This post is part of a series in which we want to present some of our new and valuable material that we were able to procure due to a grant by Deutsche Stiftung für Engagement und Ehrenamt.

Update: There now exists Drohnenfotografie temporärhaus as a category at Wikimedia Commons. All the pictures and videos we take will end up there, sorted by year.

Through our close connection to Wikimedia Deutschland and the many Free Knowledge projects such as Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata and so on, we have always been very happy to contribute to Free Knowledge. For example, we have collected historical images of Ulm streetcars from the public and made them available to the general public under a Free License by using the Scanner Station of the Stuttgart Wikipedia Community.

But what we’ve always been missing a bit, also because other local spaces take such wonderful photos with them, is a drone with a good camera.

Thanks to funding from DSEE, we have now been able to purchase a DJI Air 3 drone. And that opens up a whole range of possible uses, e.g. great aerial photos of historical buildings, natural monuments and other interesting objects in the region. And, of course, all of this will then be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, where it will be freely available to everyone. Perhaps we will soon be able to make submissions for the Wiki loves Monuments or Wiki loves Earth competitions.

After a few years of transition, the current EU regulation. has been mandatory for all drone models since 01.01.2024. Our drone is in open category A1, UAS class C1, which means that you can fly it with a corresponding license near (but not over) people and close to buildings. Therefore it is very suitable for our purpose. We also have a realistic flight time of approx. 30-35 minutes per battery, which allows relaxed flying and alignment for the photo – and we bought three of these batteries. The operator of the drone (not the pilot!) is temporärhaus e.V., which means that the necessary liability insurance for our members is covered by the association.

So what do we do with the drone or what can you do with the drone with us? We will regularly go on photo tours with the drone, and if you are allowed to fly the drone (A1 driver’s license), then you are welcome to come along and join us. We are currently planning the first tours, e.g. the Bundesfestung around Ulm are a good place to start. As soon as we have more information, you will find it here or in our calendar.

At this point, of course, a big thank you to Wikimedia Deutschland and the German Foundation for Commitment and Volunteering, whose support makes such hardware and projects possible in the first place.

This post is part of a series in which we want to present some of our new and valuable material that we were able to procure due to a grant by Deutsche Stiftung für Engagement und Ehrenamt.

Back in the old place, when we were thinking about how best to describe ourselves, we came up with this phrase: “A hacking and making space with embroidery, knitting and sewing machines […].” Knitting and sewing machines have kept kind of happening to us over time, so we have built up a veritable machine park. Only the combined sewing and embroidery machine purchased at the end of 2016 from the municipal start-up funds has no longer been available to us since our forced moving out from Ulm. So it was all the more obvious for us to buy a new one.

Embroidery machines are a very wild business. There are sewing machines with an embroidery module – like the one we bought at Weinhof – and there are very professional machines with 10 or more needles, which we felt were intended for the mass production of embroidered textiles. It turned out from our practical experience that neither end of that spectrum really suited our needs. We were never really satisfied with the combined sewing and embroidery machine from Weinhof, because although it sews great, the embroidery mode always felt a bit like a compromise. With the experience we have gained, however, we have now been able to say more precisely what we want: A machine that is easy to use, but is still first and foremost a real embroidery machine, so that we can embroider as many different things as possible with it.

In the end, we chose the Brother PR1X, and so far it has met our expectations very well and is being used pretty regularly. As with the previous Husky, there are some included borders and fonts that can be selected directly on the machine and then embroidered – but to be honest, some of these designs seem a bit out of place nowadays. Of course, you can also read files from a USB stick and then embroider them. As always, this requires special software from the manufacturer, which costs extra money. In addition, such proprietary software contradicts our principle of Free Knowledge and Free Software and the associated social freedoms: Everyone should be able to use this machine and control it from their computer.

Fortunately, there is a dedicated embroidery machine community that has developed the Inkscape plugin Ink/Stitch. This allows you to draw or import vector graphics with the free graphics software Inkscape and then convert them into machine code for the appropriate embroidery machine. This means that anyone can design their own patterns, logos, pictures or other ideas and then embroider them. Of course, we have already tried it out and spread our Zelti on all kinds of fabrics.

At this point, a big hurrah to Free Software and everyone who contributed to this plugin. A big drawback with the old embroidery machine was that the free alternatives were not so easy to use back then, so designing the things to be embroidered was a big hurdle. With Inkscape and Ink/Stitch, we can now use even an impressive machine like the PR1X just like that.

Let’s go back to the hardware aspect: The fabrics you want to embroider are clamped into a frame, which is then attached to the machine. With the old sewing and embroidery machine, this frame was always built into the design of the classic sewing machine. This made it difficult or even impossible to embroider hoodies, for example. With the new machine, we now have nine embroidery hoops in different sizes and a machine that has been designed for embroidery from the outset. This means that pieces of fabric of any size can now be embroidered.

Anyone who wants to use the new embroidery machine is welcome to come along to one of our sewing cafés or Maker Mondays and have fun with it after an introduction!

This post is part of a series in which we want to present some of our new and valuable material that we were able to procure due to a grant by Deutsche Stiftung für Engagement und Ehrenamt.

Our Maker Mondays are one of the most popular offers in our space. 3D printers, laser cutters and woodworking tools are not things that everyone simply has at home, and we are delighted to be able to meet the needs of people from Neu-Ulm and the surrounding area with our tools and equipment. We were already able to purchase an Ultimaker 5 with a large build chamber and two print heads from the last DSEE grant – but this machine was intended as a supplement to the two existing Ultimakers procured by the city. Since we resumed operations after our move to Neu-Ulm, this single 3D printer has been a bottleneck: we constantly have a high demand for 3D prints, but with just one printer, visitors were backing up and we had to send many designs to the print queue until the next Maker Monday.

To alleviate this situation, we ordered another 3D printer thanks to funding from DSEE. We thought long and hard about which printer we wanted to purchase. What’s important in a makerspace is the best ratio of maintenance costs to printing time and actual successful prints. If you only print for yourself at home and have no problem optimizing and adapting your own printer, you can rarely go wrong with the standard kits on the market (usually copies of a Prusa model). However, the necessary fine-tuning of the kit and usually also the replacement of safety-critical components – especially with some inexpensive kits that do not come from Prusa itself – are time-consuming and not always suited to a rather public setting like ours. It was therefore important to us to have a reliable and fast printer that is easy to use for as many users as possible so that we don’t have to put too much effort into ongoing maintenance and troubleshooting – and at the same time have a good 3D printing experience.

When we initially moved into the original premises at Weinhof, we were already considering many of these aspects. Back then, we opted for printers from the Ultimaker series, which met many of our criteria (including printing via ethernet) given the state of the art at the time. In the meantime, however, the market has developed considerably. In the current range of available models, our choice therefore quickly fell on the Bambu X1 Carbon.

In addition to an impressive printing speed (which also clearly outshines our Ultimaker 5) and a relatively large print area, this printer offers a very special treat: the Automatic Material System AMS. AMS offers the possibility of printing up to four different colors or even different materials within one print.

Furthermore, the printer offers automatic detection of printing errors and the option of creating time-lapse videos with the built-in camera.

The printer has already proven itself at our Maker Mondays and has significantly reduced the bottleneck in 3D printing. The hand wheel shown in the time-lapse, for example, has become part of the 3D-printed printing press that was in use at the Chaos Communication Congress. We are excited to see what our users will create with these new possibilities.

This post is part of a series in which we want to present some of our new and valuable material that we were able to procure due to a grant by Deutsche Stiftung für Engagement und Ehrenamt.

Since our move to Neu-Ulm, we are still partly living out of the moving boxes in which our materials had been stored for almost a year. At Weinhof, we were able to use the many built-in cabinets from the Sparkasse era to store our material. We had already procured some heavy-duty shelving and storage boxes at the end of 2021, which made it much easier for us to re-start operations, especially in the workshop, since September. Thanks to the DSEE funding, we have now been able to purchase additional industrial shelving, open-fronted storage boxes and storage crates, which we are using to gradually clear out the remaining moving boxes and organize our diverse material in a more accessible and clearer way.

Whether power supplies with different voltages for hardware projects, parts assortments for workshops or the event-related material backstage, everything can now have a defined and labeled place so that it can be found quickly when needed and returned to the right place after use.

Additionally, we were able to procure an extensive stock of personal storage boxes. This means that every active member can have a box in which they can temporarily store their own materials. Be it to put away current projects when not working on them, personal items, a pack of tea or even the cozy slippers one might like to wear around the house.

For the personal storage boxes, we opted for classic gray Euronorm containers measuring 40cm × 30cm × 22cm. This is a good compromise between enough space and not too much space. After all, the current 64 crates also need to be stored somewhere. Even on over 1000 square meters, space can get tight. And, let’s be honest, a big box quickly means a big mess.

At the moment, each person is designing their own label, but maybe in the near future there will also be a common, chic, yet customizable label design. The main thing right now is that we are organized chaotically, as we have been from the beginning, but we organize our chaos wherever we can.

Wir möchten herzlich der initiative.ulm.digital danken, die dreieinhalb Jahre lang die hauptamtliche Teilzeitstelle von Juka Wessalowski im Verschwörhaus durch Spenden finanziert hatte!

Bereits wenige Tage nachdem durch den Gemeinderatsbeschluss die Umsetzung des bis dahin ausgearbeiteten Konzepts für das Verschwörhaus gesichert war, fand ein erster Austausch mit späteren Gründungsmitgliedern der Unternehmerinitiative statt. Schon bei der Gründung des Unternehmervereins im Juli 2016 schrieben sich die Initiator:innen der Initiative die finanzielle Unterstützung des (damals noch unter dem Arbeitstitel „Stadtlabor“ laufenden) Verschwörhaus für die Förderung von Talenten und Ideen auf die Fahne. Unter anderem sollten weitere Personalkapazitäten über die von der Stadt gestellten Ressourcen hinaus ermöglicht werden. Auch das Engagement der Initiative für das Freie IoT-Netzwerk „The Things Network“ geschah in enger Kooperation mit dem Verschwörhaus – so veranstalte die Initiative einen Auftaktworkshop im Dezember 2016, für den wir Räume und Infrastruktur stellten. Die Zusammenarbeit von Zivilgesellschaft, Unternehmen, Wissenschaft und Verwaltung zeigte sich beim Freien Sensornetzwerk in besonderem Maße: Der Unternehmerverein sorgte mit den ersten Gateways für eine Grundversorgung, die nach und nach von weiteren Akteuren ausgebaut wurde. Die Installation des sowohl symbolischen wie wirkungsvollen Gateways auf dem Münsterturm Ende 2018 wurde von der Initiative bezahlt, die praktische Umsetzung mit Tatkraft aus dem Digitalen Ehrenamt mitbetrieben, und das Verschwörhaus stellt seither per Funkbrücke die Internetanbindung sicher.

Im Sommer 2017 beschloss die Initiative erstmals auch die direkte finanzielle Förderung des Verschwörhaus. Durch Spenden an den gemeinnützigen Open Knowledge Foundation e.V. konnte Juka Wessalowski ihre bis dahin teils ehrenamtlich, teils durch anderweitige Förderungen überbrückungsfinanzierte Arbeit im Haus ab diesem Zeitpunkt auch hauptamtlich bis Ende 2020 ausführen. Dies führte mittelbar auch zur Einwerbung mehrerer Förderungen. Zuletzt wurde Ulm dadurch zum ersten von zwei Standorten der durch Stiftungsgelder geförderten Jugend hackt Labs für unterjährige Jugendarbeit. Abseits der Veranstaltungen für Jugendliche konnte durch die Stelle weitere Aufbau- und Entwicklungsarbeit im Haus beschleunigt werden, und es wurden an anderen Stellen Kapazitäten für weitere spannende Projekte frei. Durch dieses Gesamtkonstrukt konnten wir der Initiative Monat für Monat beeindruckende Zahlen berichten – und regelmäßig auch frühzeitig auf spannende Entwicklungen und Freie-/Open-Source-Projekte hinweisen, aus denen lokale Unternehmen eigene Produkte und Dienstleistungen entwickeln können.

Neben dem Dank für die Finanzierung der Stelle von Sommer 2017 bis 31.12.2020 danken wir zudem herzlich für die finanzielle Unterstützung mehrerer Kleinprojekte im Lauf der Jahre. Unter anderem bezahlte die Initiative die Materialkosten der „Münsterplatine“, die durch ehrenamtliche Arbeit der TTN-Gruppe von Grund auf entworfen und entwickelt wurde. Diese Platine ermöglichte insbesondere in den Anfangszeiten von „The Things Network“ in Ulm einen niederschwelligen und günstigen Einstieg in das Sensornetzwerk LoRaWAN.

Sowohl das Programm Jugend hackt als auch The Things Network bleiben Ulm und dem Verschwörhaus über das Förderende hinaus erhalten. Ein großer Dank gilt der Stadt Ulm, die die kurzfristig durch das Ende der Unterstützung entstandene Finanzierungslücke auffangen und unsere Jugendarbeit als weitsichtige Investition in die IT-Nachwuchsförderung unterstützen möchte! Und auch die vielfältigen ehrenamtlichen Tätigkeiten im Haus rund um das Freie LoRaWAN-Netzwerk in Ulm – vom Betrieb eigener Gateways bis zu den Anstrengungen für einen niederschwelligen Einstieg für alle – bleiben natürlich erhalten.

Du möchtest als Privatperson oder mit deinem Unternehmen unsere vielfältige Arbeit nachhaltig unterstützen? Die einfachste Möglichkeit ist eine Fördermitgliedschaft im Verschwörhaus e.V.! Der eingetragene Verein ist gemeinnützig, das heißt, Zuwendungen an den Verein können steuerlich geltend gemacht werden.

Nach acht Monaten Brainstorming, Konzeption und Vorbereitung ging am 28. März die Vorlage mit dem Namen GD 198/16 in den Hauptausschuss des Ulmer Gemeinderats – und wurde einstimmig angenommen! Damit ist der Weg frei für das „Experimentierfeld für die Stadt von morgen“ mitten in der Stadt, und die Finanzierung bis Ende 2016 gesichert! Yay! \o/ \o/ \o/

Die Südwest Presse berichtete kurz danach:

Braucht’s so was überhaupt, wo es „doch schon so Vieles gibt“? Dem begegneten Thomas Kienle, CDU („ein vorbehaltloses Ja“) und Lena Schwelling, Grüne („das ist wirklich ein verdammt geiles Projekt, 70.000 Euro dafür sind Peanuts“) mit demonstrativen Gegenpositionen.

Wir freuen uns darauf, das „verdammt geile Projekt“ in die Tat umzusetzen 🙂