Tag: Community

August 17, 2024

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.

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.

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.

I 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!

My friend Nano and Me

Juliana

Your Interim ED

May 13, 2024

Workshop Care Night’s for Beginners Too!

The Ace Workshop is a community lead, driven, and maintained resource. As makers who share space, we all have a role to play beyond simply working on our projects and cleaning up after ourselves, we also work together to maintain and care for our tools. While routine tool repair and maintenance may not be the most glamorous part of woodworking, it’s essential for keeping the tools we love to use in good working order, safe, and ready for use.

In the past, tool maintenance often fell by default on a small group of expert users which lead to volunteer burnout, longer tool down times, and a pervasive bystander culture in the shop. To make this process more inviting and sustainable we realized we needed a way to:

Build a more intentional woodworking tool maintenance culture
Decrease barriers for folks interested in helping out who didn’t know where to start or who were experiencing the imposter phenomenon
Create an inviting pathway for community members of all skill levels to get involved
Make routine workshop care tasks in general more approachable, fun, and beginner-accessible

…and so Workshop Care Night was born; a new beginner-friendly social evening all about working together to care for our tools, make repairs, and practice concepts covered in our Shop Basics class like logging assets and finding information on the wiki.

Why it works:

Maintenance and tool care is wayyyy more fun together!
It’s a great way for new folks to meet people in the woodworking community
Its a beginner-accessible way to get started with tool repair (no fix-it experience needed to help out, there’s tasks for all skill levels)
Tools last longer and work better with regularly scheduled TLC

Highlights from Workshop Care Night in April

Team Shop keeps a running list of maintenance tasks for workshop care night. Each event is different, one month the group may align the Table Saw blade, repair a vacuum duct and re-home new tools; the next the group may wax the tool tabletops and replace the cyclone filter.

In April, a group of 5 volunteers rolled up their sleeves to tackle a list of maintenance tasks while getting to know one-another and jamming to Groove Salad! This group included folks with a mix of skill sets and experiences levels ranging from woodworking beginners to career professionals.

Here’s a look at just some of what they accomplished over the course of two hours working together:

New Member, Greg (he/him/il/le/lui)’s first stop after signing up was rolling up his sleeves and using his electronics know-how to replace the ground pin for the plug for the Ace Jointer at Workshop Care Night.

There are meaningful tasks for every skill level. Jacky (they/them), Ace’s Education Manager doesn’t have a lot of experience in workshop care or woodworking, but rolled up their sleeves to deep vacuum machines and wax the steel table tops.

Drum Sander before vacuuming.

Tools that get heavy use in the Ace Shop like the Drum Sander, Jointer, Planer, Table Saw and Bandsaw need regular deep vacuuming to get particles deep inside the machine. Removing saw dust from harder to clean areas can lengthen a tools lifespan and helps prevent tool down time.

Team Shop* volunteer and experienced woodworker, Alex (he/him) showed Jacky how to open the top of the Drum Sander since they were unfamiliar with the tool. This kind of peer support and knowledge sharing is deeply embedded in Ace culture along with the belief that everyone has something to contribute of value to the community regardless of skill level.

Drum Sander after deep vacuuming.

It’s not about perfection, it’s about getting it to 90% – Howard

Alex worked on replacing the quill return spring on the Drill Press – the return spring helps the spindle holding the drill bit return to the start position. During the replacement, he called Howard over to assist and verify the repair. At Ace we use the buddy system for repairs to ensure fixes are safe, effective, and verified.

By the end of the night, volunteers were a little dusty but feeling good.

*Teams at Ace are groups of volunteers who organize projects, take care of tools, and drive decision making for programs they love. Teams are open to all members and are a fun way to get involved in the Ace Community.

November 1, 2023

MakeXpression: Celebrating the Ace Community with Laser Cut Jewelry

Have you heard of Blue Heart? They’re a rad non-profit that promotes, elevates, and distributes funds to grassroots community-based organizations like Ace Makerspace. In August 2022 we were honored as the Blue Heart Partner Organization of the month and this year, through the Blue Heart Creator’s Fund, we’re collaborating with Berkeley-based artist and founding member of The Spooky Haus, Miriam Levenson, to create a laser-cut jewelry line representing Ace’s core values diversity, community, inquiry, growth, and action!

The artist, Miriam, shows off a preliminary design for one of the pieces in our collaborative jewelry line.

The way something can be worn is a powerful statement of agency, allyship, and identity expression. In this way, values can be shared and people can choose to showcase their values through beautiful wearable art.

Our laser-cut jewelry line will visually celebrate the diverse identities of makers in the Ace Community using tools and materials that are accessible to makers of all skill levels. We’ve also invited the Ace Community to participate in this project directly by providing insight into the diverse identities they hold and by inviting them to model the pieces once they are complete. The completed work will also be on display at Oakland First Fridays in December!

The Design Process

In order to make a line that truly represents makers in the Ace Community sent out a poll asking:

Do folks have any words or thoughts that highlight and celebrate your identity you’d like to share to help the project? This can be anything from “I identify as trans” to “I identify as a woodworker.

We received a wide range of responses which Miriam translated into both text and image based designs making deliberate aesthetic choices (font, color, shape, etc…) to amplify the meaning of each piece.

Miriam adds responses from the Ace Community to their mood board and begins to experiment with designs.

As part of their design process, Miriam uses a mood board to play with color, scale, font, and shape until they find the right balance. This process allows them to preview what their art will look like before cutting into their materials and to visualize the collection as a whole.

Miriam puts the finishing touches on an early draft of a jewelry design about queer identities.

Everyone deserves the chance for self actualization. In sharing your identity it becomes clear that you both have equal significance and it becomes harder to have ego of self hood.

— Miriam

The Materials

Miriam made a point to source lesser known materials for our jewelry line in order to raise awareness of unusual materials that makers of all skill levels can access and use successfully no matter where they are on their maker journey. They ordered show-stopping glitter, neon, and marble acrylics from a variety of online shops like Houston Acrylics, CMB Acrylics, and Esty.

The acrylic arrives and Miriam can’t wait to start cutting! They’re extra excited because they don’t get to work with glitter and color-shift acrylics like these everyday.

Making the Jewelry

Once the design files are ready, Miriam cuts and etches the pieces using the Ace Laser and then prepares them for finishing by:

Removing the masking—a gentle adhesive tape that protects the material from scorching during the laser-cutting process
Using Weld-On—a special solvent based bonding agent used for acrylic—to assemble multi-part pieces of jewelry
Adding the chains and jewelry findings that make the pieces wearable

Laser cutting in action. Miriam will glue the letters for the word “neurodivergent” to a base piece of acrylic. This is one of the more complex designs in the collection.

Miriam fills a dropper bottle with Weld-On-a special bonding agent used for acrylic.

It only takes a minute after applying the Weld-On for the letters to fully bond to the base of the pendent.

Miriam holds a laser-cut “MAKER” pendent up to the design file.

A bowl full of laser-cut pieces for the jewelry line.

Stay tuned for Part Two!

August 23, 2023

3D Printing Flexi Rose Dragons with Rene from Mischief Manor Makers

Ace Maker, Rene runs a small family business called Mischief Manor Makers that sells handmade goods both online and at local (and sometimes not so local) events like Folsom Street Fair, Surrender, and Play-X-Land at Cat Club Sf. Their inventory* changes frequently but includes kink and fetish gear like Custom Springbuck Horn Floggers, small pins with a wicked sense of humor, Custom Made Squishmallow Bags, and as of 6 months ago 3D printed items like their favorite Flexi Rose Dragons with articulated joints.

*Follow Rene on Tik Tok to learn more about Mischief Manor Makers and the things they like to make!

Rene shows off one of their freshly printed Flexi Rose Dragons!

Rene got into 3D printing when they were visiting one of their partners in Georgia who runs a small business similar to Mischief Manor Makers. He showed them the basics, helped them find a 3D printer to take home, and encouraged them to make it a part of their business.

To design this Flexi Rose Dragon, Rene found a pre-made base file online and customized it with roses and thorns (Thingiverse has many open source files available to use for free, but you can also purchase premade files from places like Etsy).

For a shiny multicolor effect, Rene works with a special gradient silk filament which is slightly more delicate and little bit trickier to print with than standard PLA filament.

Each print begins with a brim—a stable base layer that keeps the Flexi Rose Dragon in place preventing it from slipping off the build sheet or collapsing during the job. When the dragon has finished printing, Rene will remove the brim to release the articulated joints that allow the Flexi Rose Dragon to move. They’ve learned through trial and error that printing a brim is critical even though it adds an additional 20 minutes to the already 4.5 hour printing time.

A strong foundation is the key to printing a successful Flexi Rose Dragon. The brim provides stability while printing flexible objects, but it will need to be removed at the end to release the “joints.”

Once they’ve made sure the brim has printed correctly, Rene likes to head up to the Ace Textiles Studio to work on other merchandise like their Custom Made Squishmallow Bags. They also check on their print at regular intervals to make sure everything runs smoothly.

Rene’s daughter came up with the idea for bags made from Squishmallow Plushies.

About half way through the print the topographical rose motif starts to emerge!

It’s time to unleash the Flexi Rose Dragon from the build sheet.

To complete the dragon Rene will peel back the green brim on the underside of the dragon.

Shedding the brim takes a little bit of patience but its totally worth it!

Two completed Flexi Rose Dragons on the prowl at the Ace Makerspace 3D Printing station.

Rene’s tips for folks curious about getting started with 3D Printing:

Check out Thingiverse for inspiration and pick something that excites you
Find community! Places like Ace Makerspace are great because there’s a built in support system if you need help troubleshooting as your starting out
If you plan to dive in and purchase your own 3D Printer, go for a well known brand because there is more documentation and technical support if something goes wrong

June 30, 2023

Knit Blocking With Pixie

It all started when Pixie’s college friend asked her to knit him a glamourous rainbow shawl for his wedding! They selected a pattern to serve as a starting point, planned the color story, did a little math to figure out how much yarn it would take, and found a dyer (Pook Yarns) to create a custom gradient. Then it was time to start knitting.

On 11/19/22 she officially cast on–a technique for creating the first row of stitches on the needle…

Top: Preliminary sketch of the color scheme. Pixie told her friend “you can be as much of a bridezilla as you want” and received a lengthy list of hex codes in return (html color codes). Bottom left: apx.1000 meters of hand-dyed yarn from Pook Yarns. Image from Pook Yarns. Bottom Right: Pixie improvised a little as she knit to extend the pattern.

…6 months later she finished the last stitch and the shawl was ready for blocking!

See that curly edge? Once it’s blocked it will look totally different.

Blocking describes a finishing process used by knitters and crocheters to even out their stitches and set the shape and size for their pieces. It involves wetting the fabric, stretching it until it’s just right, and allowing it to set as it dries.

Pixie soaked the shawl and carefully wrung out the water before the next step. Tip: Use lukewarm water for blocking.

Pixie used a foam mat and T-pins to hold the shawl in place. Tip: Insert pins at a slight angle for stability.

Since Pixie improvised a little to extend the pattern as she knit, she wasn’t entirely sure what the final shape would look like. Though she started pinning the outer edge into sharp points, she decided to re-pin it with a scalloped edge to better showcase the lace details. She also wasn’t sure what shape the neckline would take and re-pinned it several times to get it just right.

Pixie checks to make sure the shawl is stretched evenly. Each minor adjustment means removing and re-inserting pins until it’s just right. Tip: Allow extra ease when you cast off–technique for finishing the last row–so that the yarn doesn’t snap as you block.

Stretching is an art. You have to fiddle with it to see what happens -Pixie

Pixie posing with her blocked shawl after almost 2 hours of pinning, tweaking the shape, and carefully stretching the delicate lace.

Once she finished blocking she allowed it to dry overnight and then removed the pins.

The moment of truth! Check out that scalloped edge!

Pixie tries on her finished piece!

December 17, 2020

Affordable Anti-Racist Workshops for Makers in January

We are doing our Anti Racist Workshop Series for Makers again. After our successful October pilot, we are excited about offering the series again.

All Workshop courses are priced at a sliding scale of $5-20. Scholarships are available upon request. See below for information on the courses. We hope to see you there!

Schema of Makers

Saturday January 9th, 2021 | 11:00AM – 12:30PM PST

$5-20 sliding scale | Tickets

Who defines what a legitimate maker is? Explore how different types of makers are valued and have an influence on how the community is shaped.

Communities are like ecosystems — living things that change and evolve over time. We will unpack different maker identities and the dynamics of those identities and their influence on how our maker space community has evolved… for good or for ill. This workshop will explore both what the identity of makers has been as well as explore what it could and should be.

Makers Say What

Sunday January 10th, 2021 | 11:00AM – 12:30PM PST

$5-20 sliding scale | Tickets

How the language we use to share maker knowledge interacts with race and inclusion.

When it’s easy to lean into jargon as a way to communicate intelligence and experience, one can quickly conflate the words we use with who belongs and who doesn’t. And when it comes to talking about issues of race and gender, there is often a fear of saying the wrong thing. This workshop will explore how to be inclusive with Maker speak, as well as how to avoid the pitfalls of inaction by the fear of talking about race imperfectly.

You’re Too Comfortable

Saturday January 16th, 2021 | 11:00AM – 12:30PM PST

$5-20 sliding scale | Tickets

Recognizing when comfort is an indicator of white supremacy manifesting itself. Explore how to take action when it does.

One way white supremacy protects itself is by eliminating stressors of those who are in proximity to it. Things are easier, quicker, more accessible, more abundant, less risky, and more. This workshop will examine how comfortable you are and explore where your own discomfort might be putting up barriers to equity and inclusivity. This examination also includes a critical examination of biased systems we might be participating in. Then we’ll talk about what can be done about it. We will uncover what actions can be taken when we discover white supremacy manifesting itself.

Taking Care of the New Guy

Sunday January 17th, 2021 | 11:00AM – 12:30PM PST

$5-20 sliding scale | Tickets

Taking care of the new guy when the new maker isn’t white or a guy.

How then do we take care of new individuals when they are not like us or having a much different experience in the world. How can we support and include black, indigenous, and other POC people in majority-white spaces? Being successful at either can be complex and confusing. We will explore all the ways we can practice harm reduction as well as examine how our own biases and fears may be holding us back. This workshop will leave participants with skills to do just that including positive accountability.

About our Facilitator

Rachel “Crafty” Sadd
She/Her/Hers

Rachel is a Bay Area based artist, activist, and maker. When she is not making she is the Executive Director at Ace Makerspace. She leads program development for equity and social good projects. Participating in rapid response to the COVID-19 public health crisis has been her main focus since March 2020. She is equally engaged by beauty and utility and she creates projects which span genres and challenge ideas about art, craft, and culture.

Learn More about Rachel’s DEI work