Fablocker
| Fablocker | |
|---|---|
| Status | closed |
| Country | United States of America |
| State or District | North Carolina |
| City | Winston Salem |
| Date of founding | 2011/02/01 |
| Last Updated | 2022-10-27 |
| Website | http://fablocker.org/ |
| meetup | http://www.meetup.com/Fablocker/ |
| Phone | 336-939-6358 |
| http://www.facebook.com/pages/FabLocker-Hackerspace#!/pages/FabLocker-Hackerspace/187307131311102 | |
| fablocker@gmail.com | |
| Mailinglist | fablocker@googlegroups.com |
| Snail mail |
1020 Brookstown Ave Suite 17 |
| Number of members | 15 |
| Membership fee | $30 a month |
| Size of rooms | 800ft² |
| Members | |
| Location | 36° 5' 48.15" N, 80° 15' 24.60" W |
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History[edit]
FabLocker, Inc. was a collection of makers, fabbers, tinker-ers, coders, lockpickers, and overall technology enthusiasts. We have a physical space to enable the pooling of physical resources to facilitate the undertaking of incredibly cool and incredibly geek-tastic activities.
At least, that's what was on the website. FabLocker was started by a small group of 3D printer enthusiasts who discovered each other over IRC. It quickly grew from 4 founding members in less than a year. We are still small, but very active, and doing well especially for such a small space in a small city.
On any given night you may find members working on 3D printers, lock picking, coding, messing with Linux or other open source software, soldering at a workbench or more often then not bantering about the kind of stuff geeks talk about or sharing the coolest thing a member just found that week.
FabLocker closed due to various reasons, notably, the area is not one that people need a small space, more just the community. Unlike major cities in US or cities in Europe, where small apartments don't have room for electronics workbenches, etc, most people in the tech field here have houses with garages, or even students live in apartments with several rooms, few live in small apartments or are constrained by workspace, so a hacker space is less novel in providing that space. It became apparent that the interest of most members that the the value in this area is in maker spaces, where large shops and specialized equipment (CNC, metal working, presentation spaces) that a single individual couldn't just have at their home. Few were interested in "hacking", mostly 3D printers, and working on projects. The Forge and later Mixxer opened up in the area, these maker spaces filled that need. The physical space was kept around by core members who folded it into their lock picking group, FALE ([1]) , which was a 501c3, and very active in the and hacker community. Since then, it has become a true hackerspace, working on electronics, coding, running labs, and security research. Membership though is private and vetted by referral only.
