Community Maintenance #1

Come for the cleaning, stay for the pizza!

Everyone is invited to come help clean up the space and bring order to chaos!
Dan is bringing in new boxes, so we can reorganize all the tools and get things labeled, so the place will be a better place for everyone! Afterwards, there will be pizza for those who volunteered.

This is not only a great event to learn about the space, but to also mingle and hangout with your fellow hackers.

If you’re going to show up to the space for your own projects, please mind that you might be asked to temporarily relocate and to otherwise be mindful of the cleaning effort.

When: October 2nd, 2016, from 2pm to 5pm
Where: VHS @ #104 - 1715 Cook Street

9 Likes

Long WE, isn’t it?

5S standardizing and cleaning all the benches

My goal is to transfer all the stuff we have into boxes, label them, standardize them, and put them back. I’m looking for clear adhesive pockets that can be stuck on the front of each shoebox. A card in the pocket would hold the name, dewey decimal address, URL, and QR code pointing to the wiki page. This way anyone can learn about a thing, tell if the thing is in the right box, tell if the box is in the right place, or search the wiki to find the thing they need and where it lives.

Any given shelf of the ESD benches can hold 12 shoe boxes (6x2). There are 2-3 shelves per bench, 4 bench per row, and 4 rows (soldering, crafting, 3d printing, laser cutter). 1234*4 = 576 shoe boxes. Assuming 2 shelves per bench have big bins or odd-sized items, 194 boxes. I will therefor purchase ~150 new shoeboxes with fitting lids. I’ll even do the boring bit of making the wiki pages and running the printer. I ask you to help by clearing shelves one at a time, organizing them, telling me what label/wiki to set up, and then returning them neat & tidy to their new forever home.

Anything not fit in a box will be dealt with as a special case. Ideally nothing is thrown out. Non-standard shoe boxes will be donated to members on a first-come, first-serve basis.

I hope someone will champion the label maker to ensure that it is working day-of.

When I say Dewey Decimal…not really. Every bench has a letter and every shelf has a number. So if a box says “E3” it’s probably the top shelf of bench E, which would be the bench with the sewing machines.

No storage on the floor

I have a goal to get all storage off the floor. We have enough roomba fans at VHS, a Roomba should be running all the time. Drop a very special nut or screw on the floor? No fear of it rolling between things and disappearing.

Other critical infrastructure

Are there any pieces of VHS infrastructure still controlled by individual members? Can we get that cleared up?

Can I suggest using the previous system? If I recall correctly, counting up from the top, so that E1 is the top shelf, with E4 being the table surface, and E7 ultimately being the floor? (Or the other way around with E7 being the top and E1 being the floor.)

Long WE, isn’t it?

Not sure, I don’t think it is.

It was always from the bottom, like an apartment building. Ground, 1, 2, 3, etc.

These are the labels I want.

They have them in different sizes.

labels ordered.

I’ll be there!

1 Like

labels arrived. So nice.

@laftho can we use money from SPORG to reimburse dan?

1 Like

That was the conversation at the AGM. I’m keeping within the budget and getting separate invoices for VHS stuff. So the labels came with other things from ULINE, but are on their own invoice to make reinbursement easy.

1 Like

The long weekend is the week after

Hate to bail last minute but ended up getting ill and will be pretty much house bound for today and tomorrow. Sorry guys

Would have liked to participate, but I was working a full shift today :confused:

Thanks all for coming!

Some great progress has been made! @SomethingFun posted some pictures on Slack, which he can hopefully share here as well, or else come check it out in the hackspace itself!

All the shelves have been labelled, and we got as far as the first aisle, the tables, and the craft bench, which @InezG took on. Everything has been moved, labelled and cleaned out.

@Jarrett ended up going through the storage in the back and you can actually get in there again!

Hopefully @iMakeRobots can provide more instructions on how people can continue organising?

Great job everyone!

2 Likes

It’s really super easy. Every bench or shelving unit has a letter, every shelf on that unit has a number. Ground is 0, first shelf is 1, and so on. D0 has a big box full of new shoe boxes with lids. D5 has labels and pockets.

  • Put a pocket on a shoe box,
  • write on the label the address (underlined) and the box contents
  • put the label in the pocket.
  • put the box on the shelf.

Most of the stuff we care about using at VHS we have lots of - like rolls of tape. they can sometimes spread to two or three boxes, even when organized by type (like packing tape, electrical tape, masking tape).

Some items are so big they fill a whole box. No problem! We have lots of boxes.

Some items are too big for a box. Special cases are always fun. Probably on a shelf under the workbenches, but off the floor.

What about all the good 20 gallon tubs that will now be empty? Member project storage! Let’s be real, that area above 3 week bins is looking scary.

future projects

I’d like to thank new member Rob for testing the LED strips from VHS2 that have been on the floor since we moved in, and are now being installed somewhere for decoration. Please offer him a hand, those things are long and will take 2+ people.

Also thanks to Peter for putting a permanent power supply on the bench lights, instead of using up a variable power supply. And thank you to everyone else who pitched in and helped make VHS more awesome. a group buy for some 2m white LED strips would be nice. Wired directly to a bench so when you turn on power, the lights turn on. easy to see where power has been left running.

I hope when everything is off the floor VHS can adopt a few homeless roombas and have them running all the time.

Several of the main project tables are looking… sad and droopy. I’d like to see the wiring a bit more like at IDIYA (the NOLA hackerspace):

https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/t31.0-8/13692895_1048986045192891_890479875772491926_o.jpg

Wires mostly off the table so there’s more room for projects.

I have no idea yet what to do about electronic small parts. They’re useful and good, but always trending towards entropy.

Now that I think of it…

Could someone please print the official VHS donation policy and stick on the cork board at the front?

In a perfect world donations are vetted before they arrive at VHS. In the real world, we have a place for people to put them (3 week bin? the black rolling cart?) until tuesday when members can pick through it and take action.

Cleaning event now scheduled for 1st Sunday of every month.

3 Likes

Which director is now in charge of accounting? I have receipts for the bins and label pockets.

Fill out the reimbursement form and send to directors@ as always. Bank
account access still hasn’t changed over but we’ll get it to you asap