Relocation and Workshops!

After months of search operations, at last we have finally found a new place!

Since the beginning, we were looking for a proper room, with a space large enough to set up our machines, that we could also use for workshops and seminars. Bürgerhaus Wilhelmsburg perfectly meets these requirements. Plus it is the ideal place for us, as it is a house open to the public. So we said: “Go for it!”

We see this move as an opportunity for natural growth and further professionalization.

Thanks to the help of the members of newly founded HoFaLab e.V., we were able to transfer our equipment to the new place. We have also bought some furnitures, and were able to install most of them on the same day.

Werner, our mastermind in microcontrollers, also brought in a light installation artwork for which he developed a open source MicroPython-Module for the ‘Raspberry Pi Pico RP2040‘. The actually running script of this wonderful NeoPixel art piece he build, is only 10 lines long. In the end of the day, there was even a small barbecue and roofing ceremony. Basti from Fab City Hamburg was also there to help, and wrote a friendly article about us 🙂

We love our new place already and see huge potential to develop into a significantly expanded offer. We are now in the process of acquiring and building new machines, as well as preparing for the re-opening of the lab. In this video, you can have an idea of how the place looks at the moment.

Meanwhile, we have already started to provide workshops again. HoFaLab, as part of Fab City Hamburg, has the mission to concentrate on the educational part. A key anchor point of Fab City Hamburg e.V. is indeed to share knowledge. This means we will be offering seminars in various forms in the coming months in-house, but also in other locations for participants of all ages.

For example, Werner (again!) already gave a class on how to built a Prusa Mini 3D printer with teenagers in the Feuervogel leisure centre. Basti (again!) made a very nice video presenting the event. He will be repeating this session in different institutions in Hamburg in the coming weeks.

Following the 3D printer topic, he will also be giving a workshop with Henner in the Brakula cultural center in July in frame of the “Insectology” festival. The goal is to teach children how to model and 3D prints insects. We are now looking forward to see what kind of animals will be produced by the children’s imagination!