Anyone go to a maker space? What’s the vibe like?
With the new year coming I thought it might be worthwhile to join one and get some experience with some tools I’ve never used before, but the nearest ones look to be long commute away so I was hoping to get a sense from anyone here who visits one what the vibe is like, or if you had recommendations for lesser known ones. I found Maker’s Base in Meguro and DMM.Make in Akiba. Are there others? Feel free to reply with experiences in maker spaces outside of Tokyo even – I’m not going to be able to visit there but other readers might, and anyway I want to know what they’re like.
The first thing I wonder about is language. Obviously I don’t expect anyone to speak to me in English and obviously I wouldn’t expect anyone to let a new visitor near say, a lathe without a clear demonstration they understand the safety instructions in Japanese, but are they pretty tolerant of people who need language support (concept-checking questions, confirmation, circumlocution, etc) rather than language translation? There is a lot of fabrication terminology I could see coming up that isn’t in a typical Japanese textbook.
The other thing I wonder – just based on my experiences with bukatsu and circles – do you get a lot of hierarchy issues? Like if you just got started using a machine and sempai with the daily membership rolls up, are you going to be under pressure to get out of his way or is the atmosphere more egalitarian and flexible? Do people tend to just do their own thing because they don’t know each other or is there space for chatting (without getting in anyone’s way or being a distraction, obvs)?