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Welcome to Bloominglabs, Bloomington's very own hackerspace!

A space for sharing tools and knowledge to make stuff

Bloominglabs is Indiana's first hackerspace (also known as a makerspace). We are a group of group of people who rent a shared workshop where we can build projects both collectively and individually. Our space is located at 1840 S. Walnut Street. We are open to the public on Wednesday evenings from 7pm until 10pm and Saturdays from 1pm until 4pm. Our open hours are family friendly. Note, we are suspending our open hours for a short period of time while we do some repairs around the space.

News update

On January 10, some of our members were working on a project that they thought they had sufficient contingency plans for. They did not, and Bloomington Fire and Police Departments were called to respond to the situation. We're grateful to them for their prompt responses and are very glad the damage to the building we rent space in was kept to a minimum. We're now working to clean, repair, and make sure Bloominglabs gets back to being the awesome place to make cool stuff in that we love and that we enjoy sharing with our fellow Hoosier makers. At the same time, we're also working to improve both our safety practices and our communication about things that are going on in the space. We hope to re-open our doors to welcome you again for open hours on Wednesdays and Saturdays soon, and we'll let you know when that'll be as soon as we have that date. This is our tenth year as part of Monroe County's long history of making and we're looking forward to celebrating that with everyone, to hosting our eighth Makevention this August 29th, and to the decades of making to come.

Daniel Halsey, Bloominglabs President

Contents

Stay informed

Support

Bloominglabs Incorporated is a non-profit registered within in the state of Indiana and has 501(c)3 charitable status. Want to make a donation with PayPal? Please use this link:

  • (Note to members - this link should not be used for paying membership dues)

Also, we have an Amazon Smile Account For Bloominglabs. If you use that link to place an order on Amazon, we get a little cut. Thanks!

Information for our members: this is how we process cash and hardware Donations.

Current Events (PastEvents)

  • Coronovirus Call to Actions
    • Check out our Coronavirus page for a list of things you can do to help during the current Corona virus crisis
  • Makevention!
    • August 29th, 2020
    • Join us for Bloomington's eighth annual maker fair
    • More information coming soon!
  • Public meetings!
    • Every Wednesday from 7pm until 10pm
    • Saturdays from 1pm until 4pm
    • Come build projects, ask questions, teach things, and learn stuff
    • All ages and everyone is welcome

Workshops

All workshops are for age 12 and older unless otherwise specified. Parents must come inside to fill out a minor liability waiver for children under 18 (unless previously filled out). Some workshops have limited seats available, see descriptions for details.

We currently have no workshops planned.

Donations

We appreciate donations! However, please bring all donations to Bloominglabs during our Public Hack Meetings (see above). That gives us a chance to decide what of your donation is useful to us. For things we can't use, we'll help you figure out other groups in Bloomington who would appreciate them or help you determine the best way to dispose of them.

Current Initiatives

These are things we are working on, or would like to see, to improve the space. If you are interested in any of these, feel free to work on it! If you are unsure where to start, please get in touch!

  • improve the tool and workspace arrangement and cleanliness
  • purge excess junk
  • vend snacks and drinks (we used to do this at the previous space, but haven't since moving)
  • revive the asset management system, and add our new assets to it
  • make Bloominglabs's web presence friendlier
    • The page you get when people from the public go to bloominglabs.org has an overwhelming amount of information on it.
    • The New Members page and the Membership Manual should be merged together.
    • In general, it would be great to see more participation in the wiki, especially on the [Projects] page.
    • It might be good to have a page that lists all members with their name, picture, username, email, interests, areas of the space they are familiar with, etc.
  • make the 3D Printers more reliable, make the 3D printing process easier, and spread the knowledge
  • wire the CCTV system
  • wire speakers in the lounge (and maybe in the classroom)

Membership

We are accepting memberships! Please see the Membership Manual for details. If you are a new member please check out the New Members page as well.


Meetings

Currently we meet every Wednesday from 7pm to 10pm and every Saturday from 1pm to 4pm at 1840 S. Walnut Street, Bloomington, Indiana. These meetings are open to the public; anyone is welcome to attend. Having access to tools is only part of the equation. Socializing with people and learning from each other is another large benefit from our group. Pretty much whatever people want to work on or learn is fair game. If it's cool and interesting then we are all interested.

Who are we?

We are a bunch of people that want to do interesting things and explore the world and technology around us. Expression of this interest takes at least as many forms as we have members, and often employs an amalgam of found and newly-constructed hardware and/or open-source and self-authored software components, but may be as simple as screwing some pieces of wood together to make a useful tool we don't have yet.

Bloominglabs was forged from the Bloomington Hackerspace Initiative and the former IU Robotics Club.

  • Read our Bylaws for a more formalized overview


What is a hackerspace?

A hackerspace is a physical location where people can share resources for their own creative pursuits. It's also a resource where people can come in off the street and advance their own knowledge. In urban locations it can often be hard to find places to weld/build/make noise and keep projects on-going without having to tear down and put-up your work each evening. With a hacker space people can work on their projects and not worry about annoying their neighbors or spouses. The social aspect is also an incredibly important component. Having people to bounce ideas off of and discuss your projects with when you get stuck is a great thing.


Nearby Hackerspaces/Makerspace or initiatives:


Other Cool Groups in Bloomington & Monroe County

Special Wiki Pages

Uploaded files

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