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Tools and workbench with words, "Monthly blog from the Ed's Workbench"

From the ED’s Workbench, New Blog Series

Reflections on the Last 6 Months.   

As I reflect on the past six months, I find myself exhaling deeply, as if I’ve just completed a marathon and am finally catching my breath. It’s been quite a journey. 

stop sign, expect delays marathon on progress sign
From a marathon, I ran in 2014, my friend and I were almost last. A guy in a bee costume was behind us but only because he stopped to hand out flyers.

The path we’ve traveled has been filled with grief, triage, fear, frustration, overwhelm, uncertainty, scarcity, and the unknown. We’ve encountered situations where we had to accept that some things will remain mysteries, faced layoffs, tightened our belts, and bonded through shared experiences. There has been collaborative and deep work, pivots, tough conversations—many tough conversations—and, of course, meetings, meetings, and more meetings.

Yet, along the way, we’ve also found moments of laughter, excitement, and genuine reward. Just yesterday, I was working through yet another technical glitch with our dedicated board member and IT Steward, drp. Despite the frustration, we found ourselves joking that every task seemed to come with more challenges than we anticipated. It is nice to be at the point where we can laugh about the small things. We have come a long way in a short time.

I’m incredibly proud of our staff and board for coming together to support this community. I’m deeply grateful to everyone who has stepped up to help us. The strength of our community seems limitless, and it truly is the glue that holds Ace together.

picture of tools and calculators
Figuring out the budget was an eye opener

The biggest challenge, as many of you know, is our budget. This is the mountain we’re currently climbing.

So, what have we been up to in our efforts to turn the tide?

  • Welcoming and voting in a new board
  • Promoting staff into roles that better support their work and creating detailed job descriptions
  • Retaining our valuable staff with adequate employment packages
  • Creating new educational opportunities and expanding class offerings
  • Designing a sustainable membership model and crafting retention plans
  • Sorting out our software issues
  • Designing a sustainable volunteer program
  • Engaging members to help craft the future with us
  • NDA revamp so volunteers can help us with administrative needs
  • Creating email accounts and Slack channels focused on specific aspects of our work and community, ensuring that messaging doesn’t get lost
  • Tackling our budget concerns
  • Finalizing a budget for 2024!
  • Planning a Gala event and Silent Auction
  • Organizing ACE’s first public fundraiser
  • Writing grants—lots of them!
  • Holding a Town Hall
  • Creating a pitch deck and plan to attract corporate donors & sponsors
  • Building relationships 
  • Fixing website issues (though there’s still more work to be done!)
  • Identifying and revamping systems and procedures that weren’t working
  • Amping up our outreach efforts
  • Holding monthly community get-togethers and open board meetings
  • Hiring instructors for CNC and Laser
  • Organizing our files and creating collaborative ways to work together

I’ll be honest with you, this has been a mental and emotional rollercoaster for the Ace team. Some of us are feeling a bit burned out and are taking a moment to rest, while others have picked up the baton and are running onward.

While we’ve been deeply focused on this work, we haven’t had the bandwidth to keep in regular touch. 

Pink critter, blue backgroundI apologize for that. We’re making communication a priority moving forward.  

We are a small but mighty staff with the heart of a powerhouse, even so, we are understaffed. Finding volunteers to help us with our communications will be helpful, but first, we need to get that NDA sorted out!

We’ll keep pushing forward—ACE is on the move! 

Be part of our journey forward, volunteer ([email protected]), be engaged, donate, stop by and have lunch with us, and tell folks about Ace.

Onward!

picture of a woman with a tiny dog
My friend Nano and Me

Juliana

Your Interim ED

Person with pink hair smiling behind "Be Nice or Leave"

Celebrating the Life and Legacy of Executive Director, Rachel “Crafty” Sadd

In the vibrant, creative, and ever-evolving story of Ace Makerspace, one name stands out as a consistent driving force behind its growth and success—Rachel “Crafty” Sadd, the dedicated Executive Director whose journey from passionate member to transformative leader has left an indelible mark on the community. On February 27th, 2024 Rachel passed away from secondary complications from cancer surrounded by her family, leaving behind an incredible legacy and her unwavering vision for Ace Makerspace as a welcoming place where making is for everyone.

“The core of what I love about Ace [over the past 14 years] has really stayed the same. The act of making is transformative. I’m not about a tool set, I’m about what communities and people get when they have access to these resources. People can escape life, gain job skills, start a business, be prosperous, take care of needs. There’s so much potential here and it excites me everyday”

Rachel joined the Ace Community back in 2011—Ace’s first year of existence. Originally from Santa Cruz, she was looking for more opportunities economically and culturally for herself and her family. She moved to the Bay Area where she found her people—scrappy people who make art. On a camping trip with her new friends she started talking about her side gig making costumes and wearables for Burning Man folks. As a single mother of two with a full time day job in tech she found the creative work extremely satisfying and could work at night. Hearing this story a new friend said, “you’ve got to see this laser that can cut fabric” and the rest was history.

“I fell in love with the possibilities and potential of Ace as a place where I could satisfy economic needs, be creative, make friends as an adult, and access things I couldn’t afford to access independently.”

She stepped into the Executive Director role at Ace Makerspace 7 years after joining the community. She was finishing her term on the Board of Directors (where she got the nickname “Crafty”) and was having a blast learning how to grow and manage a community when the previous executive director Rachel McConnell aka Dr. Shiny asked her if she’d be interested in stepping into the role…

I thought about it, went to the rest of the board and said, “I’m a raging feminist, unapologetically intersectional, full on. If I’m going to do this I’m bringing all of it to the role. I want to shift the culture, bring these resources to Oakland, and grow it. If you’d like me to take the role you need to be down.”

As a latina, Crafty knew first hand that learning in technical spaces like Ace Makerspace could be intimidating particularly for women, BIPOC, and members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community who historically have been marginalized in these fields. As a community builder and leader, she wanted to change that and developed a social contract for everyone who walked through doors based on transparency and respect. She also created a series of open source DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) Soft Skills Workshops for Makers; collaborated with local organizations on mutual aid projects including 500 Filters, Oakland Community PPE, and Lead to Life; and explicitly sought out diverse perspectives when creating new programs. Throughout her life she overcame many personal challenges, and brought her fighting spirit to everything she did at Ace.

Group of students, laser-cutter
Rachel was a passionate educator who loved to teach laser-cutting, art, and textiles workshops to students from all walks of life.
Three people smiling in an outdoor booth.
Rachel loved connecting with the east bay community and leading free art activities like button making at outreach events like Oakland First Fridays and Maker Faire.
Person smiling holding up red T-shirt.
She believed that building accessible and equitable programs required the participation of people with diverse perspectives, skill levels, and lived experiences. She enjoyed the whole process of program and class development from brainstorming to prototyping. Here she is making samples for a visible mending class in the Ace Textile’s studio.
Group of people with diy air scrubbers.
In response to catastrophic events like wild fires and Covid 19, she rallied the community around mutual aid projects like 500 Filters and Oakland PPE. She believed in using the unique resources at Ace Makerspace to help the broader community. Here she is with a group of volunteers standing with a large stack of DIY air scrubbers.
Large red and blue octopus mural
Outside of Ace she was an established artist with works on display throughout Oakland. She created this large octopus mural for a gas station several blocks from Ace Makerspace and exhibited her interactive Gift-O-Matic project at the Oakland Museum of California in 2019.

Fixing the CNC’s rounding of corners.

There have been some troubles with the CNC not following Gcode paths exactly and rounding corners.

In this first picture of the Mach4 screen you can see the green lines which are the path the CNC should follow, and the white lines which are the path the CNC actually followed. (ignore the blue lines)

The problem is the CNC is rounding over the outer corners. This is a result of the CNC trying to move faster than it can manage. The max speed of our CNC is 200 inches per minute. In the above picture it is trying to cut at 150 IPM and can not handle that speed on the corners so it rounds them, which can ruin the piece. Even though the CNC can go faster in a straight line it can’t change directions that fast.

The solution is to use a slower feed rate. But this can greatly increase cut times and other issues such as tool dulling and excess heat.

Fusion360 has a solution called “Feed Optimization”. What it will do is reduce the speed in just the corners to 25% of the feed rate. In this example it reduces the corner feed speed to 37.5 IPM.

In this next picture you can see the white line of the actual cut path looks identical to the green Gcode path with Feed Optimization turned on.

The Feed Optimization setting is found on the 4th tab (labelled Passes) of the Operations Dialog when you are in the Manufacture workspace.

In the bottom of this picture you can see the checkbox to turn it on. The defaults should be fine and will reduce your corner speeds to 25%. This only adds a small amount of extra time to the cut.

This project was set to 100 inches per minute so Feed Optimization reduced the corner speed to 25 IPM.

Mouse over each setting for an explanation of what it controls if you would like to fine tune even more from the defaults.

Tool organizer in 3D printing

After the expansion, 3D printing ended up adjacent to a concrete wall that the landlord does not want us boring holes in. That means we can’t hang the tools up like I did before.

But I’ve always liked the desktop tool caddies that Ray made for electronics anyway. So, I knocked up a simple design and asked for volunteers to build it. Bob came through, and even finished it in a cool purple color, buffed to a nice shine. I almost hated to put screws in it!

But, last night, I finally got around to it. Thanks again Bob!

And yes, that’s a new caliper. Please leave it in 3D printing!

Call for Burners / Makers / Artists: DIY Burner Fashion Week

AMT is putting together a week of workshops focused on Burner Fashion July 23rd -29th.
Current Workshops Ideas include:
  • LED Fairy Wings
  • Leather Feathers
  • TuTu Good (epic tutu making)
  • Laser Cutting Faux Fur
  • “Help me finish this…” a project completion lab
AMT has:
  • Large laser cutter
  • Classroom space to teach programming etc
  • A full textiles studio
  • Electronics Lab
  • 3D Printing
  • Woodworking and more
If you are interested in doing a workshop for the DIY Burner Fashion Week email as much of the following information to [email protected]:
  • Possible Dates of the workshop (between 6-23 to 6-29)
  • Title of the workshop
  • Description of what folks will make (I can help write that if needed)
  • Description of materials needed (stuff people need to bring)
  • Description of materials provided
  • Description of needed skills (like if people should have basic sewing skills)
  • Duration of workshop
  • Cost to attendees
  • Link to a picture or pictures if you have them.
Teachers can charge for their workshops but we would like to keep them affordable too. We can work with you to develop an affordable offering. Instructors are paid out 1 week after the workshop via ETF or Paypal or Cash. Instructors making more than 400 will require a W9.
AMT can also provide some materials and or access to discounted or free materials. Go up-cycling.

The Vorpal Combat Hexapod

I demonstrated this fun robot at the last BoxBots build night and our general meeting last Thursday. Since then a few folks have asked questions so I thought I would post more detail.

The Vorpal Combat Hexapod is the subject of a Kickstarter campaign I discovered a few weeks ago. I was impressed and decided to back the project. I had a few questions so I contacted the designer, Steve Pendergrast. Then I had a few suggestions and before long we had a rich correspondence. I spent quite a bit more time than I’d expected to, offering thoughts for his wiki, design suggestions, etc.

Steve appreciated my feedback and offered to send me a completed robot if I would promise to demonstrate it for our membership. The robot you see in the photos was made by Steve, not me. Mine will be forthcoming!

You can read the official description on the Kickstarter page and project wiki. Here are my own thoughts and a few of the reasons I like the project so much.

It’s cool!

It has to be to get the kids interested; something that Ray has always understood with BoxBots. While BoxBots offers the thrill of destructive combat, the hexapod offers spidery, insect-ish, crawly coolness with interactive games and programming challenges.

It’s a fun toy

Straight away, this robot offers lot of play value. There are four walk modes, four dance modes, four fight modes, and a built-in record/playback function. To get them interested in the advanced possibilities, you have to get them hooked first. Don’t be intimidated by that array of buttons. At the Boxbots build night, the kids all picked it up very quickly. I couldn’t get the controller out of their hands.

It’s open-source

The circuitry, firmware, and plastic parts are already published. A lot of crowd-funded projects promise release only after funding, and some only publish the STL files, which can be very difficult to edit. Steve has provided the full CAD source (designed in OnShape).

Easy to Accessorize

The Joust and Capture-the-flag games use special accessories that fasten to a standard mount on the robot’s nose. This simplifies add-on design since there’s no need to modify the robot frame. There are also magnets around the perimeter, encouraging fun cosmetic add-ons like eyes and nametags.

Off-the-shelf electronic components

There are no custom circuit boards here. It’s built with two Arduino Nano boards, two Bluetooth boards, a servo controller, buzzer, pot, micro-SD adapter, two pushbutton boards, inexpensive servos, etc. This stuff is all available online if you want to source your own parts. If you’re an Arduino geek, it will all look familiar.

No Soldering!

I think every kid should learn how to use a soldering iron in school, but for some it remains an intimidating barrier. In the hexapod, everything’s connected with push-on jumper wires. (If you source your own parts you will probably have to solder the battery case and switches, since these seldom have matching connectors.)

Scratch programming interface

The controller and robot firmware is written in Arduino’s C-like language, but the robot also supports a beginner-friendly drag-and-drop programming interface built with MIT’s Scratch system. I confess, I haven’t investigated this feature yet, but I’ve been curious about drag-and-drop programming paradigms for years. My first programs were stored on punched cards. Finally, I have an opportunity to see how today’s cool kids learn programming!

It’s 3D printed

The parts print without support, and work fine at low-resolution. You’ll want to get your own spool of filament so you have the color available for replacement parts. Any of our printers will work. I’ve had good luck so far with PLA, but Steve recommends more flexible materials like PETG or ABS.

Anyway, enough gushing. I do not have any financial interest in the project. I just like to encourage a good idea when I see one. The Kickstarter campaign just reached its goal a few days ago, so it’s definitely going to be funded. If you’d like to back the Kickstarter or learn more, here’s the link. You’ll have to act fast; there are only a few days left. (Full disclosure: I do get referral perks if you use this link.) Remember that you always assume some risk with crowd-funding. I’ll make no guarantees, but I’m satisfied that Steve is serious about the project and is no scammer.

Click here for the Hexapod Kickstarter campaign.

If you’d like to see this robot in person, contact me on Slack. I’ll try to arrange a demo.

-Matt