RECENT NEWS

Happy Maker New Year! Here we are in 2024. Happy New Year to you all. What a year 2023 was at MakerBarn! Let’s just try to list all the new equipment we acquired this past year; - Jewelry Punch machine - CNC Milling machine - Green Laser for Rotary Work - Horizontal Bandsaw - CNC Plasma Table - Replaced the wide belt sander with new model - Bambu Labs PIP printers (4) - A Kiln, pottery wheels and all things ceramics!

Happy Holidays! December is a busy month at the MakerBarn. Members tend to ramp up making Christmas gifts, which is always inspiring to see as you scroll through this and every newsletter. Here are a few things to know this month:

Gratitude in Action: Thankful for Our MakerBarn Members It’s November and the holidays are fast approaching. I’ve been thinking about gratefulness. In the realm of non-profit organizations, the heart and soul lies within its dedicated members. These individuals commit their time, energy, and passion to make a meaningful difference in large and small ways.

A Change of Leadership We started The MakerBarn in 2016. For most of those seven years, George Carlson has been at the helm as our President. He has set the tone as a family friendly, community inspired, and reasonably priced place to learn about and use equipment that, for most of us, may be out of reach due to cost and space constraints. We are very fortunate to have this smart, sustainable makerspace model to call our own.

Of Classes and Machines… Everyone expects August in Texas to be hot, but over 100 degrees every day? Thank goodness for air conditioning. A good place to escape the heat is to work on projects at The MakerBarn. This month John Buckley will be teaching a course on Fusion 360. Fusion 360 is a 3D computer aided design (CAD) program that allows the user to design complex 3D structures. John’s course is currently full, hopefully he can teach it again when this session is complete.

Cool Air and Hot Plasma! I don’t know about you, but I am sure glad we installed the two mini-split air conditioners in the shop. July was a scorcher. The new A/C units kept the shop habitable the entire month. The other big change was the three new 3D printers in the lab. All three have been working well and getting plenty of use. They are so easy to use compared to what we had before.

Entering Our Eighth Year! The 7th anniversary celebration we had last month was a huge success. Apparently, it was in the Impact newspaper as a thing to go to on the weekend. There must have been close to 100 people in the Lab and Shop at one time. No grumbling was heard, everyone had a good time. As a result, our new member waiting list jumped up to about 30 people. We must be doing something right.