At the end of Delaware Place in Longmont, just a few feet from the Boulder County Fairgrounds, you’ll find TinkerMill, the largest makerspace in Colorado.
It’s a place where people interested in art, technology, science, business, music and more can collaborate on creative projects and share tools. They go there to learn, teach, make things, and prototype new ideas, products and services. They go there to start ventures, meet new people and share knowledge.
Anyone can go there.
Makerspaces in the area
TinkerMill Longmont: www.tinkermill.org
Boulder’s Solid State Depot: www.boulderhackerspace.com
Loveland’s CreatorSpace: www.lovelandcreatorspace.com
Denver’s Hackerspace: www.denhac.org
“It grew crazy fast. We did not expect this at all,” explained the heart and soul of TinkerMill, Scott Converse. He bounces around the large space with the energy of a teenager and a twinkle in his eye.
“People came out of the woodwork when we started TinkerMill.”
Around the country and the world, makerspaces — also know as a hackerspaces — have become hubs of innovation and entrepreneurship. Longmont’s makerspace is one of those leading the charge.
“It’s a community organization; we have about 160 paying members today and nearly 700 members on MeetUp that come here to share their talents and skills and expertise,” said Ron Thomas, who just became TinkerMill’s first executive director. “It’s a great place to meet a wide variety of people with differing sets of expertise and skills.”
Mission for Mars
One of those people is Daniel Zukowski. He runs a software consulting business called Action Lab, which he runs from a space in TinkerMill. He’s working on projects for when manned missions to Mars become a reality.
“We’ve got a startup called AutoPonics. It’s automated hydroponics and aquaponics,” he explained.
Zukowski got a grant from NASA to work on automated plant-growing systems for space.
“This year we’re building a deployable Martian greenhouse prototype. A little unit, desktop size, the theory being this would be deployed on a mission to Mars or the moon, set up on the surface and grow some plants to prove that we can do that on another planet.”
ActionLab landed in the TinkerMill space six months ago.
“What better place than TinkerMill, where we have this awesome space and great people to talk to who give us advice on this project,” he said. “It’s super fun.”
Closer to earth, there’s Longmont City Council member Jeff Moore, a TinkerMill member.
“I put together the wood shop here,” he pointed out. “Right now we’re doing a project with the library, to put little libraries in the city parks.”
Moore is a busy volunteer at TinkerMill, especially when it comes to sharing his skills in woodworking.
“We’re really just getting started, to tell you the truth.”
Statewide trend
Colorado has embraced the makerspace concept.
Boulder is home to the Solid State Depot. It launched in late 2010 and also has grown in membership and space.
The depot is at 1965 33rd Street, Unit B, just off Pearl Street and around the corner from Twisted Pine Brewing. It offers a weekly open house on Tuesdays at 7:30 p.m., going as late as 11 p.m.
The Depot’s stated mission is “to more making in the Boulder area. We will explore art and technology, and support each other in developing creative ideas/plans/toys/inventions/madness.”
Loveland has CreatorSpace, a non-profit, member-funded and operated, cooperative makerspace, at 320 Railroad Ave.
Listen to an interview with Ron Thomas HERE
Despite the relative youth of TinkerMill, which launched 19 months ago, it has become a sort of king of the mountain in the makerspace world.
“In terms of square footage and members, you have to go to the West Coast, to California, before you reach a larger makerspace than here,” said Thomas.
Indeed in terms of square footage, TinkerMill is one of the largest such spaces in the country with 8,500 square feet.
The executive director points out you don’t need to be working with NASA to feel welcome and at home at TinkerMill.
“One of our very popular areas is the pottery studio. It’s run by a world-renowned master potter. We do a lot of artwork, especially with kids. So it’s not just high-tech.”
People also can learn welding, woodworking and metal working. They can explore 3D printing, CNC (computer numerical control) milling, coding and laser cutting.
Longmont resident Lee Sutherland heard about this makerspace as it was first forming in 2013.
“It was clear to me that Longmont was going to be a place for this and it would be very popular, introducing welding and crafts and the other technical arts to the people, making them accessible to the people,” Sutherland said.
As the trainer engineer tinkered around, he and his colleagues came up with an idea.
“About a year ago we came up with a product idea, for an essential oil extractor. Given the kinds of members we have here, between the mechanical engineering and electrical engineering, computer science and so forth, it was a fertile, collaborative environment.”
Today, the extractor prototype has been built, and soon it will go into production at TinkerMill.
“We will be hiring people to help us put together the first units to get us off the ground.”
A future of job creation
Founder Scott Converse says TinkerMill already has a healthy list of interesting stories.
“Lee is a world-class engineer and also an optical engineer,” he explained as he pointed toward Sutherland. “We also have a guy who does the robotics and animatronics for Disney here. He’s working with the museum right now to do a robotics exhibit for kids.”
Like most makerspaces around the country, the dues are low to join. Students can join for $25 a month, which gives them full 24/7 access to TinkerMill and its classes, workshops, and tools. Individual adult memberships are $50 per month.
But you don’t have to pay to benefit from the facility.
“You don’t have to be a member to take classes. All of our classes are completely open to the public, our open houses are each Sunday from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.,” said executive director Ron Thomas.
The founder believes that makerspaces are much more than places to tinker and collaborate. He sees a future of job creation and development.
“What we learned in 2014 was that people started making stuff, and they started making products,” Converse explained. “It turns out this is an economic engine, this is an economic development engine It was an accidental incubator. So in 2015 we’re going to focus on enabling a lot more incubation of new businesses.”
This year TinkerMill will add a 1,000-square-foot classroom so there will be even more teaching, as well as corporate events, and more arts events like plays and live music.
“Every single city in America is going to have one of these someday — a makerspace,” he said. “I believe TinkerMill is a model for what’s going to be happening all over the world, really.”
Vince Winkel: 303-684-5291, winkelv@times-call.com or twitter.com/vincewinkel
