2025 Summer UK Trip

A summary of some of the things I found out about maker spaces in the UK.

Transcript

1. 2 0 2 5 S U M M E R R E P O R T MUSEUMS AND MAKERS IN THE UK
2. Maker Spaces Visits to maker spaces all across the UK Community Events A wide variety of events on a huge range of topics. Combining technical and non- technical members. Museums and History Museums showing the recent history of computer and looking further back to the rich engineering history of the UK. Summary
4. SIZE AND SPACE NOTTINGHAM MAKER SPACE One of the biggest differences between Japanese maker spaces and UK ones is the scale. The spaces I saw were around 6 times the floor area of the Fukuoka Engineer Cafe, if not more. They had enough room to store members projects temporarily and could house large projects and machines.
5. Equipment In all the maker spaces I saw you were really spoilt for choice. Each had multiple lathes, CNC machines, 3D printers, soldering stations, fabric equipment and much much more. CNC
6. MUSEUMS CAMBRIDGE CENTRE FOR COMPUTING HISTORY This is a mega sized CPU model, and it's fully working. Each transistor is a full sized through- hole component. It uses quite a lot of power. It also has LEDs showing which parts of the CPU and memory are changing in real time. At full speed it can run Tetris! The museum had devices from all eras of business and home computing, including some unique items like a BBC micro signed by all of the creators and a Sinclair Spectrum prototype. They also had a member of staff fluent in Japanese.
7. EMF 2026 A FESTIVAL THAT CELEBRATES TECHNOLOGY EMF is like a music festival but for technology. From blacksmithing to brewing, hacking to amateur radio they host talks and workshops on nearly any topic. Right now they are taking applications for the 2026. Can we get enough interest together to create a Japan tent?