Business Plan

"Non-profit, as well as government agency business plans tend to focus on the "organizational mission" which is the basis for their governmental status or their non-profit, tax-exempt status, respectively." - Wikipedia

Idea

HeatSync Labs provides a collaborative workspace where engineers, entrepreneurs, students and tinkerers come together to imagine and build tomorrow’s innovations.

We break down barriers to innovation by providing equipment and facilities to people interested in programming, hardware hacking, physics, chemistry, mathematics, photography, security, robotics, and art.

We encourage hands-on development of exciting new creations, we host talks, workshops, and encourage knowledge exchange through collaborative development projects, and we stimulate learning by providing mentoring and cross-disciplinary educational opportunities.

Our vision is a world where we re-awaken our population and reinstate the knowledge of creation in opposition to our throw-away society. We aim to empower our population, delivering the confidence and skills to compete in a globalized economy.

Overview and Plan Objectives

Market Analysis

We define our 'market' rather broadly as our mission is nonprofit and educational in nature. In short we want to collect entrepreneurs, creatives, professionals, hobbysits and students together under one roof. Age, gender, ethnicity, etc are of no importance to us.

Entrepreneurs need access to a talent pool to start building their team. They need resources and connections to create their prototype, wander the IP minefield, and find funding to bring their product to market.

Students and hobbyists want to be a part of something big. They want to bump into big thinkers working on big projects and be invited to help and learn. Hopefully they want to become entrepreneurs themselves.

Artists' biggest requests so far have been studio space. Further cross discipline connections and resources can also help in trying new avenues of expression.

Professional engineers are hungry for this, too. They need space outside of their companies to grow and work as innovations made inside their company can lead to problematic IP rights. They also need a place to bring their kids and family to interest them in science and technology education. The Mechanical Engineers we've met, on both the wood and metal side, have found many of their tools fairly commoditized. However, more and more they yearn for community. The garage is a lonely place to innovate.

Kids are really important to HeatSync Labs, too. We need to stop hiding the tools of creation from them. They need to grow up in a world around tools and the creators in the community so they understand that these these options are available to them and so they can begin building their knowledge network early.

Thats not all the groups we target, however. Photographers, Scientists, the curious and motivated are all important! We want to challenge any passerby into walking in and we want to put a tool in their hand. It is time to return to the tools of creation to our people!

Our Product

Most importantly, what we provide is a community for these people to be a part of. A small subset of tools can be readily purchased and accessed, but more and more people are moving away from working alone in their garages to connecting with their communities and on the internet. We broaden horizons by having all these people and resources in the same room, breaking down the mental block that these tools are not unavailable or unapproachable. We bring the tools of creation OUT of the industrial districts.

We also bring these tools out of the silos of our tech school and college brethren. True cross discipline work can not happen via meetings, tech talks, etc. We work side by side whenever possible. When specialized tools or knowledge is needed our people may graduate briefly to silod learning, but the starting point must be working side by side.

Secondly we push people to get involved. There are no wallflowers at HeatSync Labs. You bring your project and work on it, or we put a hammer in your hand and we put you to work.

Lastly, we provide access to the tools of creation. We provide application IN ADDITION to theory. Truly the best way to learn is by doing.

Experience and Capabilities

Principals (The Team)

Jeremy Leung - Champion

Qualifications: A self-proclaimed jack of all trades stemming from his interest in any thing he can get his hands on, Jeremy Leung is a maker. Whether that involves music, art, inventions, code, written work, or a mixture of all of the above, you'll find him dabbling in it. His current passion lies in teaching and the intricacies of communication -- how to properly convey ideas and concepts through the available means. This has led him to a slight career change with his long-term employer, from Senior Systems Administrator to developing training programs for Technicians, System’s Administrators and Engineers. He brings his passion for learning and teaching to HeatSync Labs; striving to push the organization forward as a “third place” where people can fill in the gaps of learning that our traditional education system often cannot provide.

Duties: Responsible for coordinating between the different board members. Helps maintain the primary goal of the organization (the mission statement). Also helps to support all members with various tasks and is responsible for public and board meeting agendas.

Jacob Rosenthal - Champion

Qualifications: Jacob is a freelance embedded developer and engineer for hire. As a research assistant with ASU’s Cognitive Center for Ubiquitous Computing (CUbiC) his work was accepted to the IEEE HAVE 2009 conference and more recently he was published in the 2011 issue of IEEE Transactions on Haptics. Jacob endeavors to surround himself with brilliant people and as such is an active member of the ASU Linux User’s Group, the ASU Software Developers Associations, and the IEEE Phoenix Chapter.

Duties: Jacob is the feet on the ground of the organization. He sets the vision, brings order to chaos, and manages the day to day of the lab. Call it Director of Operations -- or HeatSync Dad if you like.

Andrea Young - Secretary

Qualifications: Andrea Young is a founding member of HeatSync Labs. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Justice Studies with an emphasis on Law from Arizona State University. Young has a strong background in the financial industry, having worked for Bank of America for 5 years. She has previously worked with a non-profit organization, Southwest Youth of Unity, for which she still volunteers as an adult sponsor and mentor. Young is currently working on an additional Bachelor of Arts in English with an emphasis on Education. She is also an avid gamer, comic enthusiast, and is eager to learn more about electrical engineering.

Duties: Responsible for maintaining records of all meetings and other paperwork for the organization, including membership applications.

Jose Diaz - Treasurer

Qualifications: Jose Diaz joined the HeatSync Labs Team as Treasurer in 2010. Having started his career as a Controls Engineer within AlliedSignal's Aerospace Division he now works for a top Engineering and Information Technology outsourcing firm. His responsibilities have included developing financial dashboards and reporting applications as well as helping business units integrate technology into their normal workflows. With an extensive background in information technology, engineering and business, Jose Diaz holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University and enjoys helping his wife run their small business.

Duties: Responsible for managing financial assets and liabilities and collecting membership dues, donations, and other revenue.

Joyce Tang - Marketing Director

Qualifications: Joyce Tang is a computer science and systems engineering student who is looking to transition into a marketing position pending her graduation in May 2011. Her qualifications include working as a Technical Rep. for Microsoft Student Partners on campus 2007-2008 and 2009-2010. During this time she organized popular on-campus events, campaigned extensively with student organizations to deploy technical marketing, and encouraged students to discuss the idea of technology on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

Duties: Responsible for press releases, endeavors in social media, and promotion of HSL in general.

David Huerta - Editor

Qualifications: As a member of DECA at American Falls High School, David Huerta was a newsletter editor who kept the student body updated with the latest news from his student chapter. Continuing his education at DeVry in Phoenix, David joined the DeVry Times student newspaper team, and wrote on a variety of topics of interest to the student body with a form of investigative and engaging journalism that became his distinctions in the paper. Also at DeVry, David co-founded the DeVry Linux User Group in 2003, after which he was elected for several terms as its president. As president, he organized bi-monthly meetings on various topics relating to open source technology and created promotional materials, membership packages, and organized promotional and fundraising events, some of which were co-hosted in collaboration with other local technology groups. During his time as DeLUG president, David also helped restart the IEEE Computer Society student branch at DeVry and served it as its Chair in 2005 until graudating in 2006 when he joined the IEEE Graduates of Last Decade Affinity group, volunteering in website administration, becoming elected Vice Chair in 2009, and Chair in 2010. David currently serves HeatSync Labs as its content editor and manages HeatSync Labs's written and aesthetic communications to related organizations and the public at large.

Duties: Responsible for monitoring the blog and wiki. Edits submissions for publication and recruits contributors for entries.

Will Bradley - IT Director

Qualifications: Will Bradley has demonstrated years of experience in the IT Industry as evidenced by his current position where he designed, implemented, and manages a 15 site, 25 server, 100 client network for a local residential company. Will also offers a background in software programming which he displays passionately through his work improving his skills day by day writing in languages like: XHTML/CSS, Javascript, C#, Java, PHP, and Ruby on Rails. All of which he hopes to bring to HeatSync Labs in support of its technological infrastructure.

Duties: Responsible for maintaining HeatSync information technology resources from wifi to laptops to websites and servers.

Partners, Community Partners

Community partnership is very important to HeatSync. Our goal isn't to obtain and duplicate everything around us, but rather to connect our users with existing resources.

• ASU's CUbiC Lab - Have strong ties to ASU in general, and the CUbiC in specific. We share a love for accessibility and ubiquitous computing and are currently looking into grant opportunities.
• Larry C. Kennedy Elementary School - We've begun partnering with schools as well. In early 2011 we began working with Julia Tisdale, a science teacher, who reached out requesting donations of money tools and consumables required for class experiments. So far we have assisted on an earthquake simulation study where kids build structures that can withstand a simulated earthquake, and a strawberry DNA extraction experiment where kids learned to extract DNA!
• Gangplank HQ - We partnered with Gangplank beginning in 2010 and grew along with them. We're most proud of our mentoring partnership for the 2010 FIRST Lego League robotics competition and our partnership on the Intel Meego Development event.
• Urban Stew - Urban Stew is a nonprofit which explores synergies between art, technology, and culture. We have now partnered for various electronics workshops hosted by MadCap Theatre in Tempe and a First Friday event in downtown Phoenix where we partnered to teach basic electronics and robotics.
• O'Reilly Press - The O'Rielly group has long worked within the maker community with their Make and Craft publications and their MakerFaire national conference/science fair. We've got strong ties to their group and we are now working to host a Maker Faire event in the Phoenix Area.
• Global Hacker Spaces - The hackerspace movement is a global phenomenon and as such we have partners throughout the United States, and the world. We're working to create a nonprofit umbrella organization to aid people around the world in creating hacker spaces in their locations. Collaborating with teams around the world allows us to find the best minds to work on solutions for projects.

Current Business Accomplishments

Workshops

Monthly we run a free to attend Arduino workshop where we train kids to adults how to program micro-controllers. Hundreds of people have attended our monthly meetings with the goal of empowering themselves with technology to solve their own problems. The Arduino development platform was created in a classroom setting and it's community is based around using the technology for educational purposes. People with no programming or electronics experience can sit down with us for a couple hours and learn to code their own program to flash LEDs, send messages to screens, actuate motors, and more.

Most recently we had been asked to create a workshop series on soldering and programing for UrbanStew, another local nonprofit. Again, we wanted to instill the values of creation, having our attendees actually BUILD the computer they would eventually program. We did this with a goal of demystifying these devices which are increasingly becoming ubiquitous.

Public Meetings

We have hosted over 24 free public educational events this year. Every 1st and 3rd Thursday we invite in a speaker to invigorate both our audience and usually the speaker! From materials, to tools, to processes we want to empower our people with the knowledge they need to succeed. Topics have included:

• PaperCraft
• Glass Working
• Working with Acrylic
• Thermoforming plastics
• Lathing metals
• CAD/CAM Introduction
• 3D prototyping and fabrication
• PCB Layout and Design with Eagle Cad
• PCB Chemical Etching, Heat Transfer, with FeCl
• Near Space Project Ballooning
• High Speed Photography
• Monster Plush Party - Recycling old toys by sewing them together with electronics

Weekly Events

In addition to our Thursday bi-weekly speaker series, we host events all week long. The two recurring series to note are our Augmenting Humanity and 3D Printing nights. Augmented Humanity consists of a blend of ubiquitous computing, wearable computing and research and development into accessibility through technology. Notable projects include Bryan Duarte's work with the Arduino development platform to aid himself and other blind individuals to solve their own problems themselves by utilizing technology. Bryan's work is just one of the many fascinating projects that happen on Mondays.

Every Wednesday we host a 3D Printing event where we foster the innovative field of personal manufacturing. 3D printers have long been out of reach of the individual inventor and entrepreneur, but falling costs and several open source projects are changing all that. These devices are finally realizing the promises of the Star Trek Replicator, creating 3d, multi material objects before your eyes! Even more mind bending is the idea of the machine creating the machine which is a focus of the open source Replicating Rapid Prototyper (RepRap) project we are involved with.

Large Scale Projects

Outreach

Not only is education our 501c3 chartered mission, its also our passion.

Throughout this past year we focused on education, not only internally, but externally. It was our joy to mentor our first First Lego League(FLL) teams. Our kids, mostly 9-year-olds, worked throughout 2010 Body Forward Challenge, as the FLL puts it, to "explore the cutting-edge world of Biomedical Engineering to discover innovative ways to repair injuries, overcome genetic predispositions, and maximize the body's potential, with the intended purpose of leading happier and healthier lives." They learned computer programming and mechanical and biological engineering concepts culminating in a team presentation and robot competition. The goal, again here, was to empower them to solve THEIR OWN problems. Our technique was entirely discovery learning and the adults were only there to supervise and answer questions. It was the first year for our kids and they had amazing fun. In addition our mentor won best mentor for the season.

Recently we've waded into science education waters. We've been working with a local teacher to help develop, implement and fund science course ware. Our first two labs included an earthquake simulation for student built toothpick structures, and an examination of strawberry DNA. Many classrooms can't afford to put money down for the equipment needed to perform hands on experiments that shine light on the theory that kids learn in the classroom. This is evidenced by websites like donorschoose.org that have whole communities pitching in money to help fund school projects. In these scenarios when they can purchase their own equipment it is often only one time use and then stays unused for the rest of the year. To help facilitate this applied learning in classrooms we can have equipment available for checkout that can be shared between multiple classrooms and schools.

Internal

August 28th was the culmination of several months of preparation. More than 40 people attended our near space balloon launch, from children to adults, to help us 'chase' down the landing. A team of 6 People planned and executed the development of a payload to survive a trip to ~75k feet into the upper atmosphere, and see it safely return. Anyone from the public was welcome to join the development team and learn the multidisciplinary fundamentals necessary to launch an object into nearspace!

A new team has formed around tackling issues related to solar power generation and storage. A rocket engineer, turbine engineer, electrical engineers, students and hobbyists are all working to adapt an MIT design for a solar collector. The goal is to leverage our location in the Arizona desert to further understand renewable energy problems and solutions.

Business Assets

It won't be surprising to know that the totality of our assets include our tools and equipment. In addition to a great set of standard hand tools we have tools ranging from metal working to wood working to prototyping and more.

Metal

• 7x10 Lathe
• Taig Micro Lathe
• CNC Lathe
• Drill Presses
• Band Saw
• Complete Mig welding setup

Wood

• Scroll Saw
• Skill Saw

Prototyping

• 100 Watt 4'x2' Laser Cutter
• Rep Rap 3D Printer
• Makerbot Cupcake-clone 3D Printer

Electronics

• Wide selection of electronics components (DIP and SMD)
• 2 Oscilloscopes, analog and digital
• 4 DC power supplies
• Complete Soldering (DIP and Reflow) setup
• 10+ sets of soldering equipment for workshops and training

Microcontrollers

• Large and diverse stock of Microcontrollers and programmers (PIC, ATMEL(arduino), Texas Instruments)
• Large stock of sensors and actuators for microcontroller projects

Material Handling

• Palette Jack
• Lift Table

Misc

• Mechanical Engraver

Marketing Plan and Forecast

Competitive Analysis

Universities and Tech Schools

• MCC
• EVIT
• ASU
• U of A

High schools are pulling out of access to the tools of creation because of safety, budget cuts, etc.

Colleges continue to be silos. Inter-departmental bickering and inability to communicate leads to an institution with all the tools present which are necessary to succeed, yet frustratingly kept at arms length. They build large buildings off campus offering offices and even more closed off spaces.

All offer course ware focused on electrical/mechanical engineering and arts, however, cost thousands of dollars and several years to gain access to equipment and get the applied learning. With the amount of people in these programs it is often the case that even if you are in the program at the institution you have to wait in a very long queue of peers to gain access to equipment. Access may be granted past project deadlines and alternatives are needed.

Incubators

• Skysong's Hackspace
• Techstars
• 500 Startups
• Innovations

These companies benefit in being able to direct entrepreneurs down the path of starting their own business as well as helping them find the investors needed to kickstart their ideas. However, putting on tech talks and having free food doesn't build a community, it simply attracts an audience that prefers to be fed--literally and metaphorically. On top of that most incubators end up just being extensions of the silos that universities are already creating with separation between different disciplines.

Co-Working/Collaboration

• AZ Disruptors
• Gangplank
• Co-Hoots

These all provide collaborative spaces where startups can save on costs for space by sharing a location. Most offer an area for the general public to come in and do their work which allows people to find like minded individuals or partners for projects/business. These locations currently focus on software, design, or marketing companies that only require some space for their desktop/laptop and then they are good to go. While the above is something we would like to retain, none of these spaces, except for Gangplank as long as we are an anchor there, offer areas that provide the tools and space necessary for creating things in the physical world.

Hackerspaces

It's a Global Phenomenon.

We're most like a traditional academic incubator model mixed with the newer coworking model. Entreprenuers and skilled tradespeople who don't wish to work in an office alone but would rather work side by side with the other brightest minds in the community in order to build their workspace in public.

More specifically, we are part of a larger maker/do-it-yourself culture exemplified by Make Magazine. There are spaces popping up throughout the United States, and globally, all with different visions and goals, but all listing themselves at hackerspaces.org.

Locally we are most like our peer coworking/collaboration sister and landlord, Gangplank. Gangplank, much like us, intends to revolutionize education, community, and collaboration. Hardware and access to tools is on their agenda, but only superficially.

What makes us different from all these is our focus on infrastructure. It has become very vogue to open a space, provide wifi and try to build community around Bring-Your-Own-Computer concepts. These purposely dodge the challenges of infrastructure. Even our schools are pulling out of this area in frustration. We refuse to back down. The infrastructure is indeed the hard part, but it is also the difference. The infrastructure, the safety, training, liability, skills and experience to make these things open to the public are the key to bringing creation back to our throw away society.

Marketing Plan

Entrepreneurs

TechCrunch and other online sites have fetishized the startup lifestyle and it will be important to capitalize on this, organizations like tech stars, students and student groups. Participating in and speaking on panels for events like ASU's Global Entrepreneur Week will advertise us as the obvious place to go when first developing product prototypes and looking for partners on a startup team..

Students and Hobbyists

Being ingrained in the Make culture is the big way to reach these people. Make Magazine, blog.makezine.com, hackaday.com, and hackerspace advertising are the way to reach these grass roots entrepreneur types.

On campuses, Technical students are becoming more and more disenfranchised with the opportunities and equipment available to them in academia. There was a day many years ago where the only place you could find a 'computer' was in academia, but that time has passed. There may be as many as 300,000 college and technical school students in the phoenix metro area, with only maybe 5% with arts/ design/technical backgrounds, leading to 15,000 possible customers. These customers are going to be more eager to get their hands on professional equipment, but also more sensitive to price. It will be important to stress the experience and connections membership in our elite organization can bring them, connections to local jobs and internships, as well as a start upon the career of an entrepreneur.

Outreach to students should be done on campus. Poster advertising is free, and student ambassadors would be cheap to hire. Another method of reaching these users could be through ad-vertainment in the form of speeches and presentations on campus.

Student groups will be another excellent way of reaching the correct demographic. Groups including Linux Users Groups, On campus Engineering fraternities and societies, will be a valuable resource.

Artists

Find these people throughout the local groups spread across the valley. Events like First Friday in downtown phoenix are teaming with artists. From what we've gathered talking to artists at these events what they are mainly looking for is space to work in. Organizations like Urban Stew pair art and technology for public art shows. Targeting students on the campuses can draw in artists. Pairing with vendors and local art stores for discounts can help those establishments and be incentive to join our community. We can pull in artists with photography competitions, showings/galleries, and free nights for groups to use tools.

We want to also target the craft/DIY communities. Groups like PHY DIY and Geek Girls have huge groups of crafters doing interesting work in the valley.

Professionals (Engineers)

The IEEE Phoenix membership is 3,600 members. These members are professionals well into their careers and should have some income to be 'invested' in their future. We will want to sell them on setting out to peruse their dream rather than staying at the same job they may be dissatisfied with. Another interesting concept to be exploited is that engineers who use their companies equipment may find themselves mired in IP rights issues. The way to reach these users will be through their professional society and through professional publications including IEEE publications, Circuit Cellar, Nuts and Volts, Wired and possibly Linux publications.

Another good avenue will be trade shows and strategic partnerships. It may be possible to work with the big electronics vendors including Jameco, Digikey, and Newark to cross promote by being a local presence for these online companies.

As for mechanicals these can be gotten to through local groups like Valley Metal and local wood workers.

Scientists

?

Kids

Our public schools need help! Schools can't afford to fund many experiments and projects that would help solidify learned concepts at a younger age. It is often left up to teachers and parents to fund these things. By working with the teachers and parents in the community we have been able to supply their kids with the tools and consumables needed to complete these projects. Through programs like Lego League and the electronics/mechanical workshops we host we can start to groom the next generation inventors/engineers/artists.

The Curious and Motivated!

All those not lumped into the above categories we end up pulling in from walk by traffic, press, ads, word of mouth, and social networking (twitter, linked in, facebook).

Plan of Action

We have outgrown our current home at Gangplank and as such have created a committee to begin searching for new space in the Phoenix Metro region. This move has the possibility of being very stressful to the organization so it has been decided that we would approach the cities themselves looking for a longterm partner to make sure this next move would be the one that puts us either in our final home, or one clear step away from it.

The attributes necessary to make HeatSync successful include access to transportation, centrality, vitality and finally the proper mix of industrial and 'retail' space.

The current goal is to align ourselves around the north 202, 101, 60 and or the light rail project. This should allow easy access for the entire valley.

In our current location we fill up about 1000+ sq./ft., though we utilize project rooms and the main room for presentations and meetings so we're used to having access to more than 5000+ sq./ft.

Current projections require 500+ sq./ft. to safely house our workshop with our current equipment and our newest addition of a laser cutter. Further we intend to grow over the next year or two adding another 500+sq.ft of space for tools including:

• Shopbot (Wood Working Computerized 2D Cutter)
• Plasma Cutter(Metal Working Computerized 2D Cutter)
• CNC Milling Machine(Metal Working Computerized 3D Cutter)
• Injection Molding
• Industrial Sewing

With our members contributing an average of $50 a month, at 20 members, we're grossing ~1k a month. We are currently basing our leasing ability by these numbers as they are our most reliable recurring source of income. Our other forms of income are detailed in the Financial section further down.

Our goal is for this space to allow for the following types of activity:

• Meetings
• Presentations
• Workshops
• Periodic Events/Celebrations

Our public meetings have presentations that bring in 30 people on average so we would also require a space that can accommodate them.

Current estimates of cost at around 1500 sq ft come to ~$2k a month with utilities.

At that rate we're clearly projecting a shortfall of $6000 over 6 months(this would be worst case with no growth). Stagnant growth seems unlikely however. Based on current growth rates we expect to be able to cover this shortfall (40 members averaging $50 a month).

This is why we are shooting for a space that can house at least 40-50 members, allowing us to grow out of the next space within a year into a more final location (75-100 members) which it is expected we may max out at based on research (community intimacy issues, space and safety constraints).

Current actions are being taken to raise that money prior to the move to ensure stability. We have done previous work with donations to raise larger sums, but we again want to find consistent realistic sources of revenue. Worst case scenario that type of campaign lets us run the final 6 months of our lease and allows us reevaluate our strategies.

Last case scenario is a push to fund the space with donations, our goals are to keep donations funding the TOOLS, PROJECTS, and PEOPLE.

Workshops - We've seen workshops generate XXX

Sales - Most recently we've also begun selling more directed tools, accessories and kits based on our workshop series. We've seen sales of XXXX

These all pad that 6k shortfall to nearly nothing.

Further, a new space opens up new funding options. For instance, there are further membership tiers to be considered based on amount of space that becomes available. Ideas include renting benches and 'studio' space to artists, continuing to host fundraising nightlife events.

Financials

Membership

A membership model has been the core of our support over our first year. This recurring income is the backbone of our financial support. It is our intention to utilize this stable income to pay all fixed costs.

• Associate Member - $25 per month, and you get your name on the list of members and access to the lab and shared equipment during the hours of operation.
• Basic Member - $50 per month, and you get the benefits of associate membership, plus 24/7 access to the lab, including a key to the building and security code. This also includes personal project space for a banker box (box provided by HeatSync Labs.)
• Plus Member - $75 per month, and you get all the benefits of basic membership, plus a locker in the lab!

Metrics based on our current membership data include:

• An average of 2 members per month added over the past year.
• Average growth rate of greater than 200% over the previous 3 months.
• 77% of members are in the basic (middle rate plan)
• Only 2 members to attrition over the entire year.

Donations

Donations have been a key to our success from the outset. They are how the majority of our community show their support. Usually these donations are not necessarily monetary, but rather equipment based.

When we finally started pulling the space together in 2009, the first donations to come in were standard hand tools including hammers, wrenches, drivers, saws, etc.

With hand tools covered our community moved on to create our electronics lab. Thousands of dollars in electronics and test equipment rolled into the space over the course of several months. These donations included oscilloscopes, dc power supplies, soldering equipment, and standard electronic components.

What we really needed at this point was pieces of high priced and attention grabbing equipment that couldn't necessarily be found in anyones garage. Historically, 3D prototyping had been priced out of reach of the general public at $10,000 and up. A new device was changing that though. The Rep Rap is a free design for an affordable 3D Printer that claims it can be built with simple hand tools and electronics equipment for around $1000 in parts. We raised that $1000 in 5 days.

By summer we were months into working on our 3d printing technology and had serious needs in the mechanical engineering department. The community turned its attention to larger metal working equipment. Again thousands of dollars in metal working equipment including a band saw, 7x10 lathe and drill presses arrived. At the same time our members approached the local manufacturer Taig about a deal on their beautiful Mini Lathes. We were apprehensive about our ability to convince them as our 501c3 still had not cleared. We walked away the same day with a machine worth $400.

In December we continued our started campaign to bring in exclusive and approachable tools. We began an innovative donation drive to collect $7500 to purchase a 700lb. Laser Cutter. We utilized the online fund-raising platform Kickstarter.com and were able to beat our fundraising goal of $7500 in under 30 days, by bringing in almost $10,000!

In January there was nothing to do but wait for our Laser Cutter to be manufactured and shipped. During this time Welding became a hot topic in the lab. A Mig welder, welding cart, and welding table, at least $500 in value, were donated allowing us to begin holding welding workshops.

We don't necessarily know what the big donation drive will be, but when this community needs something, it reaches it's goals.

Fundraisers

While memberships pay the rent, and donations fill the space with tools, fundraising has been important in raising funds to cover any further operational costs.

Throughout the past year we tried many innovative fundraisers including Water Balloon fights, LAN parties, Barbecues, and a Poker Night. We continue to adapt and deliver our community value for their donation.

Our last fundraiser, a mix of birthday party, science fair and electronic music show, targeted 100 donors for $10 each and reached that goal easily. More importantly, it is still regarded highly in the community. It is our intention to both continue, and grow, these 'nightlife' style fundraisers.

Further, there are many more traditional fundraising options that we have yet to attempt. Dinners, Raffles, and Auctions are all being considered this year.

Grants

As we've previously shown, our Membership, Donations and Fundraising fully support the organization. We could simply stop there, but it was our goal early on to become something bigger. The completion of our 501c3 process opens the door to local and national grants for original science and technology research. Members are currently doing innovative research in accessibility, education, neurosciences, and renewable energy and it is our goal to find ways to fund these projects. Most importantly we have the amazing benefit of many large scale technology companies nearby that are looking to fund innovative new ideas. We have located and are targeting opportunities with:

• Intel
• Honeywell
• Avnet
• Verizon
• Motorola
• Microchip
• Freescale
• Raytheon
• General Dynamics
• Lockheed Martin
• Boeing

Many of those companies already have employees that frequent our space.