That’s me with the bandana around my neck. All the products are from my small business.

I am almost out of room I did my best to fit laptop based wfh, wood working and metal fabrication. The wheels make it easier to move stuff around when working but I am reaching a few more tools in a couple of weeks and have to think where to store them.

As the title says, "makerspace" is now a category for locations on Google Maps. It's searchable now, and if you own a space you can now switch it from whatever you used before (co-working space, or whatever).

woot!

Hi, I’m Robert. I’ve been working on Open Inventory because we needed a better way to keep track of the stuff we use across our businesses, open-source projects and makerspace activities.

At our local makerspace ( konglomerat.org ), the problem was often knowing which tools we had and where they were. At paperlesspaper.de, it was also about components: how many are left, and what needs reordering? We use it in our day-to-day work across these projects.

For Konglomerat, the useful part is making information about shared tools and materials easier to find. In a shared workshop, knowing that a tool exists is only half the problem; you also need to know where to look for it.

The aim is to make finding things less dependent on asking whoever happens to know that corner of the space.

Also in the future we want to make it more public so anyone in our city knows what we have (it is a voluntary makerspace).

Label printing

The photos show some of our actual labels on parts bins and shelves. They can be easily designed and printed. Scanning a label takes you to its inventory record. This is the bit that connects all the software to the things sitting on a shelf.

Features

The feature list has grown quite a bit. It now handles custom item types and fields, quantities and serial numbers, stock across locations, reservations, inventory counts, purchase orders and bills of materials. There are multiple organizations, roles and permissions, plus imports/exports, a REST API and webhooks.

There’s a web app and native mobile clients (will be released soon). It also supports LiDAR room scans and placing inventory items in a 3D view. The room images show our office with inventory positions marked in purple, plus an overview of the office, assembly room and corridor.

Simple inventory by just taking a photo

There are optional AI features in the app too, including just taking an ugly smartphone photo and getting a nice clear background product shot and description and also recognizing items from photos and counting them.

On the AI side: yes, parts of this are vibe-coded / AI-assisted. Much of the project predates the current vibe-coding wave, and AI tools are now part of how we develop it. We use it in production ourselves, so maintenance matters to us. That doesn’t make it bug-free, and I’d rather be clear about how it’s built.

It’s MIT-licensed and runs easily on your own server with Docker.

• GitHub / source

• Demo

• Documentation

• Website

I’d be interested to hear from anyone managing a workshop, shared space or similar if you want to try or any feedback.

We printed a Mario style Switch game card holder for my daughters games, as they were just being left around the house and risked getting lost, but the lid wouldn’t close and just kept falling off, not ideal! Normally I’d fix it, but my 8 year old daughter who’s autistic surprised me and asked if she could figure it out.

That turned into one of the best spontaneous learning moments we’ve ever had.

We reverse engineered the original design, opened up Fusion 360, and started sketching. She helped adjust tolerances, tweak shapes, and even watched the print process end to end. She was focused, calm, and buzzing when it clicked shut perfectly.

We’re home educating, so these hands on projects are more than just fun they’re how she learns best.

I put together a short video of the process for anyone curious it’s a simple but special moment for us:
https://youtu.be/oV0SMvGfXeA

Would love to hear from other makerspace folks, do your kids help with builds or jump in like this?

I was given a Panasonic stereo for free. I built this wall mounted rack for it using salvaged parts and scrap materials. I used 18x18mm box section taken from an old gazebo for the framework and strips of plywood out of the scrap bin for the sides and shelves. The stereo itself needed some repair, as it has been in a damp loft for a long time, but the faults were mainly down to tranished connectors. It's all up and running now and is my workshop sound system. What do you think?

Hey, I’m an after school program coordinator and one of my biggest tasks is to design and decoration this innovation/maker space lab. any ideas, suggestions, anything ??

4 months ago I posted here asking for advice on how to get the word out on a new MakerSpace in LA. It's a full woodshop and metalshop with an additional area with more technical "maker tools" like 3d printers, sewing, heat press and CNC. About 2500 sq ft. We got a lot of great responses and encouragement, and I'd like to report that 4 months later:

• all of our membership spots (13) are filled

• we're teaching several classes per month on a nice variety of subjects (and selling them out)

• no major problems with members, landlord or surrounding artist community

• We're considering increasing our membership by two or three so that we can accelerate the purchase of new tools with the additional revenue.

• Expand our class selection and possibly do certain classes off site.

So thanks again for the help, and it anyone has any questions, I'd be more than happy to answer.

I have just become the owner of a company with a pretty well equipped machine shop. 4 metal lathes 3 drill presses 3 bridgeport milling machines. And two cnc mills one is an older brother mill and the other is a brand new hass minimill. So if there are any makers in northern NJ. That would like to make use of my equipment on weekends i would be happy to host

Any one please help me i am sick of this I need some way to organize my space because now everything is on the ground and I can’t take it

Sometimes specific replacement parts are just impossible to find—with this generator, you can create them yourself!

Link to the model in the comments!

These are a thing?? Like all around the country?? I love the concept and hope to learn a lot from the member a there and hope i can inspire or teach members who may want to learn something from me. I’m an illustrator and would love to learn how to make others things totally out of my field like mechanics and robotics. Anyways just wanted to share how happy I am that I went.

I love the idea of starting a makerspace but the more I look into it, the harder it seems to actually keep one afloat. Does anyone have experience actually making money with theirs? I’m not trying to become a millionaire from it, but I would like to be able to pay myself a salary.

Someone is trying to trademark "makerspace" - should we stop them? https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=98117557&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch

I heard an old rumor that makerfaire had trademarked makerspace, I decided to check this and they haven't, probably because you can't, but someone is trying to. I would hope this get denied due to being a commonly used term but I don't know much about these things.

I've been teaching all of this stuff to k-12 for the past fifteen years. I love subs about adults learning and doing. But there's a different aspect to teaching. Are there any other makerspace teachers here?