NorCal Hackerspace Photos From Maker Faire!

Photo by Keith Simmons. Distributed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) license.

HeatSync Labs was at Maker Faire last month, and while we were in the area we visited some hackerspaces and took photos, like we do.  Before Maker Faire began, we got a chance to visit Noisebridge for their 15 Minutes of Fame, where our very own Schuyler talked about his Makerbot.  We also visited Hacker Dojo in Mountain View and ACE Monster Toys in Oakland  too and actually remembered to bring the camera.

ACE Monster Toys is a relatively new hackerspace located in Oakland, and was founded in part of Noisebridge members who wanted to hack on stuff in the East Bay. They have a lot of tools and some of them are into making casts in polyurethane in the shape of... things.

In addition to being the biggest hackerspace Yours Truly has visited, Hacker Dojo is also a co-working and event space where "little baby startups" are founded and spend their first few months. They've hosted SuperHappyDevHouse, which brought in a lot of hackers to work on cool stuff.  They also have a room dedicated to wrestling polar bears!

*** BONUS ***
Before there was Maker Faire, there was the Maker Faire organizational meeting, which Jacob crashed to meet the people behind Maker Faire and also eat grilled cheese sandwiches and drink root beer. I let him borrow my camera to take some shots, and here they are.

Techshop is a commercial chain of maker spaces, the newest of which is located in the heart of San Francisco. With millions of dollars in investment, it offers a extensive array of heavy duty, Serious Business equipment for members to use. Time will tell if this is turns out to be a profitable business model, but for now its basically Disneyland for people that like machinery.

Noisebridge is a hackerspace that needs no introduction; It was one of the first of its kind in North America and has become a Mecca for anyone considering the idea of starting a hackerspace in their own city. Like my bedroom, it contains random electronics components, Toorcamp paraphernalia, and empty boxes of Club-Mate.