Month: March 2017

Week 303 – Cake, Manufacturing, Ethics… A Standard Week Then…

27th March 2017
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"Week 303 – Cake, Manufacturing, Ethics… A Standard Week Then…"

Each week we’ll endeavour to publish some details of the interesting things that members of DoES Liverpool have been up to over the past seven days. You can find out a bit more about them in our introductory post.

And remember, if you’re involved with DoES Liverpool at all, let us know what you get up to so we can include it here!

Things of Note

Coming Up in the Next Week

Monday 27 March, 7:00pm-9:00pm Wearables Group
Wednesday 29 March, 6:00pm-7:30pm Let’s Make a Documentary Meetup
Thursday 30 March, 6:30pm-9:00pm Maker Night
Saturday 01 April, 10:00am-Sunday 02 April, 4:00pm We’ll be in Newcastle for Maker Faire UK

Somebody Should

The DoES Liverpool to-do list is stored in the issues of our Somebody Should repository on github. Head over there if there’s something you’d like to report, or if you want to help out fixing things.

Issue counts: 174 open, 294 closed

No new issues

3 issues closed:

Thanks amcewen, jackie1050!

Community Content

DoES exists to support the community that uses DoES. If you use DoES, then you are part of that community. If you would like to publicise something related to DoES, you can email hello@doesliverpool.com with the formatted content for us to use as a new blog post. Tell us what you’re up to, and we’ll show the world what epic stuff happens at DoES!

Week 302 – Getting Better at Talking About Ourselves

20th March 2017
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"Week 302 – Getting Better at Talking About Ourselves"

Each week we’ll endeavour to publish some details of the interesting things that members of DoES Liverpool have been up to over the past seven days. You can find out a bit more about them in our introductory post.

And remember, if you’re involved with DoES Liverpool at all, let us know what you get up to so we can include it here!

Things of Note

Coming Up in the Next Week

Monday 20 March, 6:00pm-9:00pm Sewing Club
Wednesday 22 March, 7:00pm-9:00pm IoT Liverpool
Thursday 23 March, 6:30pm-9:00pm Maker Night

Somebody Should

The DoES Liverpool to-do list is stored in the issues of our Somebody Should repository on github. Head over there if there’s something you’d like to report, or if you want to help out fixing things.

Issue counts: 177 open, 291 closed

2 new issues:

1 issue closed:

Thanks amcewen!

Community Content

DoES exists to support the community that uses DoES. If you use DoES, then you are part of that community. If you would like to publicise something related to DoES, you can email hello@doesliverpool.com with the formatted content for us to use as a new blog post. Tell us what you’re up to, and we’ll show the world what epic stuff happens at DoES!

We’ve Never Looked So Good

16th March 2017
"We’ve Never Looked So Good"

Last month, we were delighted to welcome Jane MacNeil (@Jane_MacNeil, www.janemacneil.co.uk) into DoES.

Jane took some marvellous pictures of DoES and the people that make us special, and you can see them on her website. She did a much better job than we have ever done of making the space look presentable!

Thanks to Jane, and hopefully we’ll have a chance to work with her again in the future. Maybe we’ll have to draft her in for some more shots when we finally move…

Week 301 – Remix, Learn, Develop

13th March 2017
"Week 301 – Remix, Learn, Develop"

Each week we’ll endeavour to publish some details of the interesting things that members of DoES Liverpool have been up to over the past seven days. You can find out a bit more about them in our introductory post.

And remember, if you’re involved with DoES Liverpool at all, let us know what you get up to so we can include it here!

Things of Note

Coming Up in the Next Week

Monday 13 March, 7:00pm-9:00pm Wearables Group
Wednesday 15 March, 5:30pm-7:00pm Friends of the Earth
Thursday 16 March, 6:30pm-9:00pm Maker Night

Somebody Should

The DoES Liverpool to-do list is stored in the issues of our Somebody Should repository on github. Head over there if there’s something you’d like to report, or if you want to help out fixing things.

Issue counts: 175 open, 291 closed

5 new issues:

2 issues closed:

Thanks DefProc, amcewen!

Community Content

DoES exists to support the community that uses DoES. If you use DoES, then you are part of that community. If you would like to publicise something related to DoES, you can email hello@doesliverpool.com with the formatted content for us to use as a new blog post. Tell us what you’re up to, and we’ll show the world what epic stuff happens at DoES!

DoES Liverpool Wants to Move

13th March 2017
"DoES Liverpool Wants to Move"

DoES Liverpool is readying a move to new premises and we’re going to need your help to do it. But first, let me tell you a story…

Five years ago, a group of six friends started an experiment.  They thought that a space to learn, work, and play with new technology and tools, and alongside others with similar interests, could help everyone in the city do epic shit.  They founded DoES Liverpool and took on a thousand square feet of space in Gostins.  It was one of the first wave of makerspaces and hackspaces founded across the country, and has always had a focus on diversity – of interests and of the sort of people using the space: hobbyists, freelancers and businesses.

Come to DoES Liverpool, we have cupboards!

They had big ambitions.  Believing that the best way to get a company like Google to open an office in Liverpool is to grow a company like Google within Liverpool.  However, that ambition is always tempered by a realism of what can be achieved at a given point in time; not because they’re happy to settle for less, but because of a belief that better living through technology is a journey rather than a destination and they’re in it for the long haul!

The open plains of early DoES Liverpool, where obviously the CNC mill is next to the coffee machine and printer.

In the five and a half years since setting up the DoES Liverpool space our community have been involved in some really great projects. If you follow our #weeknotes blog posts you’ll already know but we hack our lives, and the lives of others. Making efficient wave energy happen. The Wheredial to keep in touch with loved ones. A 12 year old girl 3D printing the new hand she designed and customised herself. 3D printed quad-copters, and rolling out technology tackling loneliness in older people.

DoES Liverpool has expanded a number of times over the years, taking on a dedicated workshop and then an events space but we’ve hit the limits of what the Gostins Building can offer and it’s time for a change.

By moving to a new home we are aiming to make big changes to what our community can do within our walls. We want to expand our workshop to fit more people in and to house more exciting equipment. We want to expand our co-working to let more hot-deskers and small companies join us. We want to make it easier for people to work to their own hours, allowing 24/7 access too. We also want DoES Liverpool to be an inviting space that people really want to visit, with considered aesthetics and a warm, welcoming vibe.

See, we can do aesthetics! (Ignore the cables!)

To put some numbers on it, we currently reside in approximately 2000 square feet of space in the Gostins building. We have decided that to make a move worthwhile the minimum space that will let us grow to support the community in the ways we want is 4000 square feet. We currently get a great rate for our rent so anywhere we move to is going to cost more, in fact more than double (pretty obviously given the size increase!) DoES has never relied on external funding for our running costs, instead charging a reasonable sum for services. This means that to be able to afford a new, bigger, space we have to be sure that it’s going to generate the income we need.

What do we need to make this happen? What can you do to help? Well the best thing you can do is to start making use of our services. If you’ve been thinking of taking a permanent desk, we have some available already in our current home. If you’ve been thinking of taking workshop membership then get in touch. Even if you just want to start popping in once a week or once a month, it will all help.

As our new space is going to be substantially bigger we intend to welcome in small companies too, around 5-10 people in a self-contained room for example. Obviously we would struggle to accommodate you now but if working alongside the DoES Liverpool community with regular access to our workshop is something that interests you then get in touch. Knowing that you’ll be joining us could make the difference.

We have lots of chairs!

While we do have a few viable options, if you know somewhere that could be ideal for DoES then we’re still open to suggestions. We need a minimum of 4000 square feet but would be happy with more, cost permitting. We’re not a fan of strings (except when they’re CNC controlled and drawing pretty pictures) so offers of space that are dependent on promises we can’t meet or that restrict who we can allow into the space are not going to cut it.

If you just want to give DoES money to help us make this happen then that’s always an option too! We always appreciate our Friends (who donate £9/month by standing order and PayPal) and we’re planning to run a Kickstarter campaign once we have a better idea of overall costs so there’ll be opportunities to help there too.

We have fantastic ideas for where we can take DoES in the future and we’d love to fill you in so we’re going to follow this post up very soon with some detail on that. For those who are really interested in the numbers we’ll also follow up with more detail about what we’ve been paying and how much we’ve been making over the years.

And what will we do when we get our new space? Well more Epic Shit of course! More 3D printed prosthetics, more laser cut artworks, more apps, more electronics, more cake, and of course.. more bubbles!

Not all of our desks are this small

 

Week 300 – Wow, Three Hundred Weeks of Doing Epic Stuff!

6th March 2017
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"Week 300 – Wow, Three Hundred Weeks of Doing Epic Stuff!"

Each week we’ll endeavour to publish some details of the interesting things that members of DoES Liverpool have been up to over the past seven days. You can find out a bit more about them in our introductory post.

And remember, if you’re involved with DoES Liverpool at all, let us know what you get up to so we can include it here!

Things of Note

Coming Up in the Next Week

Monday 06 March, 6:00pm-9:00pm Sewing Club
Thursday 09 March, 9:00am-6:00pm Jelly Liverpool
Thursday 09 March, 6:30pm-9:00pm Maker Night
Saturday 11 March, 10:00am-5:00pm Maker Day

Somebody Should

The DoES Liverpool to-do list is stored in the issues of our Somebody Should repository on github. Head over there if there’s something you’d like to report, or if you want to help out fixing things.

Issue counts: 172 open, 289 closed

4 new issues:

5 issues closed:

Thanks johnmckerrell, DoESsean, DefProc!

Community Content

DoES exists to support the community that uses DoES. If you use DoES, then you are part of that community. If you would like to publicise something related to DoES, you can email hello@doesliverpool.com with the formatted content for us to use as a new blog post. Tell us what you’re up to, and we’ll show the world what epic stuff happens at DoES!

Welcome Jelly!

2nd March 2017
"Welcome Jelly!"

On Thursday February 9th, DoES Liverpool will welcome Jelly Liverpool to the Gostins Building for the very first time.

We are delighted to have the opportunity to introduce ourselves to those of Jelly’s co-workers that may not know about us, and to say hello again to those that already do. Who knows what kind of beautiful relationships could be spun out of the meeting of minds that will take place?

As Jelly is a free co-working event, the day of Jelly’s visit will also be free for DoES’ regular office hotdeskers, so there’s no excuse whatsoever for you not to come along, have a coffee and meet some awesome people. We’ll see you there!

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