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Welcome to Fat Cat Fab Lab!

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.

Fat Cat Fab Lab Member Portal
civicrm.fatcatfablab.org

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.

Basic Use & Safety Classes (BUS)

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 BUS 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 BUS Class Teachers

BUS classes are taught by volunteer instructors and teachers receive no income from the class.
BUS teachers receive a free storage bin for the whole year on commitment to teach a minimum of 8 classes per year.
The classes must take in a minimum of $240 per year to qualify for a free storage bin for the year.

For Workshop Teachers

Your workshop can be free for everyone! Up to you.
Workshops can be set to any date, pace, or frequency you wish.
For paid workshops, FCFL collects 20% minimum and the rest is yours!
We encourage scheduling the classes at regular intervals (ex: 12 classes, once a month, every third Friday).

Want to teach? How to setup a class/workshop

Decide whether it's a recurring class, a single standalone workshop, or multi-day bootcamp.
Come up with a lesson plan, broken into sessions if applicable.
Determine how long each class session is likely to take. Please add plenty of buffer and/or beta test!
Schedule a date/time for all sessions.
Decide the maximum number of students.
Determine what you want to charge per person, if necessary.
Provide descriptions to be added to Meetup for your class.
Reach out to the people managing (Meetup & CiviCRM... it's the Board atm) with your class/workshop & schedule and they'll help you setup the class and onboarding (Meetup scheduling, class registrations, etc).

General Operations

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

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

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:

Click "Create account" in the upper right
Go into the #wiki channel on Slack and ping the Wiki Admins and let them know your username