What is a Makerspace? - basingstoke-makerspace/wiki GitHub Wiki

A makerspace is a collaborative work space for making, learning, exploring and sharing with a variety of maker equipment including 3D printers, laser cutters, CNC machines, soldering irons etc.

Makerspace equipment grows to reflect the interests of its members, it doesn’t need to include specific equipment to be considered a makerspace. If you have cardboard, lego bricks or art supplies you’re in business. It’s more of the maker mind-set of creating something out of nothing and exploring your own interests that’s at the core of a makerspace.

Some of the skills that can be learned in this makerspace pertain to electronics, 3d printing, 3D modelling, coding, cosplay, robotics, crafts, photography, wood and metalworking.

One source of confusion is the difference between a makerspace and a hackspace. The beginning of hackspaces can be traced back to 1995 Berlin when the world’s first hackspace called C-Base was launched. The concept of a hackspace started as places where a group of computer programmers could collectively meet, work, and share infrastructure. They would “hack” technology and try to make it do something it wasn’t meant to do. This term of “hacking” or “hacker” in the computer sense soon progressed and expanded into the hacking of physical objects.

Over the years, the price of maker tools such as 3D printers, desktop laser cutters and CNC routers became more affordable and hackspaces naturally evolved into makerspaces. Wikipedia defines a hackspace “as a community-operated workspace where people with common interests, often in computers, technology, science and digital art can meet, socialize and collaborate.” Those are also the same characteristics you will find in a makerspace. It's increasingly hard to find differences between the two terms and at this point it's more a matter of preference which name you choose to associate with. We decided to use the term Makerspace to emphasise the maker culture and social aspects of our community and to minimise the potential problem that the term hackspace is implicitly associated with negative image people have of a hacker.