Space of the month
REGULAR
focus on peer learning and informal teaching between
members. Anyone who has something they want to
achieve, but lacks the skills to achieve it, can ask to
be put in contact with a member who has experience
in that field.
One of the nice things about the space is that we
get a complete mix of users, from university students
and lecturers from the two universities within five
minutes walk of the space, to seasoned industry
professionals in computer gaming and engineering.
Our oldest members are well into their retirement
years and, during our planned classes, we welcomesecondary school students into the space. You really
don’t get access on such an even playing field to
a mix of people quite like this anywhere else but
a makerspace!
We also want to better integrate into the
community, and we hope that in the future we can
work with more local businesses, charities, and the
council to provide opportunities to all willing citizens
of Dundee and the surrounding areas.
Dundee was a textiles town 150 years ago, and so
most of our industrial buildings are former jute mills,
with a particular concentration in our area. The
Dundee Verdant Works museum is right around the
corner from us, and shows what it was like working
in a jute mill, and some of the old machines are thereWe hope that...we can work
with more local businesses,
charities, and the council to
provide opportunities”
”
and still working (for demonstration purposes). So it is
perhaps fitting that we are continuing a strong textile
heritage in this building.
We find most of the people who come to do
textiles here are younger, teens, uni students and so
on, but we do have a few older people.
We probably lure in more older members with our
woodworking room than anything else. Though
Dundee is also home to Scotland’s largest Men’s
Shed, so many of the older men who might
otherwise come to us are better served by that
facility instead (they have a ridiculous amount of
lathes and other woodworking tools!) We are trying
to work out better collaboration opportunities with
them so they can come and help teach lathe-work at
our space (we have one lathe bought from them).
In the last couple of months, we’ve run the
textiles courses, a build your own pollution sensor
workshop (linked into the Luftdaten initiative and lead
by Dr David Martin from Dundee University, who is
one of our most enthusiastic members) and a Build a
Planter workshop in our woodworking room, lead by
a local woodworking schoolteacher. We got a lot of
the community in for that one, as it was targeted and
partially funded by a local community centre.Above
Dundee is also the
original home of
DMA Design (now
Rockstar North)
who designed the
Lemmings series
whilst they were here
(Dundee Makerspace
has a number of
3D-printed lemmings
as a result)
Right
Dundee Makerspace
was until recently
in the Blackness
Industrial Estate,
surrounded by old
jute mills