What is a media maker space that understands new manufacturing? What I want to convey to people who are about to start

How to make a maker space

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by Taketo Ochi

2018/03/28 07:30

According to a fabcross survey, maker space has doubled in the two years since 2015, and as of October 2017, there are 174 facilities in Japan. Considering that there are a certain number of facilities that the editorial department does not know, it is not strange that there are actually more than 200 facilities, and it will be difficult to cover all the maker spaces all over Japan. It is growing at that momentum. Through my interviews so far, I have heard the voices of many maker space operators and users. In addition, there are opportunities to receive consultations from businesses that are interested in maker spaces, and in some cases, they often go to lectures and give their opinions on how to utilize them. For that reason, since 2017, he has been involved in the operation of DMM.make AKIBA, which is not an exaggeration to say that it is the largest maker space in Japan. While this series is of increasing interest, we're introducing a lesser-known (and I'm aware of) maker space in a different way than fab Navi to those interested in these facilities. I want to deliver useful information as much as possible.

What is Makerspace

There are various expressions such as maker space, fab facility, fab space, hacker space, etc., and each has different nuances, but in this series, the notation will be unified to maker space.

There are maker spaces in various contexts such as open innovation, venture development, regional revitalization, and STEM education. In addition to the above-mentioned purposes, there are also places that are operated as maker's hangouts and facilities that do not have the primary purpose of profit, such as Fab labs, which will be described later.

Another major feature of the maker space is that there are events other than the workshop function. It differs from a simple workshop in that the operators form a community through events and various services.

For facilities for individuals, there are seminars to improve the usage of equipment and processing techniques, and for facilities for corporations and start-ups, matching events with investors and major companies, trial production / mass production, and consultation meetings on intellectual property, etc. Is opened. In addition, there are facilities that hold workshops and recruit and monetize users who are not fixed members, while there are facilities that sell members' products online and give lectures on the sales method itself to members. Even in general coworking spaces, there are many cases where study sessions and seminars on tax affairs and entrepreneurship are held, but many maker spaces focus on the manufacturing industry.

Since "MAKERS" published by Chris Anderson, then editor-in-chief of Wired and CEO of 3D Robotics, was translated in Japan in 2011, the maker space began to increase on the Makers movement, and the momentum continues to this day. Is increasing. This trend is not unique to Japan, and the number of FabLabs, which started from MIT, has increased to 1,000 worldwide in 2016, and in the United States, it was decided to introduce maker spaces to schools throughout the United States during the pre-Obama administration. It is announced as a policy. There is also a theory that there are 400 maker spaces in Shenzhen, China, which is also called the factory in the world.

On the other hand, there are also events that symbolize the rigor of management, such as the bankruptcy of TechShop in the United States, which is a "long-established store" of maker space and is touted as a symbolic existence, and the closure of all stores in the United States . Even in the places I actually interviewed, there are many cases where we talked about sustainable management models and monetization, and referring to the existing maker space, we anticipate that profitability will be severe, and we will develop our own management model. Some businesses make it.