The Forge
| The Forge | |
|---|---|
| Status | closed |
| Country | United States of America |
| State or District | New Hampshire |
| City | Milford |
| Date of founding | 2010/01/01 |
| Last Updated | 2023-05-15 |
| Website | http://tekarts.com |
| Phone | 603-732-6993 |
| http://twitter.com/TekArtsNH | |
| tekartsnh@gmail.com | |
| Snail mail |
|
| Number of members | 7 |
| Membership fee | t.b.d. by new TekArts 2.0 membership. Open houses always free! |
| Size of rooms | 500 ft2 |
| Members | Jaxter |
| Location | |
The Forge; Where the Future is Made![edit]
...is now TekArts! You can check us out at TekArts.com and we've created a listing at [1] that we'll keep current.
SEE CHRONOLOGICAL NOTES AT THE BOTTOM FOR NEWS AND PROGRESS ITEMS.
This is a hackerspace/industrial co-op that started up December 1st, 2011: about 10 peeps committed to being "founding members". We've opened our doors at the Pine Valley Mill in Milford, New Hampshire. We visited other hackerspaces in the Boston area and in Nashua to check them out - we've adopted some of their successful operating procedures and we've innovated on some things. We've designed our space to allow us to do personal/group projects/hobbies and personal studios/micro-business operations in the same space. Please contact us if you're within an hour's drive of Milford, New Hampshire, where we are located. Write us for information or go to our Facebook group and join up.
We own tools:
Auto jacks, engine hoist, mechanic tools galore, benchtop machine tools (miller and lathe), grinders, hydraulic press, various welding rigs, carpentry, woodworking, electrical and plumbing tools (enough to build out our interior space). Meters, scopes, computers, printers, plotters, weather instruments, micro-controller kits, PCB fabrication and a whole lot more. We're affiliated with other shops and makers who have multitudes of other tools, so once you're in the network, you'll have a "passport" to the other shops.
Our ideal space would include:
Space for auto hacking, electronics benches, General assembly benches, wide open space for large projects, lockers for personal property, space for rent to micro-businesses to start up and operate from, a large yard/parking lot for car, truck, tiny house, container structure projects. We also want a social, more quiet space away from the grinding, welding, and other noisy, dirty, smelly stuff. We'd like a kitchenette/lunchroom area for the culinary hacking! We'll also have a technical library.
We envision
A place that's a creative cauldron for new ideas, products, software, some of which will go on to become world-changers! We encourage members to set up a bench of their own (on space they'd get on a dedicated rental basis) where they develop and manufacture their own product that they then ship out from TekArts. Personal studio space (secure) should also be available.
Here are some more ideas!
TekArts is...
... a combination co-working space / community workspace / industrial co-op / hackerspace / technical learning center; ... a place where you can see and learn how to use some advanced tools and build the pieces and parts of your favorite project! ... a place for: experimenting, designing, building, testing, learning, teaching, sharing, networking; ... a delivery location for UPS/FedEx shipments; ... a "virtual business" location - mailbox and conference room available to members; ... a venue for video nights & club meetings;
TekArts members are...
homebrewers, home-schooling shop class participants, soapmakers, motorcycle builders, go-karters, car nuts/restorers/hot-rodders, radio hams, computer geeks, robot warriors, radio control modellers/pilots, bike racers/repairers/manufacturers, CNC router makers and 3D printer geeks, crazed inventors, creative artists, fabric arts/costume wizards, artisans, micro-business developers, life hackers of all sorts: health/wellness/fitness, longevity, foodies, Audio/Video & film-making creators, living space innovators: energy systems, food prep systems, portable living systems, gamers, boat-builders, micro-controller geeks, jewelers, brewers, glass blowers, and regular old people like you and me who want to learn from all these creative people.
To make our joint space work, we...
...are excellent to each other! We ... treat each other with respect; respect each others' space; respect each others' tools; respect each others' time; respect each other in conversation; share our tools with others if we want to; keep our tools to ourselves and locked up if we want to; have access to and respectfully use and care for tools that are owned by TekArts; do more than is required of us to make TekArts a better, cleaner, more organized learning and making center.
TekArts members can...
Use the space for an economical membership fee; have unlimited access to the space for a higher fee; have exclusive use of certain space for an additional "floor use" fee; receive shipments at the space; make outbound shipments from the space; use high-speed internet service at the space; work at the workbenches and desks at the space; listen to and share music and videos at the space; read & study printed books, magazines and journals at the space; cook basic meals in the kitchenette at the space; create a course they'd like to teach at the space... and much more.
NEWS AND PROGRESS ITEMS:[edit]
5 September 2011 - began discussions with caretaker of Pine Valley Mill, 37 Wilton Road in Milford and viewed available spaces in the mill.
7 September 2011 - started Facebook group - write us to be added to it (group is private for now).
11 September 2011 - Viewed a startup-sized space (~1100 s.f.) in the mill with 7 prospective members and had discussion meeting afterwards. Note that this space is not ideal, in that it doesn't have a street-height garage door so you can pull a car in.
12 September 2011 - 2nd viewing of small space with prospective members.
~20 September 2011 - tentative decision is to form a trust entity to be the "owner" of the space-as-an-enterprise.
21 September 2011 - Brainstorming session on possible new name led us to Tek Arts => TekArts.com domain available, so it was purchased. We are still considering what our permanent name should be - the decision is not made yet.
22 September 2011 - First draft of Charter. First draft of prospective monthly costs. First draft of list of committed members, including other members who've shown interest with probability of them joining estimated in.
23 September 2011 - First discussion with owners of Pine Valley Mill. They loved the idea of an "incubator" space and were very enthusiastic about it. Agreed on monthly rental price, favorable terms of the lease and discussed expansion possibilities. We agreed on a November 1 start date, with move-in and fitup allowed for the month of October (now delayed).
23 September 2011 - began discussions with insurance agent to meet the owners' liability insurance requirements.
2 October 2011 - "Chillin' and Grillin' at The Shop" event to welcome prospective members to our new space. Open house for the to be-occupied space. It will be rough/not fitted out, but it will be a "dream session" so we can envision what it can be.
- This event was great! We had about 15 people looking into the space and the ideas. The blacksmith next door brought out a huge grill he's made and had 6 or 8 friends over, too. He wants to be a member and teach blacksmithing and welding classes!
17 October - "Brainstorming at the shop" event to bring a few more people into the discussion. We had excellent pizza from a shop in Wilton. We'll almost have critical mass. Joel added a session where we each talked about projects we'd like to work on at the shop.
21 October - big meeting with the insurance agent to answer a whole list of questions - now just waiting for a quote for the liability insurance.
23 October - Open House and "Line in the Sand" meeting. Memberships accepted at this meeting (not yet) - looking for the committed core to get us launched. Jack did a You-Know Solutions micro-controller demonstration, We did the usual tour of the building for n00bs. I think we reached critical mass at this meeting!!! We're going to sign all the paperwork this week as long as the liability insurance doesn't kill the deal.
2 November - Wednesday evening "Occupy the Shop" Open House: 6PM onwards. 4 newbies came to this and at least one will be a founding member!
10 November - "This Is IT!" meeting! Founding members join up. We should have the money then to proceed with insurance and the lease on 11 November. - Oops, didn't quite make it :( - next meeting should put us over the hump. We made some decisions at the meeting:
We've changed our name officially and finally to TekArts. Open Houses every Thursday evening, 6PM on. (This has since changed - see the website for details) Website will be done with WordPress We'll have a presentation or demonstration at every open house.
17 November Open House - Louis will demonstrate some agro-hacking technologies. 12 people came out for this - 4 newbies - gave tours, presented the TekArts plan, showed our new TekArts membership docs, got new members - looks like we can sign our lease next week.
22 November - paid annual liability insurance premium!
- 24 November Open House** -Oops, this is Thanksgiving - we'll reschedule this - please see TekArts.com for more info.
1 December Open House - Joel will demonstrate DIY radiation detecting. See our site at http://TekArts.com for all schedule info. Register on the site and subscribe to the RSS feed to be notified of all blog posts.
...
31 December 2012 - Last day here! We operated as TekArts out of our location in the Pine Valley Mill for a year and are moved out of there, as of midnight, 31 December 2012. The owners are converting the mill to apartments -- :( ...
1 January 2013 and onwards - We've got new plans for 2013, and we'll announce them on our site at http://TekArts.com. A little switchover time, then we're back in operation at a new location.
17 Jan 2013 - first TekArts 2.0 meeting! - see the TekArts.com site for details.
...
No more updates to this page. From now on everything goes to the TekArts hackerspaces.org listing. This just remains here for historical record.
