Visiting MakerBay

MakerBay is a hackerspace in Hong Kong! There is another hackerspace, Dim Sum Labs, where the space is smaller and people focus mainly on electronics, but at MakerBay you can make anything!

Here is their wood shop

This is their giant CNC machine

There is a room full of industrial equipment including this drill press. The industrial equipment at MakerBay is mostly donated by factories that were closing down. Eda, one of the makerspace managers, explained to me that Hong Kong used to have a thriving manufacturing industry, but now a lot of it has moved to China instead, and Hong Kong is focused more on professional industries like finance.

MakerBay also has a DIYBio lab! Here is Mike working on an algae project. He is going to be testing it in a local park soon, as part of Design Trust Future Studio’s Skip Park exhibition! He was looking for a power adaptor and found one that didn’t work. He and Eda joked about shanzai electronics. Eda told me that it used to be very bad 6 or 7 years ago. It was common to come across poorly made electronics that weren’t reliable and could be dangerous. But now, the Chinese government has stepped up on quality control and the electronics are much better.

Ed Murfitt, who’s an advocate for sustainable manufacturing, set up a natural materials library at MakerBay.

The Noisebridge China Hacker Tour and MakerBay folks all sat in a circle and introduced ourselves and talked about our projects. I was able to demo my Leave Me Alone Sweater!

There’s lots more stuff going on at MakerBay — I’ve only captured a fraction of it here from my short visit. If you’d like to know more, their website is makerbay.org.