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Welcome to !
Fat Cat Fab Lab is a volunteer-run makerspace in the West Village neighborhood of New York City. This wiki contains information about the space, the FCFL community, and the equipment and tools that the lab provides. Become a Fat Cat Fab Lab member today!

Note: This wiki is public but only members may edit.

New Member?
New members should click go through some of our onboarding in New Member Orientation.

Member Portal
For creating accounts, registering for classes, machine reservations, or making payments, please login and use our member portal. CiviCRM is self-hosted in the cloud. We are looking for volunteers to help maintain it or even migrate it to another system if it meets our needs.

Fab Lab Maker Residency Program
Please see Fab Lab Maker Residency to learn about this opportunity!

Lab Areas
Explore these to learn about the tools and equipment available.
 * Woodshop
 * Laser Cutting
 * Metalshop
 * Sewing
 * Electronics Lab
 * 3D Printing
 * Photography

Basic Use & Safety Classes
BUS classes introduce you to safely and properly operating our equipment. Even if you have previous experience, there are many specifics to our machines you should know before using. Members may be held responsible for damage caused by improper usage. Laser and CNC Router classes are required for certification.
 * 3D Printing 101 Class - Highly recommended.
 * CNC Class (Router) - Certification required.
 * Laser Class - Certification required.
 * Metalshop Orientation - Orientation required for stationary tools.
 * Woodshop Orientation

Teach a Class or Workshop!
Part of FCFL's mission is to share knowledge and promote growth. A big part of that means teaching classes! Members, please add your workshop ideas and/or sign up to teach on our Trello board.
 * For paid classes and workshops, FCFL will collect 20% minimum and the rest is yours.
 * Workshops can be set to any date, pace, or frequency you wish.
 * Teachers who volunteer and schedule 8 or more classes per year get a free storage bin for the whole year.
 * We encourage scheduling the classes at regular intervals. E.G. 12 classes, once a month, every third Friday.
 * The classes must take in a minimum of $240 per year and the teacher receives no income from the class.

For teachers - How to setup a class/workshop

 * 1) Decide whether it's a recurring class, a single standalone workshop, or multi-day bootcamp.
 * 2) Come up with a lesson plan, broken into sessions if applicable.
 * 3) Determine how long each class session is likely to take. Please add plenty of buffer and/or beta test!
 * 4) Schedule a date/time for all sessions.
 * 5) Decide the minimum (1 for BUS classes) and maximum number of students.
 * 6) Determine what you want to charge per member.
 * 7) Reach out to the people managing (Meetup & civicrm... it's the Board atm) with your class/workshop & schedule and we'll figure out managing the class and onboarding (Meetup scheduling, class registrations, etc).

Caring for the Space
Caring for the Space

Website
The main website is on Squarespace, if you wish to contribute/edit anything, we can provide access as needed.

GitHub
We have a Github if you want to share or update code.

Socials
Meetup

Instagram

Facebook

Twitter

Rules and Policies

 * Rules & Policies for all members and guests
 * Member-Loaned Tools agreement & policy : for larger tools brought in by members to share
 * Member-Led Improvement Projects : Propose and lead a lab improvement project and FCFL will PAY FOR IT!

Organization

 * Organizational Structure
 * FCFL is a Not-For-Profit and how that differs from a Non-Profit in New York State

Meeting Minutes and Notes
A full history of minutes of the Board of Directors and Town Halls since September 2021
 * 04/21/2022 Board Meeting
 * 04/14/2022 Board Meeting
 * 01/11/2022 Town Hall Meeting‎
 * 12/14/2021 Board Meeting
 * 10/20/2021 Board Meeting
 * 10/13/2021 Board Meeting
 * 10/06/2021 Board Meeting
 * 09/29/2021 Board Meeting
 * 09/23/2021 Board Meeting
 * 09/21/2021 Board Meeting
 * 09/20/2021 Board Meeting
 * Meeting Template!

Wiki Edit Access
We strongly encourage all members to help out with keeping the wiki up-to-date, comprehensive, and easy-to-read. To get edit access:
 * 1) Click "Create account" in the upper right
 * 2) Go into the #wiki channel on Slack and ping the Wiki Admins and let them know your username