A catalogue of questions about Starship Factory reached us by email, which could be very interesting for readers of this blog too. So we are publishing our answer here:
What infrastructure is on offer and how was it financed?
Under Equipment in our wiki there is a list of some of the equipment in our space. Unfortunately we still have a publication deficit in that respect. Most of the equipment is privately owned by members who make it available to others, but the association owns a few machines as well (the 3D printers, the soldering stations or the visitor laptops, for instance).
How is the day-to-day running of Starship Factory organised?
We pay our rent and have two members who voluntarily make sure (by being there or by delegating) that someone is always present during our official opening hours on Tuesday and Friday. In addition some members have a key and therefore permanent access. It will soon be made visible on the website when the space is open outside opening hours as well.
The more important decisions about the space, which cannot be settled within a do-ocracy (whoever does it is right) because, say, the association’s finances are affected, are taken at the monthly plenary. The members who are interested in the topics on the table turn up there. That is often very few, but the institution of the plenary is very helpful, because members — even when they do not turn up to the plenary — find it easier to accept the decisions taken there, since they could have influenced them.
How is Starship Factory financed (ongoing income and expenditure)?
As you can see from the financial plan for 2015, we finance ourselves roughly 90% from membership fees and 10% from workshops and other income. Our running costs are listed under the heading financial planning.
Machines are, as already mentioned, mostly financed by members. That is the only way to manage the frankly steep start-up investments needed to make it possible in the first place to carry out more complex, cross-disciplinary projects in the space (designing, etching and populating circuit boards, then building a case out of wood or plastic and/or sewing it into clothing, for example). It is extremely important to find sensible purchasing routes — clever buying can often save up to 95% of the purchase price and so build up a kind of stock.
Which themes are important to Starship Factory, and why are those the focus?
We take a lot of our bearings from the Hackerspace Design Patterns and from recommendations out of the field of geek feminism.
Our most important theme is community building. We are convinced that it is very important (and unfortunately also very difficult) to build a community in such a way that it is genuinely open to everyone and that everyone can feel welcome and comfortable in it. But we also believe that such a community is the only route to a space’s long-term success. What matters is setting sufficiently strict rules of conduct with plenty of good judgement, and enforcing them — not tolerating it when someone drops a remark that makes other members no longer feel welcome. That also requires appropriate training of the members; we are still working on that. But there is a lot of training material from the fields of feminism and stereotype bias and similar areas.
It is also important not to concentrate solely on the productive aspect of the space, but on the aesthetic aspects and the opportunities to relax as well. A hackerspace is more than just a production environment: it is a living space, which should feel inviting and comfortable, since that is the environment in which ideas come about. To that end we have a relaxation corner with floor cushions and are working on attractive, intelligent lighting.
The second most important theme, in our view, is the availability of information. It is important at every level to have a “transparent hackerspace”. For people who have never been there, it has to be clear:
- Where is the space, and what happens there? What criteria do I have to meet to be welcome?
- Is the space open right now? When will it next be open?
- How does the community in the space work? How should I behave?
- Which machines am I allowed to use? What do I need an introduction for? Where do I get it?
- What do I actually do with this machine?
- What does it cost if I do X? How does the price come about?
- How did the space come to be the way it is? How can I get involved? What happens to my money?
Everything in the space has to be transparent and comprehensible, as long as it does not intrude on members’ privacy. That is the only limit that should be accepted; anything else is nonsense. Published finances, for instance, bring a small potential disadvantage when looking for a space, but a big advantage with members and applicants, who feel confident that their money is well invested and that they can get involved if they want to. It is also important that it is made as easy as possible for anyone to walk into Starship Factory and make something. Labels and QR codes are very helpful for that, but the documentation that goes with them has of course to be complete, correct and up to date.
If you observe those two points, you get a great hackerspace with an enthusiastic community. Projects then mostly come about all by themselves, machines arrive, and the space works. That is also why the answer to this question does not fall into the typical pattern of “what sort of projects do you do?”; the task of a hackerspace is not to provide project ideas, but to offer material, equipment and information so that visitors can put their own thoughts into practice.