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The Geek Group's Hacker-Oriented High Voltage Lab In Michigan Damaged by Fire
Tech educational collective The Geek Group, based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has more than 25,000 members, scattered all over the world — most of whom have never been to their flagship location in Michigan. Sadly, a fire Thursday damaged one of the facilities at their Leonard Street Labs (damage report starts about 26 minutes into this video), the High Voltage Lab. Since there aren't that many places for amateurs and hobbyists to learn about high voltage (even with the growing number of maker spaces around the world), that leaves a hole that hopefully will soon be filled; lucky for anyone interested, The Geek Group welcomes volunteers.
Why is it that every couple of years something catastrophic happens to the group that severely impacts their progress, and trivializes the hard work of many contributors? And, why does it *have* to be something that’s amplified by the group’s “quirky” management who are clearly out of their league?
My prediction is that their insurance won’t cover this. Eerily enough, the building’s lack of a fire alarm was also made evident. They will have a salvage mission on their hands and they will beg for private donations to cover the expense. Donator’s contributions burnt up in this incident, and donators will again have to swoop in and clean up the mess.
I have no confidence that the group will cease to have these periodic, major incidents. And, I caution everyone to consider that fact before engaging yourself, and especially participating in one of their far-too-often fundraising drives.
I’m sure everyone is aware of my perspective by now, but regardless, it’s been published many, many times in the past that despite the majority of the members being reasonable and well wishing, the management of the group need shuffling.
There's been a lengthy discussion over at HaD regarding the fire:
http://hackaday.com/2014/01/03/fire-at-the-geek-group/#comments
Move your stupid vehicles for the fire trucks....
...Shocking! I'm positive the emergency contacts for the lab blew their fuse when they heard. Nothing like getting such negative reports to ground you in the harsh reality of life's load.
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
It's a shame. I would imagine that's all insured and such. But they're going to need cleanup supplies, etc. Just go hit their amazon page to donate those.
So each throw in $2.00, fix the lab.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
The High Voltage Lab at OSU is nearly 100 years old, and they have never had a fire. Wonder why...
No wonder no one came to my high current lab!
What a mess. And where the fire was is in pretty bad shape, too. The guy that kept his face in front of the camera and wouldn't stop talking was too irritating to me to watch the whole video, but I saw a hazardous, sloppy work area. So my comments are I'm glad nobody was hurt and why did it take so long to have a fire?
So my local hackerspace basically went quasi bankrupt once or twice, they sent out emails asking people to fundraise to pay the rest. Prior to that they had a brief legal battle with their landlord about rent/improvements they made to offset rent and so on. Do I want to get involved in this? .... No. So I'm kitting out my garage long term as a maker space for myself and my kids. Maybe if we had a maker space with like a minimum age of 30 or something.....
It's very weird to me that I've been reading /. and other geeky websites for a decade and a half and I've never, ever heard of this "The Geek Group" with 25,000 members and a 42,000 square foot headquarters/lab facility. What is their purpose? Should I have heard of them? Where would I hear about them, if not here? Am I supposed to turn in my geek card if I have no idea who these people are? Are they the ones that issue geek cards in the first place?
Questions abound.
As a Grand Rapidian geek, I had no idea we had something like this in town. I must check this out once they're back on their feet.
The Fifth Third Ballpark went up in flames mysteriously as well yesterday.
The first thing he did after getting this new building was wiring in camera's everywhere so he can be a wannabe youtube celebrity. What he should have done instead was have a fire alarm system installed. The Geek Group has been in there for years, and they've been postponing getting a building occupancy certificate just as long. Getting a fire alarm would have greatly aided their effort at getting one.
But the real problem with working with Chris Boden is that the idea of the Geek Group being a hacker space open to the public is more of a carrot on the end of a stick. Even in kalamazoo this was a problem. Boden just keeps on sidetracking that original goal with new projects, projects that mainly benefit him. Typically resources are squandered constantly building/remodeling studios for him to make his youtube videos. Then there are problem of Geek Group resources being used on properties outside the lab. How many hacker spaces get there own parsonage for select employees? This one does!
In the end, I doubt the Geek Group will ever really reach their goal of being a hacker space open to the public. Eventually the City of Grand Rapids is going to be tired of them and their shennagins and do something to force them out, which is exactly what happened in Kalamazoo.
Does anyone know their maximum voltage rating? I work in a private lab that has the capability to generate 600 kV. I'm just curious. I didn't find it on their website.
Seems like a small Faraday cage around each battery powered smoke detector would work. I have experience with high powered RF (VHF through 2.4GHz, 125W of emitted RF power) and smoke detectors never had a problems with this equipment.