You can tell it’s summer in the city: people frolicked on the Danube and other bodies of water in July and the streets emptied out as soon as the vacations began. For us active people, the summer is also more about swimming than being indoors, but there was still plenty going on in front of and behind the scenes!

Like almost every month, a lot has happened in the workshop and atelier: In the workshop, Seppi and Co are building new organizational aids week by week to be able to tidy up tools and sort construction aids into their right places. In the atelier, both the ceramics workshop and the photography department made huge progress in July. Firstly, Steffi and Patrick’s pottery kiln was delivered and they successfully fired their first pottery pieces in it. Do you want to engage in pottery too? Talk to them or keep an eye on our calendar for upcoming offers to learn or practice pottery together. On the other hand, the vh Ulm has closed down its former photo lab and we were kindly offered to take over parts of it. We are now one of several places where the vh’s analog photography equipment will be given a new lease of life, for which we would like to say a big thank you!

Our event and stage tech has also been given a delightful upgrade. The setup with the sound and lighting mixer was a little overwhelming for some people, so the stage crew came up with a way to make the technology easier to use. All the important things are now controlled via the home automation system and can be controlled with a click on a tablet on the wall. As reported, we were also on the road to collect photos under a free license for Wikipedia and Co—Spoiler Alert, this is also planned for August :)

In addition to all these individual activities, there was of course our regular programming: Starting with the sewing café, where not only items of clothing were repaired, but visitors also fitted and sewed airy summer clothes themselves. The RAD-ikal technisch crew met to work on measures and projects to promote cycling in the twin city. As announced, the Live Let’s Plays are now taking a summer break—but not without having organized one last event at the beginning of July. The group behind LoRaWAN and The Things Network offered two evening events, which could also be used to work in the open soldering lab. The group Capture the Flag, that playfully works with IT security, also met twice and F.U.C.K. again offered two events. Last but not least, the workshops were also open twice for Maker Monday—although one was postponed by a week due to Schwörmontag.

We also met in July for a house evening with all interested parties who are already organizing regular events or would like to do so. Here we discussed current tasks and to-dos.

There are actually a lot of these to-dos, combined with a few exciting additions to the numerous things that are already possible with us. But that will be the subject of an upcoming monthly review :)

June began with a heap of warnings from the German Weather Service and the Bavarian Flood Information Service: Heavy rain was forecast and significant flooding was also expected for the Iller and Danube.

With several instances of water damage caused by heavy rain last year in mind, we began to take precautions. We had to check the drains around the building and the downpipes on the canopy in order to make sure that even a heavy downpour could drain away well. At the same time, we monitored the level of the Iller at the Kempten gauge, which would also affect the level of the Danube with a few hours’ delay.

During the hundred-year flood (of which we have experienced several in the region since then) in 1999, Neu-Ulm city center was spectacularly flooded. Since then, both cities have implemented comprehensive flood protection measures, including mobile levees, so that according to the Bavarian forecast maps a hundred-year flood would be unlikely to affect our house, which is operated jointly with the Haus der Nachhaltigkeit. However, according to the forecast, in case of extreme flooding exceeding the hundred-year-flood mark, we would have been right in the middle of it. So we had to check the basement and make sure that, if the worst came to the worst, there was nothing on the floor that would be spoiled by water, or could contaminate the water.

In the end, unlike the south-eastern district of Neu-Ulm, the city did not experience extreme flooding and the measures were sufficient. Nevertheless, it still looked spectacular in the town. We were out and about with our camera and documented the situation on June 1 comprehensively for Wikimedia Commons. Our images can be viewed in the categories June 2024 floods in Ulm and June 2024 floods in Neu-Ulm and may be reused under the terms of the Creative Commons license. Immediately afterwards, one of the photos was also one of the first images in the Wikipedia article on the floods in southern Germany in 2024 (diff).

The floods still hit us in the end. The Bavarian HND also measures the groundwater level at various measuring points, and it rose very rapidly as the flood crests of the Iller and Danube passed through. And so the water also slowly sept in at the lowest point in our basement. The area was cordoned off very professionally using equipment from our mini construction depot and the water was subsequently pumped out. For a few weeks afterwards, the drying equipment already familiar from last year’s water damage had to suck the residual moisture out of the basement.

Our regular activities

In addition to all the immediate danger prevention, our regular program naturally continued, to which we were once again able to welcome well over 100 people in June.

As usual, we had two open Maker Mondays with an open wood and metal workshop. The RAD-ikal technisch event once again focused on technical tools to promote cycling in the twin city, together with the ADFC. The Live let’s plays are now saying goodbye for the summer break, but still took place once a week with four editions in June. The core program still includes the bi-weekly evenings around The Things Network/LoRaWAN, which also opened our electronics workshop twice in June for all interested people. The CTF/PPP group met twice and is also increasingly appealing to young people who want to immerse themselves in the world of playful computer security. At the Sewing Café, visitors once again repaired the clothes they had brought with them or re-sewed summer items to suit the season. The F.U.C.K. group had two meetings in June for all non-male people who want to get involved with IT, and the Jugend hackt Lab once again offered its monthly meeting point for all young people who want to gain access to IT and free knowledge in a fun way. Free knowledge was also the focus of the third quarter of Wiki loves Basketball, where local activists created machine-readable access to the master data of basketball players in the semantic knowledge database Wikidata.

Like almost every month, there were a lot of caretaking tasks in June. The wood workshop, for example, is currently evolving from week to week, as the rather temporary initial set-up immediately after moving in is now gradually giving way to a more well-thought-out layout, which will also make the newly acquired machines easier to use. At the same time, we are systematically going through the stock that has grown over the years, and mark the equipment and tools that seem to be of little use to our workshop.

Things are also progressing in the atelier: Eli has built and tested another printing press. And the ceramics department is also nearing its grand opening. The clay separators have been built and at least temporarily installed, and the kiln has also been set up and is ready for its first tests. So if you haven’t visited us for a while, you should definitely catch up – because there are a lot of changes to discover.

Thanks to everyone who thinks of us

Whether locally or from afar, we are always happy about everyone who thinks of us and supports us. Be it through a regular or individual donation, for example on betterplace or directly, but also by mentions and telling our stories.

Special thanks this month to the multiple mentions on the panel “Caring for our Web – Software Projects as Care Work” at re:publica 2024. There, tante, who was recently a speaker at Denkanstöße 2024 in Ulm, explained from minute 0:50:07 onwards how a city can interfere with volunteering projects with a great deal of force and dominance. From minute 0:53:56, in response to a question from the audience, he briefly explains the story again and calls the city of Ulm’s approach “the best practice for doing it the worst way”—and Franziska Heine from Wikimedia Deutschland makes it clear that Wikimedia supports us at the new location and that the city’s approach is not a good example of how a municipality should deal with the local volunteer community. Thank you very much for these shout-outs—and of course also for the support from Wikimedia Deutschland, which enables us to continue pursuing our original and self-chosen mission!

May is over—and until the floods at the end of the month, it was almost business as usual. Almost, because in southern Germany it was another month in which there was a public holiday practically every week, which is why (and because of illness) a few events were canceled.

Nevertheless, we again had 16 events with the standard program: from the Sewing Café to RAD-ikal technisch and the OpenStreetMap regulars’ table, two Maker Mondays, two CTF meetings and two open electronics labs with The Things Network/LoRaWAN. Not to forget a meeting of F.U.C.K., a Jugend hackt Lab and four Live Let’s Plays.

As part of the Wikidata competition Coordinate Me, there was also a related meeting for interested parties to assign coordinates to Wikidata objects such as hospitals or government buildings. In addition to the public schedule, internal organizational and working meetings as well as a plenum of local climate protectors took place as usual.

So far, so unspectacular really. Until the last two days of the month, when there were more and more signs that we were threatened not only by persistent heavy rain, but also by flooding—which is why we cleaned the rainwater drains and prepared the house for all eventualities. The result in advance: our feet got wet, but there were no serious consequences. But that will be the content of the June report :)

April has been over for a few weeks now—we may only be reporting on it now because we first had to catch up and celebrate a milestone we reached in March ;) We count (rather conservatively) the number of visitors at all events and we already broke the 1000-person mark on Maker Monday on March 18. If that wasn’t a reason to celebrate!

Another reason to celebrate is the revival of the Jugend hackt Lab, which is now called Jugend hackt Lab Neu-Ulm. The kick-off event took place on April 27 and we are very pleased to be able to firmly anchor this young talent program in the twin city once again. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the newly found team of volunteers who have revived this program and are now running it!

Apart from that, we were back to normal in April with a solid 17 public events. Our machines and equipment were available at the Sewing Café, two open Maker Mondays and two TTN/LoRaWAN evenings with an open electronics lab – accompanied, of course, by a friendly exchange and working on things together. The RAD-ikal technisch continues to focus on interesting technology infrastructure for the mobility transition, the OpenStreetMap-Stammtisch was about free knowledge, the F.U.C.K. group met twice (increasingly with guests from far and wide), three Live Let’s Plays were about computer game culture and twice the CTF/PPP group invited people to playfully deal with IT security topics. A Küche für Alle was also held for the second time.

As always, there was also a lot going on outside of these public events. One group took care of a wall painting as a welcome message at the back entrance, which you can see in the cover picture. We are still busy with a lot of small expansion work on the lighting and home automation. And of course it was once again a point of honor to present our house to the new students at the start of the university semester—after all, we emerged from the student datalove group and still maintain contact with Ulm University today.

Sun! Rain! Sahara dust! Capricious weather! But at least it’s summertime! March brought us all of this, in addition to a total of 19 public events at the temporärhaus. This month, we would like to highlight the lecture on The Human Cost of AI, the workshop evening Wikidata loves Basketball and the three-day LokaliCon meeting of the local community rooms of Wikipedians from nearly all over Germany (which only counts once for the statistics despite the three days). In addition, a Kitchen for All took place for the first time as part of the Climate Alliance, which is also supported by Haus der Nachhaltigkeit.

As the input on the human costs of the current AI hype fitted in so perfectly with the Ulmer Denkanstößen, which started a week later, we were able to get Prof. Rebekka Hufendiek to moderate the event. Mophat Okinyi impressively explained the working conditions of Clickworkers in his home country of Kenya, for example, who not only make the training of “AI” possible in the first place, but also have to fight their way through hate and violence on the social networks of the relevant tech companies every day as the first moderation instance. Thanks to the CCC Ulm and Guido Sondern for arranging and collaborating on this programming!

As usual, there were also 15 regular events, from the OpenStreetMap-Stammtisch to the Nähcafé, RAD-ikal technisch, four Live Let’s Plays and two editions each of F.U.C.K., Maker Monday, CTF/PPP and the TTN/LoRaWAN evening, which, as reported, is now also an open evening for all things related to the electronics lab.

One of the F.U.C.K. meetings was about photography and how ASA/ISO, aperture and shutter speed interact. Almost trivial for Karo, who usually works on quantum optics during the day. Meanwhile, we also played with photography in general to upload images of objects under a free license on Wikimedia Commons. And as described, we would like to use our photocopter to be able to make aerial shots available to the world as Free Knowledge.

House construction work, house cleaning weekend, the woodworking workshop and the new atelier

In the monthly reports, we traditionally only include events that are aimed at the general public or groups from within the digital volunteering community. As has been the case since the beginning of community work at the Weinhof and also since the reopening in Neu-Ulm, these public events are always complemented by at least as many unofficial, internal and purely voluntary work meetings – if not more. Practically everything about the infrastructure, from the fast Wi-Fi to the access system to the drinks vending machines, depends on voluntary commitment—and that requires regular work assignments, which are of course more fun together than alone.

In March, this included a spring cleaning weekend at the beginning of the month, where we tidied up and reorganized our shared spaces together with the active members of the House of Sustainability, plus cleaning windows, floors and other areas. Among other things, we reorganized the electronics lab, dusted, cleaned windows and, last but not least, had brunch together.

We have moved things and equipment to new locations and, above all, tidied up the workshop. Due to a reorganization of the space together with the HdN, we can now set up an atelier space for embroidery, sewing, screen printing, lino printing, cyanotyping and all sorts of other artistic things directly on the other side of the electronics workshop \o/

We have dismantled one bay of the heavy-duty shelving in the wood workshop and procured the necessary shelving stands from Verein funds to create a two-bay heavy-duty shelving unit in the studio area to store all the art supplies. Everything we need for all our artistic activities is now stored there.

However, tidying up the workshop was not just about furnishing the atelier space. On the one hand, we moved one of the workbenches into the atelier so that people can work there in future. And the space freed up by the removal of the shelving is now being used as a place for another mobile workbench.

On the other hand, we now have space in the middle of the wood workshop for the other woodworking tools procured from the DSEE funding, which are now in place. In over seven years, we have been able to gain a lot of experience with running an open workshop—what do people want to build here, what equipment do they need and, above all, what equipment can you use to get good results even if you don’t work with it professionally every day? We don’t want to give too much away here and would rather describe it in detail in a separate post. But if you come to the Maker Mondays, you can already admire the machines - and work with them after running through an introduction workshop!

What’s next

March is followed by April—and on the one hand, a regular new program item from the volunteer work for the general public will be launched, which we will report on soon.

On the other hand, we are not the only ones who run our shared house, which is why we would like to explicitly refer you to the monthly program of our house-sharing partners at Haus der Nachhaltigkeit. The photo exhibition is still running in April and is accessible during general opening hours (see both our calendars). And the April program of the HdN includes gems such as a workshop against right-wing and discriminatory slogans by the VVN Ulm and the FCLR Ulm on 15.4. as well as the opening of the lending bar on 18.4., where you will be able to borrow practical items from a library of things.

Es lohnt sich also, beide Terminkalender im Auge zu behalten. Und wir würden uns freuen, euch bei uns begrüßen zu können – egal ob bei Angeboten des HdN oder bei uns und egal ob ihr zum ersten Mal da seid oder ob ihr wiederkommt!

So it’s worth keeping an eye on both calendars. And we’d be delighted to welcome you—whether you’re here for the first time or coming back!

Although February is the shortest month of the year, we still managed to fit in 16 of our own public appointments in the 29 days – plus an external visit to Backnang, an F.U.C.K. networking workshop in our premises and, of course, lots of internal work assignments.

The Maker Mondays continue to be very popular: around 30 and 40 people respectively came to both events and we are delighted that we are able to help so many ideas to become reality every other week. On February 5, Maker Monday once again coincided with the Sewing Café, so we were able to welcome over 50 people to the house on this day. The group around The Things Network and LoRaWAN met twice. This group now also offers a general opening time for anyone who would like to get involved with our excellent electronics laboratory equipment outside of IoT technology.

With the RAD-ikal technisch group, we have a new monthly offer in cooperation with the ADFC since February. The focus here is on innovation and experiments relating to bicycles and the mobility transition – for example the OpenBikeSensors, which can be used to measure and evaluate the overtaking distance of passing cars while riding a bicycle.

As usual, the weekly Live Let’s Plays focused on computer game culture, while the three Capture the Flag meetings dealt with a playful approach to IT security. In addition to the regional networking workshop organized by FLINTA* and Computerkram, there were also two F.U.C.K. evenings in February, including a soldering workshop where solar lights were built. Last but not least, as in every month, the OpenStreetMap regulars’ table met in our rooms.

Since the Chaos Communication Camp 2023 at the latest, networking with other self-governed spaces in the region has become much tighter. On February 3 and 4, a group of activists from Neu-Ulm visited Backnang for a networking meeting. Many thanks for the hospitality and the exchange!

In addition to all our events, there was of course an equally impressive collection of events organized by the House of Sustainability in the shared rooms. We would like to highlight the Method Lab Liberating Structures, which we also promoted via our calendar. Away from the public eye, there was also plenty to do behind the scenes:

Not only are we still gradually putting the procurements from the DSEE funding into operation, we are still receiving exciting things :) In February, we received a fun addition from the team at Widerstand und Söhne, who left us two large LED matrices that they no longer had any use for. We don’t yet know exactly where to put them, but the first test showed that they look pretty!

Also looking pretty is our new milling table, which Henning is visibly happy about in this picture. And we already know where we want to put it (the milling table, that is, not Henning). After Seppi had adapted and rebuilt the table, it now expands our skills in the wood workshop even further. This is another great new piece of hardware that we were able to get through the DSEE grant – but due to the many new acquisitions, the wood workshop will soon receive its own report. And something else changed in the workshop in February: The temporary dust curtain was replaced with a not-quite-so-temporary molleton curtain.

Our housemates from the House of Sustainability were also busy in front of and behind the scenes in February. As far as shared infrastructure is concerned, the kitchen has enjoyed a proper upgrade and is now better equipped than ever before. Last but not least, to coincide with the Weeks Against Racism in March, the HdN team replaced the “Better Images of AI” photo exhibition in the salon with photographs from the Photovoice project by young people from Germany and South Africa.

The final spurt through the last weeks of winter can begin!

Another month has passed, time to look back on January! With 18 public events, one official visit to us and at least one away mission, we set a new record at the start of the year.

The bi-weekly Maker Mondays continue to take place regularly, and on both dates in January they once again pulled crowds with 30 to 40 people working in the wood workshop, on the 3D printers or on the laser cutter. On January 8, Maker Monday also coincided with the Sewing Café, so that cutting and sewing took place at the front, while people milled and glued in the workshop at the back. The working group for The Things Network/LoRaWAN met three times for their open evenings. A playful approach to the principles of IT security was twice the topic for Capture The Flag/PPP, and five times we dealt with topics revolving around current computer game culture at Live Let’s Plays

Of course, Free Knowledge was also on the agenda in January: we took an Introduction to Wikifunctions with several interested parties to explore this powerful tool, which works almost like magic in combination with Knowledge Graph. One such knowledge graph is the Free knowledge database Wikidata, and at Wikidata loves Basketball, several active people were grappling with the question of how they could use the Basketball Bundesliga player ID to automatically import properties such as height or weight of thousands of basketball players into Wikidata. And last but not least, the OpenStreetMap Stammtisch met again in our rooms.

On January 10th, 2020, the first F.U.C.K. first took place for the region. And as well attended as FLINTA* Und Computer Kram (that’s how it’s spelled out) had been right from the start, only a few weeks of normality remained back then before… you know. So it’s all the more amazing that almost exactly four years later, on January 7th, 2024, F.U.C.K. started up again at our new location. Two dates took place in January, and this meeting now takes place every two weeks at our place - and we are very happy about that!

A visit from Offenbach

In January, we also continued the long-standing tradition already established at Weinhof of showing what we do and what we stand for: A delegation from Offenbach from the Stabsstelle Digitalisierung, the city library and the Digital Retro Park came to visit us and let us tell them why we do what we do, how we worked together with the city of Ulm from the early 2010s and how we now want to support and promote digitization in the twin city. Thank you very much for the open exchange and the gifts! Anyone who would like to find out first-hand what we do and how we do it: We are happy to receive visits, as we have been from the very beginning! :)

Away mission in Fürth

Photo, by Kaethe17, CC BY 4.0

Not only did people visit us, but activists from our space were also elsewhere. Eli was at the workshop on dealing with antifeminism in the FürthWiki-Laden, another local community space supported by Wikimedia Deutschland. The FürthWiki, as one of the still active and very busy city wikis, is a totally exciting project that is mainly about preserving the city’s history (for example streets and their history and historical naming) – but also about digitizing artefacts and historical documents so that they can become part of the collective Free Knowledge.

Anyone interested in such events: The WikiMUC in Munich will be hosting an editathon on female artists of the Villa Stuck in May!

We also continued to network with hackspaces from our region at the Chaos Communication Congress, including Heilbronn, Tübingen, Backnang, Aalen and, of course, freiraum in Ulm. There have already been reciprocal visits here, which we will continue to expand in the coming months.

Even more construction work at SpoSo

In addition to all the public events, there were, as always, a whole series of internal work meetings, time for experiments and rebuilding efforts. We are still working on the building infrastructure, and in January we added a heavy molleton stage curtain on a rail system to the glass entrance door, among other things. The glass doors have impressive gaps, through which the wind literally blows in winter. The curtain will hopefully ensure that not too much heat is lost unnecessarily through the door when the rooms are closed.

We also assembled and installed some other arrivals from the DSEE funding: We assembled ready-to-use tables from the collection of table legs and table tops. Several mobile tables and chairs now complement the existing seating and work areas in the Hackcenter.

And there is now a drinking water dispenser in the kitchen by the entrance area which had been built by the Haus der Nachhaltigkeit crew during the past months. Anyone who simply wants to drink chilled, filtered and, if desired, sparkling water can now get it for free from the water dispenser - this was a long-cherished wish that we were finally able to realize thanks to the funding.

We just celebreated our first new year’s eve in the new space, December and the year-end sprint that came with it are over. Time for a look back!

December is always a special month, what with all the holidays, christmas and new year’s celebrations and of course due to Chaos Communication Congress. Accordingly, we “only” had eleven public events. Maker Monday alone managed to pull 25 recurring and new participants into our venue. The monthly Nähcafé (Sewing Cafe) together with Hochschulgruppe für Nachhaltigkeit has also become a fixture of our programming. Four Live Let’s Plays invited to dive into gaming culture, The Things Network/LoRaWAN met twice publicly, and anybody interested in ITSec could participate twice at the Capture the Flag get-togethers. Last, but not least, the local OpenStreetMap-Community met for their Stammtisch in our rooms.

Remodeling and final Grant preparations

All these public events were surrounded by a lot of work that already began in November and entered into an even busier phase in December. As already mentioned, we managed to get a grant from DSEE that allows us to procure materials and appliances that we’re still missing. And while November saw us listing all the requirements and comparing vendors, literally every day in December somebody from our procuring team was present to accept deliveries, unpack them and enter the new things into our inventory system.

Some of the procurements are meant for the building infrastructure itself that we use together with Haus der Nachhaltigkeit. While we prototyped an infoscreen near the main entrance in October, this has been turned into a fixed installation in the mean time. The screen shows the floor plan and any upcoming events, making it easy to see where to go. And another “status monitor” has been installed: A former pedestrian traffic light and a DIY LED indicator make it easy to see from afar whether the accessible toilet at the ground floor level is available or occupied.

The lighting within the building has been a challenge from the get-go. The building used to be a sporting-goods shop, where all the available lighting was simply switched on from two central points in the morning, and then switched off again at night. That is perfect for a store – but selectively switching individual groups of lights on or off from rows of deceptively labeled switches with no visual connection to the fixtures proved to be difficult. Because, of course, we would like to only use electricity for lighting where light is actually needed. Literally overnight Seppi took up the task (again) and laser cut pendant labels for each fixture group to make clear which switch belongs to which lights.

Just like the former rooms at Weinhof in Ulm, the former SpoSo-building is filled to the brim with fluorescent lighting: The initial count in May 2023 ended up with over 250 individual fluorescent tubes. And just like at Weinhof, this meant quite the headache for us. After all, the EU implementing their European Ecodesign Initiative meant a total sales ban of the typical T8 tubes by August 2023. Sooner or later, defective tubes would have had to be replaced with LED replacements anyway.

Therefore, we and HdN had already decided in May to not only replace and upgrade already defective lights or those that looked to be near the end of their life, but to modernize whole groups of fixtures that are regularly used. This had a real impact on energy consumption: Before, even the “small” (and heavily used) passage lighting in the woodworking workshop used around 200 watts of power. After modernizing the workshop, even the full lighting for the whole room needs only 220 watts – and at the same time, the lighting is much brighter than before.

The grant from DSEE allowed us to expedite modernizing the rest of the fixtures that still remained. About 100 linear fluorescent lights were still on the to-do list. We now have the neccessary parts to modernize them and will continue upgrading the remaining lights in the coming weeks. This will save us significant energy costs in the future!

Meanwhile, this is just the “boring” infrastructure part. Much more interesting are all the new machines and extensions of our capabilities – but we want to reserve them the place and space in their own posts in the future :)

We want to continue our youth work!

Events for up-and-coming hackers and the “Jugend hackt” programming are tightly woven into our community. The student volunteer group that brought Jugend hackt as one of the (back then) four regional events to Ulm in 2015 was the initial seed for the idea to establish a hack- and makespace downtown for all of our activities. Due to our forced moving out of Weinhof and the cancellation of the funds for Jugend hackt lab at the request of Ulm’s CDU faction, we had not been able to offer programming for young people for a while. Since we restarted our activities at the new space, however, re-invigorating this programming has been high on our list of priorities. Therefore, Eli participated at the networking event for all Jugend hackt organizing teams in December in Leipzig.

Besides the mandatory visit at dezentrale, one of Leipzig’s hackspaces, the regional organizing teams spent the weekend exchanging their experiences at “Urban Jungle”, a coworking space in Leipzig. And Eli was able to pick up a lot of ideas how we can’t only make use of our list of already existing workshop ideas for a restart of Jugend hackt Lab, but also what kind of ideas for civic education we could incorporate even more into our programming.

This is because, of course, Jugend hackt is not only about being able to find one’s way around technology. From the get-go, a critical perspective towards the role of technology, code and the structural power that comes with them is a crucial part of what we’re doing. This self-efficacy, especially in the context of formerly powerful institutions has not only been part of the themes of the events over the years.

Ending the year at the 37. Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg and New Year’s in our shared space

Besides the final push surrounding the grant and the procurements, there was yet another opportunity for networking, where Jugend hackt also played a role: For the first time since 2019, there was another Chaos Communication Congress, and of course 37C3 saw a delegation from us (albeit with another new name) – just like at many Congresses before.

Wedged in between Christmas and New Year’s, Congress Centrum Hamburg became a nearly magical place again, as one can imagine when seeing the photos. At the behest of Jugend hackt, Eli offered a printing workshop for anybody who did not only attend conference talks but wanted to do things with their hands as well. Originally, the workshop was only planned for Junghacker*innentag but the demand for art and printing using our own 3D-printed OpenPressProject printing presses was so high, that Eli added two more workshop days. People could carve their own linoleum or tetrapak printing masters to take away custom keepsakes from Congress.

While this congress did not see the customary, large WikiPaka-WG that we used to contribute to, our activists were not only to be found at the youth assembly – where the printing workshops took place – but also at the directly adjacent Bits-und-Bäume habitat. This habitat was the home bases for groups surrounding Free Knowledge such as OpenStreetMap and Wikipedia. That was a great incentive to do even more at 38C3!

Both for the people returning from Hamburg during New Year’s eve as well as anybody who stayed home, the rooms of temporärhaus and Haus der Nachhaltigkeit proved to be the perfect place to spend the evening, recall the past year and celebrate the beginning of the new year. Who could have imagined that just one year earlier?

Because the past year was really eventful. In January, the local press interviewed us (and another space in Ulm) about our plans for 2023. And we really checked all the boxed from back then: We had wished for a new venue, wanted to reinvigorate Jugend hackt in our City and keep up the banner of a counter-model to glossy facades surrounding tech and digitization. One move, one outstanding opening party and – coincidentally! – 42 public events in 2023 later, we can proudly say: That went rather well :)

It’s already mid-December and it’s been winter outside a few times - and if you’re wondering why we’ve posted so little, you’ll find the answer below - spoiler: It has to do with your donations and an unexpected grant we’re currently working on until the end of the year. Together, we’ll get the new house in a better condition than you were used to in the old place by January <\3

That was November

In November, we once again had 14 public events, i.e. an event open to everyone almost every other day – including several events together with the House of Sustainability, with whom we are working ever more closely.

As every month, the sewing café – organized together with the University Group for Sustainability – attracted around 20 people who reworked, repaired and improved textiles on our growing inventory of sewing and overlock machines. There was also a joint meeting with HSGN and the House of Sustainability at the beginning of the month, which was attended by around 30 people.

The Maker Mondays with our open woodworking workshop, 3D printing and laser cutting lab also continue to be popular. Around 30 people attended each of the two events in November. And we are also delighted with the many project photos that people have sent us of the things we build when they are finished – for example the beautiful dog bowl holder in the photo above. The only thing that has been going on in our community longer than Maker Monday is the exchange evening for The Things Network/LoRaWAN, which also took place twice in November.

Even back at the old location, we had regular exchanges on IT security topics: Capture The Flag (CTF) is the name of these meetings and competitions, which had been part of the regular program at Weinhof and started up again in November with the old familiar crew, which makes us very happy! But there are also people coming forward with completely new programming: The Hydra Live Coding Workshop introduced the video synth coding language Hydra to everybody interested. What makes us happy about with these and other programming is that we have a steadily growing base of regular visitors for our regular program. And on the other hand, there are always people coming up with exciting new topics, which are then attended by completely new faces. So it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on our calendar!

This is where you will now also find the OpenStreetMap-Stammtisch, as a regular event. Interested parties and contributors from the region have been meeting for many years to exchange ideas – and since November, this regular meeting takes place within our space, which makes us very happy. The Live Let’s Plays on current and vintage gaming culture are also very popular almost every week – on four occasions in November.

In addition, as in every month, there were at least as many internal construction, organization and planning meetings to further develop the shared house and the offers. And not least because of a wonderful end-of-year surprise.

November and December fever: We’re expanding!

We’ve already mentioned it at the top: Something is happening here (again). Since summer, we’ve been unpacking all our inventory out of boxes and putting it back into operation. And at the latest since our reopening in September, it has gradually become clear what smaller and larger items we are missing in terms of equipment for smooth operations, because it is still stored somewhere in the Weinhof as city inventory that we don’t have access to anymore.

We are very, very grateful that so many people from near and far have supported us over all this time through supporting memberships or on betterplace with direct donations for replacements. Since November, we have been in the process of procuring all the missing equipment and machines that have been financed through your donations.

Totally unexpectedly, a funding opportunity arose from the German Foundation for Engagement and Volunteering (DSEE) at very short notice. The DSEE had already funded us so generously at the end of 2021 that we were able to significantly expand the equipment we had at the time and our associated skills to a truly fantastic level. At the time, however, this was still intended as a supplement to the existing basic equipment procured by the city over the previous five years. In several places, we had replaced the previous equipment with better devices after gaining experience and know-how about what a place like ours needs and what is practical for the public to use. For other parts, however, we were still assuming at the end of 2021 that we would be able to continue the model of a third location that is self-governed by committed volunteers in a city-funded space.

Thanks to DSEE funding, we can now significantly accelerate the replacement of the equipment gaps, which will allow us to expand the quality of our offer and return to what people were used to from us. And last, but not least, we can also continue with some energy-related measures in order to be able to use the charming but somewhat outdated building with slightly less energy.

Of course, this takes up a lot of our free time - over the last few weeks, we’ve been getting our procurement plan up to scratch, putting together shopping baskets and obtaining comparative offers. And last but not least, the incoming orders had to be received, inventoried and sorted. If we have posted a little less in places or emails took a little longer for us to reply to: It could be because of that :D

However, we would of course like to make our new items available to you as quickly as possible. That’s why it’s still worth dropping by. And if there’s still enough time between ordering, unpacking and keeping track of invoices, we want to show you the best purchases here and on our social media channels :)

While it has finally become autumn outside, we have completed the first full month that we have been open – and are almost back to our usual opening hours. We counted 14 public events in October 2023, which means we’re almost back to the “one public event every two days” average we used to have.

In September, we were delighted with the turnout for Maker Monday, where we had 25 people on the premises from a standing start. But that was nothing compared to the three Maker Mondays in October, where 40–45 people were repeatedly active in the wood workshop, at the 3D printer and the laser cutter. Fortunately, more people are now coming forward to help with the workshop every Monday, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to cope with the demand :)

The Live Let’s Play evenings have become a regular new event on Tuesdays, where computer games are tried out live as a cultural form and experienced together. And because we are a third place, this can also take place in our rooms without any pressure to consume stuff – in our opinion, we really need places like this in our cities.

TTN and LoRaWAN have been with us since 2016 – back then, the initiative.ulm.digital set up the first TTN gateways in the city, and the community that has been active with us since then has not only expanded this network, but also encouraged many other interested municipalities to get excited about this free sensor network :) Two TTN evenings took place again in October. And as reported, the Upcycling Nähcafé, which has been part of our community program since December 2016, also started up again in October.

Last, but not least, Free Knowledge is weaved into our DNA, as it has been from the very beginning. The OpenStreetMap-Stammtisch took place in our rooms for the first time in October. And since Wikidata was already the content of the first Germany-wide networking event in the old rooms, it is only logical that we were the location for a joint livestreaming of WikiDataCon 2023 in the region.

On October 3rd, we also spontaneously declared our construction and organization day, which was taking place anyway, to be an open house event. In addition to these public events, our joint house is full of life practically every day, which makes us very happy. There is still a lot of work to be done within the premises – the workshop and soldering lab are continuing to progress, the modernization of the lighting is in its final stages and we have now also found seals for the huge gaps between the glass doors of the main entrance, so that air draw is not as bad a problem as it had been :)

We’ve also been able to integrate the streaming case from WMDE back into our daily routine and have already broadcast several test streams from the living room on Twitch. We want to use this equipment to provide even more live insights into our activities in the future, even if they don’t take place on the “big stage” in the salon. And, of course, we continue to acquire exciting devices that are left to us – for the electronics lab, for the workshop or simply because they’re fun.

The new signpost at the main entrance, currently still based on our Flip 2 display, has a very practical use. Synchronized with our new, finally Google-free event calendar (also available for subscription!), it shows which event is currently running where in the entire building, i.e. also the events of the HdN or of guests. Using this technology, we want to be even more inviting and open to occasional visitors. And by the way, you’ll also notice that our two communities sometimes have three things going on in the building at the same time!

What also brings us a lot of joy: Just as in the old location, we are once again a place to visit for digital politicians and people from the field of administrative digitization who are interested in the experiences of voluntary civic tech. On Friday, October 27, Anna Peters (Green voter for the European elections) and Tobias Bacherle (Member of the German Bundestag, among others in the Digital Committee) visited us and ended up talking to us for much longer than the planned hour about digital volunteering, hack- and make spaces as third places and digitization in municipalities.

We are happy when we can share experiences and pass on knowledge - the next visits are already scheduled for November :)

With all this program for the public and the transfer of knowledge, the community aspect for our community should of course not be forgotten. And so we did not only combine the public pumpkin carving on October 30th with getting to know various groups active in the house, we also grew as a community at the various other evenings, from the house-building event to the spontaneously formed analog photography interest group – precisely because we want to be a third place where people enjoy hanging out.