Chances are, you've been meeting makers all your life.
They're the neighbors with ongoing woodworking or metal smith projects or the friend-of-the-friend who hot rods computers and audio gadgets in his basement. They're the everyday men and women pouring into hobby shops and craft stores, or the off-hours scientist threading and attaching wires to sci-fi looking contraptions.
"Makers aren't anything new," says Brian Adams, the board president of the fledging Lansing Makers Network. "They've always been here. What's different is now it just takes a couple of us to say, 'Hey, let's hang out and make things together.'"
Adams is among a small group of hobbyists and entrepreneurs who have banded together to form Lansing's first official non-profit makerspace. After months of planning and research, Adams and the six-member board opened the doors on the
Lansing Makers Network temporary home in Old Town's former Temple Club.
"This place is really going to help us get going," says Network Treasurer Carl Raymond as he takes in the stained glass, high ceilings and solid wood ambience of the former historic church. "Up to now, it's been a chicken and egg situation. People say they'll come and join a maker's network when we have the space. Now we do. We have the 100-year-old chicken."
Space makers
The Lansing Makers Network is part of a growing movement of people who enjoy creating or repurposing things rather than buying items off the shelf.
"The broad definition of a maker is anyone who makes something with their hands," says Adams, "including writing code. Basically, it's taking what's around you and turning it into what you want it to be."
Makers work in electronics, knitting, woodworking, machining, scrapbooking, ceramics, sewing or most any type of craft. Many challenge preconceived notions of how materials fit and work together to create things that cross or blur educational, functional and artistic lines.
But makers, Adams says, can sometimes have trouble making it happen when resources, space or inspiration runs dry. That's where makerspaces come in.
"I like to borrow a phrase from a fellow maker who says we probably all have a lawn mower we use once a week," says Adams. "There's no reason we can't share that lawn mower. We just need someone to coordinate the sharing."
Lansing's new makerspace is among a half dozen or more similar facilities statewide that bring makers together to share tools and collaborate. Most spaces in places like Ann Arbor, Detroit, Traverse City and Grand Rapids are not-for-profit, volunteer-drive organizations, and depend on dues and donations to keep the lights on. Many are also heavily involved with hosting maker fairs for the public or sponsoring educational events and displays through schools, universities and libraries.
The Lansing Makers Network has been percolating since early 2012, with the focus to date on finding the space and setting up the non-profit structure. The six-member board and eight members are currently leasing the Temple Club, with plans to move to a light industrial facility near I-496 and St. Joseph in 2014.
The board has applied their maker ingenuity to create a hub for clubs, guilds and other creative groups to meet. Areas have been cleared for meeting spaces for groups like High Impedance Air Gap, while others rooms and nooks have been filled with electronics, soldering stations, computer controlled mills, woodworking and metal smith tools, laser cutters and a 3D printer. And that evolving infrastructure, network leaders say, will give rise to dues-paying members.
"We've spend a lot of time sweeping, scraping and scrubbing," says Raymond of the half-painted walls and sparsely furnished rooms of the vast Temple interior. "But we're here and ready for people to join."
Inner toil
Two people joined the Lansing makerspace the moment the doors opened around Memorial Day. In fact, Rosangela Canino-Koning and Kaben Nanlohy are in a friendly contention over who might be the very first member of the Lansing Makers Network. "It's going to be incredibly helpful in the pursuit of my art," says Canino-Koning who creates large installations that combine electronics, acrylic, wood, aluminum and lots of lights. "Now I can use a jigsaw or a drill press and not have to buy it myself."
Canino-Koning says the major draw to join was access to a bigger workshop as well as to a community of like-minded people.
"You might be toiling in secret forever doing all the little things you do and never meet someone with similar inclinations," says Canino-Koning of the countless hours she's spent with "best friends" like a sewing machine or glue gun. "For me, being able to bounce ideas off someone is really valuable."
Nanlohy agrees.
"I'm definitely an introvert, but I like people," says Nanlohy who is working with another network member to assemble a laser cutter from plans downloaded from the Internet. "I go to be around other people and for socialization."
Nanlohy says he has been making things since he was a little kid. Some of his earliest creations, he says, got him into trouble, particularly a rocket made from a two-liter bottle and filled with water.
"My cousin and I put things on top of the rocket to see how high they would go when it launched," he says. "It didn't occur to us that we couldn't control the trajectory of things like rocks."
Fairing well
Both Nanlohy and Canino-Koning say they spend anywhere from four to 10 hours a week at the Lansing makerspace. Like all members, they have 24-7 access to the Temple Club facility, and enjoy the benefits of using various tools of their trades that they don't have at home.
"Everyone talks about the tools and sharing as one of the main drivers of makerspaces," says Adams. "But the people and the knowledge base are what's really exciting. It's what we can impart to each other, and that ability to go to someone and say 'I need help.'"
Future plans include classes, workshops and YouTubes created and facilitated by members. Maker parties and maker fests are also in the works, with the Maketoberfest following on the heels of the first Mini Maker Bash last June.
The Lansing network frequently participates in maker fairs and sciences fests, too, with booths and displays at the MSU Science Festival and Maker Faire Detroit.
But the overarching goal of the inaugural year, Adams says, is to build a thriving membership that will shape the character and direction Lansing's new movement.
"Right now, our members are most interested in electronics," says Adams. "But ultimately, we will be defined by our membership. We tend to be a democratic system, so the more we know what to put in place, the better we will be able to grow."
Ann Kammerer is a freelance writer for Capital Gains.
Photos ©
Dave Trumpie
Dave Trumpie is the managing photographer for Capital Gains. He is a freelance photographer and owner of
Trumpie Photography.