[deaddabe]

I live near a major university that has as many as 4 fablabs listed. All of them is reserved to students. If you are an outside "thinkerer", you need to pay something like 400€/month to show up and use a soldering iron. Sometimes there is only a "contact us" form where you can ask for a quote! These efforts are completly sterile. Students have free access, but nobody from the outside world of the university to learn from.

I had access to a local hackerspace during my studies that was 100% run by volonteers, without any university involvment. It was glorious. I sat next to software and hardware professional doing amazing projects on their free time.

I guess I still have to tinker on my own instead of sharing it with people eager to learn in a common space. I think that somehow big universities actually prevent such spaces from emerging by creating their own sterile initiatives.