Maker Spaces in China

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Celeste LeCompte:

'Chaihuo, Shenzhen’s first “maker space.” It’s a sort of community center where members get together not to play basketball but to build robots, learn programming skills and dream up do-it-yourself (DIY) technology projects.

Chaihuo is one of about a dozen such places in China. The first, XinCheJian, appeared in Shanghai in 2010, followed shortly by others in Beijing, Hangzhou and other cities around the country. Several more new spaces are opening this year. What makes Chaihuo special, though, is its connection to both the broader maker movement and an ongoing shift in global manufacturing.


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Chaihuo doesn’t offer many tools. In part, that’s because of the site’s proximity to the global supply chain for parts and pieces. Instead of learning to use the equipment themselves, many Chaihuo members turn to the thousands of custom suppliers around the Shenzhen area, who can turn out custom laser-cut designs, circuit boards and milled metal screws far more quickly and cheaply than the DIYers could themselves.

Rather than focus on tools, Chaihuo focuses on building community and encouraging collaboration. “For me,” says Jasen Wang, a Chaihuo member, “it’s about the people — [having] a place to share, a place to talk.”


2.

"As China begins to lose its cost advantage over other countries, it can no longer count on manufacturing’s traditional low-margin, high-volume economics. Because of this, both regional and national government agencies have begun to invest in efforts to build homegrown Chinese businesses and products that keep more of the wealth inside the country.

One strategy that politicians are trying is investment in makers. In late 2011, Shanghai proposed to fund 100 maker spaces (dubbed “innovation houses”) throughout the city, six of which had opened by March 2013. The network of maker spaces will include the usual mix of manufacturing equipment, classes and membership activities. The goal: to cultivate a creative spark among China’s entrepreneurial class.

With more free time and rising wages, notes Eric Pan, founder of Chaihuo, there’s a growing class of educated technology workers who are starting to discover making as a hobby. He and others say that developing a culture where making can be fun is a key piece of the creative process that leads to commercial innovation.

Take the examples of Jasen Wang and Terry Ouyang. Wang’s DIY robotics kit, Makeblock, started as a personal project. The set of durable, machined aluminum mix-and-match parts for constructing your own robots caught on with other users at Chaihuo, and Wang soon quit his day job to focus on developing the product full time.

His campaign on the online fundraising platform Kickstarter brought in $185,000 — more than six times its initial goal. Makeblock now supports four full-time employees and is nearing completion of its first venture investment round.

Terry Ouyang, a software developer and long-time Chaihuo member, started out working with others on projects they found on DIY websites, but when it came to generating new projects, he froze. “I wanted to work on my own thing, but I didn’t have any ideas,” he says.

Through the Chaihuo community, though, he met a designer with an idea. The two began talking, and today they’re working on a personal health-monitoring device for iPhone users.

That’s precisely the kind of thing Pan wants to see more of. After all, Chaihuo takes its name from a Chinese expression: Zhòngrén shi chái huyàn go, which translates as “the fire burns high when everybody adds wood to it.”

As the name suggests, Pan is hoping that, by joining forces, the small twigs of China’s emerging maker culture can stoke a creative fire." (http://selamtamagazine.com/stories/made-china-20)