This is part of the culture series
tl;dr: VHS needs donations, some of it is trash but its hard to determine what is trash and what is useful.
One mans trash is another mans treasure.
Everything you see at VHS (with a few exceptions, see below) has been donated to VHS. All the desks, chairs, electronics supplies, tools, machines, flags, kegs, etc… We have many people and groups to thank for helping outfit VHS by donating their time or materials. Thank you !
Donations keep VHS interesting and is a real asset to VHS-Members. Personally I would say that we need donations to keep value for VHS members.
Most donations come in when the donor is looking to donate them (on their time). VHS may not have an immediate need for the donations. These parts go into storage or are sorted for later. When VHS has an abundance of one part or another we tend to find projects to use them on.
We also get many offers for donations for things that we don’t want or that are basically trash. Its hard to judge what is trash and what is useful as people perspectives and requirements are different.
Space is limited, and people get frustrated when they can’t do work because the space is filled with parts that they consider trash. Other people get angry when you recycle parts that they want and don’t consider trash. Everyone’s needs are different.
This is a HARD topic as there any many people with many different needs. Please try your best to be diplomatic.
Donations can fit in too a few different a few different categories.
- Stuff donors don’t need and can’t sell (most common)
- Stuff donors want to recycle.
- Stuff donors are looking for storage (loans)
- Stuff VHS needs/looking for, and awesome donors found it for us. (Best and rarest)
Real life examples of some donations
Over 9000 wheels
A member at the space found an individual (the donor) that was trying to get rid of some wheels. They didn’t ask how many wheels they had or what kind of wheels, just that they had some wheels. The member suggested that they could be donated to VHS. ~6 months go by and the original member that was talking to the donor has left canada. The donor shows up at VHS and said he had a donation for the member and was told to drop it off here. The people at the space don’t know anything about it and tell the donor to bring them inside.
VHS gains ~8 large refrigerator size boxes of wheels. Estimated count of over 9000. We used the wheels for everything and gave away wheels to everyone, even if they didn’t want them. The last few wheels were given away in 4 months.
Nokia desk, chairs, N900, power supplies, coffee mugs
One of our members ( @Stevemopolis) worked at Nokia. When they closed their vancouver office, our member talked his employer in to donating the ESD desk, chairs, desktop power supplies, coffee mugs. This donation was a tens of thousands of dollars of equipment that we currently use every day.
At the time we were still at 45 west and had no space for all the donations. Our members found storage and transportation from Nokia offices for the desks and equipment. When we moved to the bunker they helped moved in the desks in too.
This is awesome!
SMT components
I don’t know all the details of this one.
We got several large boxes of a variety of SMT components. Lots of passives and active components of all different types. Most people didn’t know how to solder SMT. @TomKeddie ran ~12 workshops using these parts to teach people about SMT soldering and to make use of these parts. Now lots of people at VHS know how to SMT solder.
This is awesome!
Alligator clips
A large 50 L plastic bin of alligator clips got donated. ~100k of alligator clips. More clips then we could ever use. The clip game was created, basically during SHHH we attempt to attach as many clips to each other as possible without the target noticing. I have come home with dozens of clips attached to me. In 5 years we have consumed all of these alligator clips and had a great time doing it.
This was fun!
Solidworks
Solidworks is stupid expensive. It is one of the best CAD tools around, and there is no much that can match its feature set.
People at VHS were obtaining copies of this software from illegal sources and running the software on their laptops while at VHS. The software calls home and the developers of solidworks contacted VHS about the piracy. We told them that we are an open workshop and none of VHS’s equipment had pirated copies of their software on them. It is probably our members bringing in their own equipment. There was at least ten people using illegal copies of solid works at VHS at the time.
The developers decided to give us a copy of solidworks that we could install on one of our computers at VHS. This software is very very expensive but it had the desired effect. Piracy of solidworks dropped dramatically and people used the space computer instead of installing it on their own computers…
Don’t steal software!
MICA capacitors
8 boxes of mylar capacitors came in to the space. They were mostly the same value and were drying out and almost unusable [Debated by some]. They were untouched for ~16 months and were recycled to “The Hackery” when we moved out of The Bunker.
This was trash
And they tried to donate them right back to VHS after we moved
We don’t want them !
Library books
We get lots of donations of books. Mostly when people are moving from one apartment to another. The quality of these books very significantly but the donator just can’t bring them selfs to recycling them so they give it to VHS in hopes that we might use them. School books are a great example of this. (I have donated most of my library to VHS)
Powder printer
I don’t know all the details of this one.
It was posted on the list. We talked about it and several people said that they would fix it up and get it working. There was a review when it came in to the space and we found that there was one expensive part broken. No one wanted to pay for it and VHS would not cover the cost. The machine was left broken in hopes that someone would fix it. 18 months go by and when we moved from the bunker it was donated to one of our members that thought that they had ownership over it.
The blade servers (District 9 rendering servers)
@toma was contracting for the movie District 9. After the movie was done, he arranged for them to be donated to VHS.
I don’t know the details. They are expensive to run (electrical). We never had a project for them. For most of its life span we didn’t have the power supply that could run these servers. It was useful as a show and tell project for people that enter the space. It was donated to a member when we moved out of the bunker
Original LED wall
The LEDs were donated to VHS by a person in another group after they where used at burning man. VHS repaired, cleaned them up and created a awesome LED wall. Many of our members had a lot of fun building this wall of LEDs.
After a few months a different person in the group that donated them said that they were being LOANED to us, not donated and wanted them back. (we had no written documentation from the original person) This caused endless amount of turmoil and problems for everyone involved. We ended up giving them back to them to end the angry conversations and problems that it was causing.
@iMakeRobots fund raised the money to make the new LED wall, He found LED strings and ran a course on building and programing the LED wall. Now we have a better wall that is VHS’s property.
Exceptions
Green machine tools
VHS does not own the green Mill, Lathe, or metal band saw. These are not donations. They were lent to VHS for our use as the owner could not store them anymore. They may want them back in the future.
http://vanhack.ca/doku.php?id=tool:green_manual_mill
http://vanhack.ca/doku.php?id=tool:manual_lathe
Ask @JohnC about these if needed.
Vending machine
VHS does not own the vending machine, its not a donation. @iMakeRobots owns the machine and keep it stocked, he keeps the profits from the machine. Do not hack the Vending machine.
http://vanhack.ca/doku.php?id=tool:vending_machine
CNC Mill
VHS does not own this machine. its a long term loan from @rsim.
Are there any other exceptions?
How it is suppose to work
http://vanhack.ca/doku.php?id=donations
- Donor makes a post on the mailing list or forum or contact us forum
- Members of VHS talk about if we want it.
- If we don’t want it, we offer suggestions to the donor where they can donate it. The hackery, etc…
- We arranged drop off or pick up of the parts.
- We sort the parts and make them available to VHS-members for projects.
After a few months
If someone feels that some parts are no longer useful to anyone, they announce on the list telling people that they plan on recycling them. If there is no reasonable objection then they get recycled.
OR
The parts are put in to the three week bin system.
If you think something does not belong at the space but it not worthy of a post about it on the list. You can place it in the first bin in the three week bin system. At the start of every Tuesday the stuff in the 3rd bin is recycled or trashed. The stuff from the 2nd bin is moved to the 3rd bin, the stuff from the 1st bin is moved to the 2nd bin. At anytime people can take stuff from the three week bins home with them or if they feel it has use they can rescue it out of the bins for VHS.
What goes wrong
- The donor can’t wait for VHS to make up their mind on the list and donates it somewhere else.
- We need ‘n’ other parts to make the donated part useful, we never get the other parts and the donated parts are useless.
- It was broken when it was donated, and the people that said that they would fix it didn’t, it stayed broken until it was trashed.
- Its broken but only needs one part to be fix. That part is expensive, no one wants to fund purchasing that part. it stays broken until it is trashed.
- People don’t agree on what is trash and what is not.
- Lending a tool with so many restrictions that its unusable.
- We have 6 of these tools, They are great tools but we already have a few and better ones.
- People that “donated” the tool, wants it back. its ambiguous on what we should do next.
- People get angry when we sell their donations.
- People get angry when their donation isn’t being used correctly or is damaged and recycled.
- People want to trade membership dues for equipment or special treatment
- People want to give us money or equipment but want a tax receipt. We don’t have a charity to run the donation though.
- People lend equipment to VHS because they don’t have storage. VHS doesn’t need the tool any more or does not have the room for it. We try to give it back and the donor does not have room for it either. People get angry.
- People don’t know that a tool or equipment was lent instead of donated and they recycle it or hack it…
Solutions
- Its not acceptable solution to say that we don’t accept donations as everything you see at VHS is a donation and is what attracts people to the space.
- Its not acceptable to say that we don’t take loans on equipment. If we did we would not have any equipment that has any resale value and the shop would be empty.
Suggestions? Thought?
are obviously the points of contact there.