Makersbox

Discover the creative you

D-181, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase 1, New Delhi, Delhi 110020, India

Makerspace

Space size 50 m²

Opened in January 2016

Structure type Private Company

Explored in April 2017


Makersbox runs 4 makerspaces around New Delhi, India. They define themselves as a place where communities gather to play with their creative powers of design, fabrication, electronics, computing, engineering, art and coding.

Contact

Social networks

Main interests

Design Art & culture Entrepreneurship Community Social initiatives Electronics Education Technology - machines & tools Robotics Industry & innovation

This workshop is great for:

Students Kids under 12 Adolescents between 12-18 Small & medium businesses Non-profit organisations Schools & universities Teachers

The closest workshops nearby are:

Interview & guided tour

Meet someone from the team & discover the space by yourself!

Our workshop

Learn more about our space, members, machines & services!

Incubated by SproutBox in October 2015, Makersbox idea came true on February 2016.

Initially, the makerspace was open to anybody who had an idea and wanted to develop it from design to prototype. However, its two leaders, Gagandeep and Harpreet, realized that Indians were adverse to making. “They don’t make anything with their hands, they prefer buying things”. That’s how they went back to education. Their goal: to inspire the next generation to make things by themselves.

One year and Three months later, Makersbox implemented 4 makerspaces :

• One inside the Indian Institute of technology

• One inside a slum school (Dr. Ruhi Foundation School), in Noida province

• The “Home lab”, backroom for R&D, design, development and innovation,

• Karnal Makersbox makerspace located in a “Welfare Centre for Hearing & Speech Impaired Children”

Through this ecosystem, Makersbox’s main activity is to make and manage makerspaces in schools and Colleges. Apart of that makers can design, prototype and develop their projects in the 2 independent makerspaces. The incubator Sprout Box will accompany the makers for their business development. One of their ongoing project is a people’s detector for conference rooms.

The lab has also created a logistic team to sell on Amazon electronic components for makers, very difficult to buy in small quantities in India.

At Makersbox, they don’t look for specific profiles but the largest part of their users come from University (50%) then Middle and Senior Schools (30%). The rest of it gathers artists, kids, teachers or international makers, …

Since the creation of Makersbox, more than 5 000 makers passed through its doors. The frequentation depends on the lab: from 10 to 12 makers per week step by the Home Lab but in the College’s makerspace, the figure gets closer to 100 per week.

Most of the Makersbox’s users aren’t physically stepping in the labs, as its main activity is to provide workshops in schools and colleges. Those joining the makerspace feel their education is incomplete in some way. They want to experience making while learning new skills. Start-ups are also using the space to work on their prototypes.

Most of the users discovered the lab via Facebook or Instagram, monthly meet-ups on making, word-of-mouth and Colleges & Universities. The space is highly incitating their most involved students to take an active role. Hence, 3 students ambassadors were nominated to promote the makerspace to their age group.

Haarpret and Gagandeep initially invested 14 700€ in Makersbox but the total investment is split as follows :

• 36 800€ for the home makerspace and pop-up makerspaces

• 44 000€ for Karnal makerspace

• 44 000€ for the University makerspace

• 3 000€ went into the slum school makerspace

This investment has been partly supported by the government, schools and owners of the spaces. From the 1st year, Haarpet and Gagandeep went cash positive with 73 500€ revenues. The secret of this makerspace? They launch a makerspace only if they don’t pay the rent. Thereby, 50% of their revenue come from workshops and the other half from memberships. Their main costs are wages (50%), consumables and new technology goods (30%) and electricity, internet, … (20%).

In 2016, Makersbox launched 4 makerspaces and they plan to do the same in 2017. If their cash balance goes well by the end of 2017, they would like to launch in 2018 their own Makersbox bus to democratize the maker culture around India and bring MakerFaire in India. And if everything works out, in 2050, Makersbox makerspaces will develop products which people use in the day-to-day lives.

At Makersbox, everyone is a maker evangelist towards exterior. In the lab, organization is more formal :

  • Gagandeep, mentor and business developer

  • Harpreet, operations and financial manager

  • Himanshu, fabmanager of “Home Lab”

  • Rahul, fab coordinator of “Home Lab”

  • Surrender & Navim, in logistics team

Each makerspace has a manager and his assistant. Added to that, 17 instructors work for Makersbox. Even though “Home Lab” is officially opened from 9 to 6pm, the community is available 24/7, using their dedicated slack channel. Today, 600 workshops were organized on different topics (IOT, electronics, …) focusing on S.T.E.A.M. methodology across problem solving and critical thinking.

To animate the Makersbox community and spread the word about makers, Makersbox has been organizing one meet-up per month, 10 pop-up makerspaces, 1 Mini MakerFaire in Delhi gathering 2 000 people. Moreover, each newbie is invited to join the Slack community which gather more than 5 000 users with 200 active ones.

Gagandeep and Harpreet developed an important ecosystem of national and global partners such as Make Block makerspace in Shenzhen to buy electronic components, the Government to make makerspaces accessible for rural areas, Intel for hardware and software or Sprout box as an incubator.

Makersbox team is convinced that documentation is key. It’s an excellent way to learn from one’s good practices and failures.

All what is happening in the lab is documented. However, a distinction is made between public/open source and private documentation.

Workshops remain private: every quarter, 5 books (one book, one S.T.E.A.M. letter) are edited and kept in the lab gathering each 500 exercises realized during Makersbox’s workshops. Furthermore, students feedbacks and their auto-evaluations are recorded to analyze on the long-run their evolution. The 2nd stream is in-house projects. Video, text, pictures on the website, Youtube, or Slack can be used to document those latter.

Sometimes, while making a product, they make timelapses to understand a posteriori what went well or wrong.

Projects of exterior people have to be documented by the maker himself.

To inspire from other projects, they usually go on Git Hub or Instructables. Some public projects are also made and documented open source by the lab’s team, to be founded on youtube or Insctructables.

Incubated by SproutBox in October 2015, Makersbox idea came true on February 2016.

Initially, the makerspace was open to anybody who had an idea and wanted to develop it from design to prototype. However, its two leaders, Gagandeep and Harpreet, realized that Indians were adverse to making. “They don’t make anything with their hands, they prefer buying things”. That’s how they went back to education. Their goal: to inspire the next generation to make things by themselves.

One year and Three months later, Makersbox implemented 4 makerspaces :

• One inside the Indian Institute of technology

• One inside a slum school (Dr. Ruhi Foundation School), in Noida province

• The “Home lab”, backroom for R&D, design, development and innovation,

• Karnal Makersbox makerspace located in a “Welfare Centre for Hearing & Speech Impaired Children”

Through this ecosystem, Makersbox’s main activity is to make and manage makerspaces in schools and Colleges. Apart of that makers can design, prototype and develop their projects in the 2 independent makerspaces. The incubator Sprout Box will accompany the makers for their business development. One of their ongoing project is a people’s detector for conference rooms.

The lab has also created a logistic team to sell on Amazon electronic components for makers, very difficult to buy in small quantities in India.

At Makersbox, they don’t look for specific profiles but the largest part of their users come from University (50%) then Middle and Senior Schools (30%). The rest of it gathers artists, kids, teachers or international makers, …

Since the creation of Makersbox, more than 5 000 makers passed through its doors. The frequentation depends on the lab: from 10 to 12 makers per week step by the Home Lab but in the College’s makerspace, the figure gets closer to 100 per week.

Most of the Makersbox’s users aren’t physically stepping in the labs, as its main activity is to provide workshops in schools and colleges. Those joining the makerspace feel their education is incomplete in some way. They want to experience making while learning new skills. Start-ups are also using the space to work on their prototypes.

Most of the users discovered the lab via Facebook or Instagram, monthly meet-ups on making, word-of-mouth and Colleges & Universities. The space is highly incitating their most involved students to take an active role. Hence, 3 students ambassadors were nominated to promote the makerspace to their age group.

Haarpret and Gagandeep initially invested 14 700€ in Makersbox but the total investment is split as follows :

• 36 800€ for the home makerspace and pop-up makerspaces

• 44 000€ for Karnal makerspace

• 44 000€ for the University makerspace

• 3 000€ went into the slum school makerspace

This investment has been partly supported by the government, schools and owners of the spaces. From the 1st year, Haarpet and Gagandeep went cash positive with 73 500€ revenues. The secret of this makerspace? They launch a makerspace only if they don’t pay the rent. Thereby, 50% of their revenue come from workshops and the other half from memberships. Their main costs are wages (50%), consumables and new technology goods (30%) and electricity, internet, … (20%).

In 2016, Makersbox launched 4 makerspaces and they plan to do the same in 2017. If their cash balance goes well by the end of 2017, they would like to launch in 2018 their own Makersbox bus to democratize the maker culture around India and bring MakerFaire in India. And if everything works out, in 2050, Makersbox makerspaces will develop products which people use in the day-to-day lives.

At Makersbox, everyone is a maker evangelist towards exterior. In the lab, organization is more formal :

  • Gagandeep, mentor and business developer

  • Harpreet, operations and financial manager

  • Himanshu, fabmanager of “Home Lab”

  • Rahul, fab coordinator of “Home Lab”

  • Surrender & Navim, in logistics team

Each makerspace has a manager and his assistant. Added to that, 17 instructors work for Makersbox. Even though “Home Lab” is officially opened from 9 to 6pm, the community is available 24/7, using their dedicated slack channel. Today, 600 workshops were organized on different topics (IOT, electronics, …) focusing on S.T.E.A.M. methodology across problem solving and critical thinking.

To animate the Makersbox community and spread the word about makers, Makersbox has been organizing one meet-up per month, 10 pop-up makerspaces, 1 Mini MakerFaire in Delhi gathering 2 000 people. Moreover, each newbie is invited to join the Slack community which gather more than 5 000 users with 200 active ones.

Gagandeep and Harpreet developed an important ecosystem of national and global partners such as Make Block makerspace in Shenzhen to buy electronic components, the Government to make makerspaces accessible for rural areas, Intel for hardware and software or Sprout box as an incubator.

Makersbox team is convinced that documentation is key. It’s an excellent way to learn from one’s good practices and failures.

All what is happening in the lab is documented. However, a distinction is made between public/open source and private documentation.

Workshops remain private: every quarter, 5 books (one book, one S.T.E.A.M. letter) are edited and kept in the lab gathering each 500 exercises realized during Makersbox’s workshops. Furthermore, students feedbacks and their auto-evaluations are recorded to analyze on the long-run their evolution. The 2nd stream is in-house projects. Video, text, pictures on the website, Youtube, or Slack can be used to document those latter.

Sometimes, while making a product, they make timelapses to understand a posteriori what went well or wrong.

Projects of exterior people have to be documented by the maker himself.

To inspire from other projects, they usually go on Git Hub or Instructables. Some public projects are also made and documented open source by the lab’s team, to be founded on youtube or Insctructables.

Technologies & processes available

3D printing Vinyl cutting CNC milling Electronics Wood working tools

Services offered

Coaching & project mentoring Classes & workshops Prototyping Workshop memberships Open moments Space rental

Our best practices

The inspiring things we do here to run our collaborative space

The business model

What is it?

After Makersbox 1st year of activity, the founders reimbursed all their initial investment. The secret of the success is that, each time they open a makerspace, they manage not to pay the rent.

In concrete terms

They have taken the attitude that a makerspace can’t have a balanced business model if the rent must be paid. This is the most important part of the cost structure. Consequently, they create makerspaces in spaces already owned by someone who wants to launch a lab but doesn’t have time or expertise to manage it. Usually, these are government or school owned places.

Why is it interesting?

Most of the makerspaces and fablabs’ key challenge is to find a sustainable business model. Makersbox found one interesting solution to be cash positive since the 1st year of existence.


The ambassador program

What is it?

Makersbox has a strong commitment towards its young makers. The lab tracks their progresses and encourage them to follow their passion. They even push their boundaries by promoting them “ambassador” and let them take action in the lab’s life

In concrete terms

After 11 years old, makers showing a strong interest and some talent in making can become teachers or mentors for other children during workshops. They become “ambassadors” and Makersbox also helps them to develop new projects.

Why is it interesting?

The ambassador program of Makersbox encourages young makers to push their limits and curiousity in making. It also give them new skills by asking them to teach classes. It is also an interesting way to build a strong and engaged community.


Our makers projects

Get inspired by the DIY projects of our team & members

Robots for children

What is it?

Tanuj is a 17 years old student. He is a maker, pationate about robotics. His talent for making brought him to become a teacher in robotics for children, during Makersbox workshops. That is how he got his idea and started to create playful kits to teach robotics to children.

How does he interact the makerspace?

He uses the lab to make his designs, and protoypes them using the 3D printers. He also works closely with the lab’s community to test and improve his work. He needs to assess the compatibility of all pieces.

What is next?

Tanuj needs to finalize his designs and develop electronic components easy to use and program. After this project he will focus on integrating a good college and pursue his dream to become a great inventor.


Becoming a skilled maker at only 10!

What’s the project?

Kyra, a 10 year-old Indian kid, is already a skilled maker. First, she discovered electronics by using Scratch on Arduino. At that very moment, she started being interested in making things on her own. She learnt about robotics by participating to the First Lego League and she had to do the challenge Animal Allies (It is a challenge based on a real world problem where kids aged 9-16 try to think like engineers to build a solution).

She also won the Scientific Temper award for her project at school. (The project involved LEDs and conductive tape to make a functioning and aesthetic circuit).

How does she interact with the workshop?

Kyra is coming every week to the lab to work on her several projects. Her parents encourage her to follow her passion and she can use all the tools with the help of the lab’s team.

What is next?

Kyra’s future project will be to face air pollution in India.


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