that diversity, if the space is small it will be necessary to prohibit activities that require large work areas, that produce a lot of noise, that produce messes (such as sawdust etc), and that require large storage commitments. The use-cases of the area will be narrowed, and fewer people will be interested in using the space. I presume that fewer active users implies fewer people contributing to the rent.
Here are some example projects that I can think of that could be of interest to many people in this group:
1. Building a loom for general use. (Dare I suggest building a CNC loom? I dare!)
2. Building a working steam engine. (Hey, anyone want to make a completely mechanical steam-powered analog CNC milling machine? It would truly be able to make a duplicate of itself. Lots of work, though.)
3. Building a RepRap or similar device.
4. Have I mentioned my desire to make a CNC router/lathe that doubles as a plotter?
5. Mold-Making. Make metal or plastic replicas of objects using any of dozens of techniques.
6. I saw this great video of a woman who makes her own transistors using lithographic processes. I want to marry her.
7. Lapidary. Yup, that's right - gem cutting. Doesn't need a whole lotta space but it's noisy as all ufk.
8. Electroforming. Because it's cool and not as poisonous as it used to be.
9. Did someone say "lasers"? I'm sure something could be worked out. Wanna reproduce quantum light experiments?
10. Hey! We can grow our own crystals and make lasers with them! Just need some shelf space.
11. Lego-robot workspace. As if we could live without one!
12. Original-series Cylon costumes. Seriously, don't tell me you don't want one!
13. Library of donated books.
14. Oh, hey... a place for weekly meetings! We're gonna need more chairs... and maybe a movie screen.
15. We'll need a place to park the Squidmobile.
My thinking is that the more types of projects the space can support, the more people will be willing to pay part of the rent, and the more space we can get.
I guess I'll have to pony up some rent money in addition to offering furniture, storage, tools, etc. :/
I agree with all of those activities (except #12, at least until I have a chance to watch some BSG). Many of them can be done on a small scale (lapidary, mold making, for example) and several could be done outside (steam engine, squidmobile). So a 400 sq ft space with an accessible out door are would be even better. We could come up with projects to fill just about any available space, I suspect, so the questions become:
Of course, if we can come upt with ~$450k-500k we could buy this place on Innis that has several buildings and an outdoor area...
Also, do you mean Jeri Ellsworth?
I guess someone will have to win Mega Millions...
I'd be surprised if a landlord didn't demand that the lease be signed by a single person who is responsible for the rent, and that that person would then be responsible for collecting rent shares from other members. That would put the legal liability on one person who would then be in trouble if people didn't follow through with rent contributions. That would also likely have some impact on the income tax for the signer.
As for outdoor space, that doesn't work when the weather is bad, but it is certainly an option for certain kinds of project.
We also need to consider utility costs in addition to the rent. Many of the projects I suggested require electricitty (electroforming is an obvious example).
Original-Series BSG Cylons looked awesome from the waist up. Black leather and chrome is a good combo.
No, it wasn't Jeri Ellsworth. Great, now there are two women I want to marry. Awkward.
I'll think about it all some more and work on rigging the lottery.
I also would not be surprised if that's what a landlord wanted to see. In fact, that's exactly what I expect. The plan at the moment is to start with something I could sustain myself if necessary. Then we would at least have a solid foundation to build on and could hopefully grow into a space that works better for all the projects we can imagine.