A NEW 24 hour facility has opened in Swindon, but this one isn’t a gym or a supermarket – it’s a ‘tricked out’ workspace for technical creatives.

Described by the wife of one of the founders as ‘a knitting club for geeks’, the Swindon Makerspace is a place for people to get together, bounce bright ideas off each other and build clever things.

Based at the BSS House complex in Cheney Manor, the Makerspace was launched by the team behind the Swindon Hackspace, which was originally formed about three and a half years ago for much the same purpose.

One of the founders, Damian Axford, 36, said: “The Hackspace was based out of a room at the Museum of Computing.

“We could only use it on Wednesday nights so for years we couldn’t grow and lots of members came and went because they couldn’t come down when they wanted or store stuff in the room.

“Last year, a few of the founders agreed to underwrite the rent for this new space and we started the process of becoming Swindon Makerspace.

“We started amassing donations and then got the lease on our new home back in March.”

The founding members began to send emails out to people who had previously attended the Hackspace and slowly their membership base began to increase.

They held a successful open day at the start of May which was attended by the Mayor of Swindon and a steady flow of interest has followed from there.

As for the purpose of the collective, Damian, who works as a project manager in the business world by day, summed it up quite simply.

“Imagine if you took all of our workshops and sheds and combined them in one building, this is what you’d get,” he said.

“Hopefully you’ve got just about every tool you could want across a diverse range of disciplines – everything from computing to 3D printing, to sewing, to electronics, wood work and metal work.”

So far there has been a noticeable focus on robotics and 3D printing, indeed many of the 3D printers at the Makerspace have been fitted out with parts made by the members themselves – their mantra is very much ‘why buy it when you could make it.’

However because it’s driven by what the members are interested in, the activity can quickly diversify as new members come along.

Damian added: “We’ve got some people who are more interested in crafts now, we’ve got a family who are farming alpacas and they’re using the equipment to make some parts for spinning yarn using 3D printing.

“My son and his friend were here the other day and they wanted to build some Star Wars blasters so you can see the real mix we have going on.”

The workshop is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and access is by an electronic card.

There are a couple of membership options with most people opting for a monthly subscription.

For more information or to arrange a visit, you can visit www.swindon-makerspace.org