Minutes:Meeting Minutes 20260407
 | This is an agenda, the meeting minutes have not been put online yet. |
Agenda for 2026-04-07
Meeting Location
Meeting was Called to Order At: 7:30pm April 7, 2026
https://i3detroit.org/hangout and at i3Detroit
If you'd like to be added to the attendance list, please message your name in the thread in #meetings on Slack
Hybrid Meeting Etiquette
- Be excellent.
- Attendance and voting can be found in the #meetings slack channel.
- Please show up early if you are concerned about your audio.
- If there is no one waiting to speak feel free to do so at the next opportunity.
- If there is someone waiting to speak, please say that you are raising your hand in the google call chat. (This will be demonstrated)
- Please refrain from other side conversations, these can be distracting for the rest of the meeting and make it difficult for the chair to keep track of what's going on.
- If you're in the space remember that having a single person speaking at a time is helpful for those attending online.
Introductions
What does being excellent at i3 mean
- Jeremy: It means being a guardian, taking responsibility.
- AJ: Showing up and being involved, putting yourself out there
Experienced Members
- AJ: ZoCo of things,
New Members & Guests
- Tillman: here for 5 months from Germany, will be here quite a lot
- Corey: Ferndale phase 2, mostly into fablab/media, software side of stuff
- Emma: Phase 2, sewing, ceramics, and more
- Don: Phase 2, interested in woodshop, ceramics, embroidery
- Ruth: Ceramics, jewelry, and EVERYTHING, possibly all in a single project if that's possible
- Roman: Second time here ever, absolutely loves the place, bought a milling machine at 14 and thought about converting it to a CNC then came here and decided not to
Show and Tell
- Drew: Plasma-cut bracket for his bike to mount it intoa standard bike carrier
- Paul A: Couch is missing a side, made a plywood box, sewed up some fabric, 3d printed some feet, installed on the couch
- Daniel: Instrument cluster out of a 2003 BMW 325i, fried, troubleshooting the regulator circuit
- Anonymous: Salvaged some epoxy-filled wood from the graveyard, turned it (on a lathe) into a bowl
- Dave: Trophies being made for the robot combat event (our fourth one!), bases are laser-cut and glued, top half is compression-molded carbon fiber using a mold made on the Haas and 3d-printed, made 6 in total
- AJ: Wooden toolbox, took many many hours, got tired of sanding, started in a workshop and then just kept sanding
- Roger: Experimenting with a freeze-drier, brought some blackberries and a blood orange (they're very flavorful!)
Old Business
- n/a
Outstanding Action Items
New Business
VPAC / Upcoming Events
- Volunteers to host upcoming Friday tours? We always need more!
- Open call for classes
- Quick reminder that non-members need to be signed in! Even on Fridays, there should be a member sponsoring them. There have been a few cases of non-members visiting and walking around all night, and no one ever signed them in
- Upcoming Events Calendar
- Please come help set up Friday for robot combat Saturday
- Thomas would love some help publicizing events
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7 Apr 2026 Member Meeting
7 Apr 2026 6:30PM- 7:30PM Intro to MeL AutoMate- - Bring automotive repair question! Calandar Link
10 Apr 2026 In-Person Friday Night Tours!
10 Apr 2026 Leather Lounge Fridays
11 Apr 2026 Robot Combat (Classroom)
17 Apr 2026 In-Person Friday Night Tours!
18 Apr 2026 Expansion buildout day
18 Apr 2026 ReConvene- Brainstorming The Future Of Volunteer Conventions
21 May 2026 Board Meeting
25 Apr 2026 Intro to Paper Marbling (Classroom)
25 Apr 2026 Expansion buildout day
1 May 2026 In-Person Friday Night Tours!
1 May 2026 Astral Codex Ten Blog Meetup
9 May2026 12:00PM- 4:00PM Gear Up for Summer! Bicycle Tune-up at i3 - Tool Crib
Expectations of Zone Coordinators
- Discussion
- AJ presenting
- Visibility in the zone
- Office hours?
- Coordinator of people to get it done or master of all machines and cleaning?
- Expected response time to communication
- Wiki page - how to be zone coordinator -- does it need changing?
Thomas: This is someone who tries to maintain the zone, asks for camera reviews, every member should help but the ZoCo does a lot. You should be more than willing to work with people who want to do things in your zone. This worked well for Lew in leather where more activity brought in a bunch of cash. Approach people in the zone and ask them to teach classes,etc.
Roger: We shouldn't rely on ZoCos to do the work, they're the point of contact for the board and members, but the fixing and sweeping should be EVERYone. Roger isn't laser ZoCo but he helps and cleans and fixes.
AJ: Why don't you want to be ZoCo, Roger?
Roger: Done it in the past, someone else's turn. Not avoiding anything specific.
William: Wants someone specific to reach out to for guidance.
Ben: ZoCo is the definitive source of truth, total knowledge but not total responsibility.
AJ: IF you were going to reach out to a ZoCo, how would you do so?
Ben: In person, check wiki to find their slack handle and slack 'em. (Ed. note: Slack 'em around with a large trout?)
AJ: So overall, they should be able to answer you or direct you, they aren't necessarily responsible for keeping everything clean, but if there are messes they should be aware of it and call for camera reviews as necessary.
Florian: Bringing up "Visibility in the zone and office hours", fablab has office hours, is that something the board wants to encourage/require.
AJ: Encourage perhaps, but never require. Fablab has found it helpful as a work-on-the-zone time, and might as well let people walk in and chat. AJ wouldn't call it office hours, maybe "zone improvement time" or something. Should be more collaborative than relying on the ZoCo.
Roger: They control the spending, manage the budget.
Nate B: The E-lab basically runs itself by the ZoCo taking a lighter touch and encouraging every member to not just put things away, but help determine where away is. Like
Dave: Why are we asking?
AJ: We can't be upset with someone for not doing something we haven't told them to do.
Ben: Never been upset with the ZoCo's he's interacted with.
Nate B: Why does someone want the board to be upset at a ZoCo on their behalf? Just talk to them directly!
AJ: There have been more specific complaints. Trying to figure out where the line is. If someone wants to do better, how much should we lean on the existing one?
Dedicated food waste can in "kitchen" area
- discussion
- do members want to have a dedicated handsfree/step lidded garbage can in the kitchen area, just for food?
- food waste wouldn't go in the other cans
- Will members change how we use the garbage cans/food waste, to use the can exclusively?
Drew: Came up with the idea, is to have covered trash to contain the food waste, but allow putting things in without using your hands.
AJ: The trick is the culture change.
Roger: Big pizza boxes won't fit in a little step can.
David: Pop can compliance is far from 100%.
Inaudible: It's illegal to throw cans in the landfill trash. Recycling OK, returnable OK.
AJ: Sounds like there's no downside to trying it. Go for it.
Roger: As long as it takes a bag size we already stock.
Increased Camera Coverage
- PoC: Osama N (placeholder)
- As a self-policing organization, we need help to make sure that people who care about i3Detroit are not burned out by the lack of care of those who don't care as much
- A repeated theme across both zones and commons areas is leaving a behind a mess, which often gets taken care of by others. This is not a sustainable practice nor something we wish to cultivate
- It is not clear whether these are one-offs X 200 members or repeat offenders
- Specific proposal:
- Identify all blind spots in our camera coverage across i3Detroit and add cameras. Some gaps have been identified in the past but not yet addressed
- Note from Wei: I have a map on the Security Cameras page which you can use as a starting point.
- Identify all blind spots in our camera coverage across i3Detroit and add cameras. Some gaps have been identified in the past but not yet addressed
Osama: Frustrated at people just cleaning up messes rather than figuring out who's leaving them. This doesn't address the root causes.
Paul: Instead of calling for camera reviews, a discussion witch-hunt ensues, which actually makes it worse.
Daniel: Most people don't intentionally make a mess, maybe more signage and send more reminders?
Nate B: Cameras help us focus the effort, OMG don't punish me with more reminders if I'm not the one leaving the mess. If I actually do the crime, I will 100% do the time.
Florian: So we should make less of a big deal about calling for the reviews, maybe don't even mention it, cuz it just annoys people.
Roger: Signs don't work. The review process is a burden.
AJ: So the question is why aren't people asking for reviews?
Roger: How about a dedicated slack channel, to streamline the review process? Easier to scroll back and find out exactly what needs reviewing.
Social Media Presence
- PoC: Osama N
- We need to increase our social media footprint, with primary focus on Instagram and Facebook
- A robust social media presence can attract future members, raise awareness of i3Detroit's presence to our community, and help us attract more people to our events and classes even if they don't become members
- A draft social media policy is here
https://www.i3detroit.org/wiki/HOWTO_Engage_On_Social_Media
- Requests:
- Request for volunteers who can help with posting content from space members and ZoCos, especially those savvy with social media marketing. Need to ask content creator for permission
- Request space members and ZoCos to reach out on #public-relations and recommend projects, events, or highlights be posted on social media. Visual media (videos/pictures) should accompany posts
- Request members who are active on social media to engage with i3Detroit's content (Follow, like, repost, ...)
Osama: Jan and I are the only people posting, it seems? Neither of us are experts. Anecdote about posting on insta and it'd been a year since the previous post.
AJ: The big ceramics conference got $1300 in donated tools, they want us to post on insta thanking them. They probably didn't look at our follower count before making this request! A robust presence can help us get donations and things.
Paul L: It's hard to try to teach a class AND document a class at the same time. Can't do it all at the same time, maybe someone comes in to take photos and help.
Thomas: If we look at our ancient history, we used to post on youtube all the time. Anyone besides me interested in reviving that? Podcast kind of thing?
Jan: Yeah!
Ben: Not a big social media person, but, "postiz" automates a lot of those things, you still have to make the content but it might be complicated enough for someone to enjoy setting it up.
Tillman: Didn't find our insta when researching i3. Found the wiki and google pictures.
Ruth: Moved to Ferndale in 2009 and looked for makerspaces, never found us. Didn't know what i3 meant so never clicked on it. Louis Rossman did some AI SEO thing? Ugh, maybe not. But posting on /r/ferndale might be good.
Roman: Used to do event photography and flyers and stuff, would be happy to help.
Roger: Hey, this is a do-ocracy! Thomas has been a huge help in classes, saturated all the laser classes every time they went up. All sorts of people contribute in all sorts of ways.
Please pop into #public-relations on Slack!
Example Topic
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Gratitude Corner
- Special call out to all those who teach classes- thank you very much. This is some of the life's blood of i3.
- Thank you to Florian for keeping people updated on the workings of the Tool Crib by his updates on slack and in here in the meeting agenda.
- Thank you to Alex for contacting various vendors at NCECA and getting us a huge donation from Amaco, and thank you to Theodore for meeting up at NCECA to pick up said donations!
Zone Updates
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- Inventory of Bike Zone (now part of Tool Crib) tools and equipment currently in process.
- As of 12MR26 all the Bike Zone tools, equipment, spare parts and consumables have been reviewed.
- Reconciliation of the Bike Zone section of the Tool Crib wiki is underway. A section will be added to the wiki for spare parts and consumables.
- As of 13MR26 the Bike Zone tools/equipment list and the spare parts/consumables list has been updated. Some items with a "0" quantity remain on the lists to capture items that had previously existed in the zone at some point. This will assist in potential future purchases of any critical items used to support the Bike Zone.
- Re-organization of Bike Zone tools and equipment is planned for once inventory/wiki is aligned.
- Looking for input for a list of typical consumables that might be appropriate for the Bike Zone.
- Communicated on the Bike Zone Slack channel looking for any volunteers to be a champion for the Bike Zone. Ben Mick and Zack Sutton were suggested as potential champions for the Bike Zone.
- Ben Mick has kindly planned for a "Get Your Bike Ready for the Summer Tune-up Event" in the Tool Crib/Bike Zone area on Saturday, May 9 from 12 noon to 4 pm. Check the i3 calendar for details.
Ben: Get the rust off, the tires inflated, grease chains, get things shipshape. Bigger repairs might be possible, bring whatever parts you know you need and we'll do what we can. No idea how popular this will be.
Thomas: Are the freakbike folks gonna be here? (Unsure.) Those guys will take old bikes... Hmmm!
Jeremy: Super excited, would love to see this repeated, possibly as community outreach.
- Got a bunch of clay and glaze donated from Amaco!
- Got a bunch of tools donated from DiamondCore!
- Got a mug form, some decorative tray forms, and a dinner plate form donated!
- All donations from NCECA, a few thousand dollars worth of supplies for Ceramics Zone
- The kick wheel was sold for $600, looking to get a new wheel to replace it and ideally more than 2 wheels so classes can be held
- Currently in process of re-organizing zone
NCECA is pronounced Enn-SEEka
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- We now have charging stations (USBPD) on two of the tables!
- After you use these, you should unplug and roll up the wires, and put them back in the plastic drawers on the shelf next to the double decker couch. The wires are currently getting left plugged in, and it's becoming unruly and making it more difficult to clean the tables off.
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- Expansion continues!
- FabLab cleaning and reorganizing underway
- Plan to sell 2x Form 2 resin printers, mini delta, and MK3S for funds to buy another resin printer similar to Anycubic
- Need to figure out how to purify and recycle, or else safely dispose of, used IPA after resin cleaning
- Need to better organize resins and resin tanks
- Need to sort through filament supply and restock PLA and PETG
- FabLab office hour Wednesday 4/8 at 7pm to ~8pm, come by for walk in training or to help out
Paul F: Office hours will be the wednesday after the member meeting.
AJ: Someone gave us flyers recently about IPA recycling.
Jeremy: Will help with selling things.
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- Hardac replacement is in progress.
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- Will plan on some leather classes soon.
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- Media Zone is now crowdfunding the purchase of components for a new, modern workstation which will support professional media creation software (including Adobe Suite). Any amount donation is appreciated.
- We are seeking the most powerful workstation-level components we can reasonably get, both to maximize the performance of and future-proof the system.
- Current target is at least $650 for a RAM, CPU, motherboard bundle (https://www.microcenter.com/product/5007344/amd-ryzen-9-9900x,-msi-x870e-p-pro-wifi,-corsair-vengeance-rgb-32gb-ddr5-6000-kit,-computer-build-bundle). (As we were expecting this deal to go quickly, thanks Nate for fronting the bill.)
- We will need more for the other hardware (case, GPU, drives, etc). So far we have $271 in existing zone funds, $200 confirmed in monetary donations, and an offer from Thomas Burns for an NVMe drive. I (Wei) have a GTX 1060 and 1070 spare, but we would really like a stronger graphics card if at all possible. The 3D scanner requires a CUDA card.
- Once the workstation is built, any excess funds will be used toward zone improvements and expansion.
- Donation link: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=XAHC5VA5VBJ9W&item_name=Media%20Lab
- I sent an email to the mailing list but it's worth repeating: we have Adobe Suite for another 9 months, currently running on Workstation Prime. If you use it, let us know (what projects are you working on?), and consider a small donation toward the subscription fee!
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- Expansion has been rescheduled for Sunday April 12, for anyone available and interested in helping out Elab and Sewing zones.
- Sewing zone has some projects ongoing, such as features to finish out the ironing station, cutting table, digital library, and machine desks. The fitting room mirrors are a project to do before we can open that area, and clear out the rest of the materials carts.
- In the meantime, people are using what's available, and we've had some projects like repairing garments, cushion for seats, clothing construction and costumes.
- Embroidery authorization and industrial authorization are available from the listed trainers in the wiki.
- Users of the zone are asked to sweep up the floor and tables when they're leaving for the day, they'll find all the supplies in the room on labeled hooks.
- Aim to leave it cleaner than you found it.
- The 5x10' table is on the Hello Club reservation system. QR code can be accessed directly from the sign above the table, or a link via the wiki page.
- When you're setting up to work, please check the reservation calendar to verify if it's been reserved.
- No big updates. Hoping to get some help getting the 10' 2x4s needed to build the storage tote rack soon.
- An extensive re-organization of the Fasteners and Hardware shelves was undertaken on March 14, 2026. It is over 75% complete.
- Most power tools are now either painted pink, or affixed with a strip of pink duct tape indicating the permanent home of the tool.
- As of March 20, 2026 the Fasteners and Hardware wooden shelving unit has been organized, but with only semi-permanent designations on green masking tape. A few of the wooden shelves are empty, but probably not for long. I still plan to run a set of vertical support spines up the middle of each wooden shelf to straighten them out. Removal of a couple of shelves that leave little space to actually put a hand in to collect the item.
- The ex-hardware store Fastener storage system has been gone through at least once and assessed. The open trays at the top of the units have also been re-arranged.
- The Fasteners and Hardware storage bins attached to the outside wall of the Tool Crib walls has also been re-arranged, having some items that were previously dumped in miscellaneous bins scattered throughout the Fastener and Hardware area.
- The last major actions for the Fastener and Hardware section are to attempt consolidation of the three (3) small storage racks sitting on the floor into the existing larger storage bins attached to the wall. This may require purchasing one more storage bin attaching plate similar to the plates already being used on that wall.
- A new section was added to the Tool Crib wiki called "What's New". This section gives the membership an indication of what's happening in the Tool Crib zone.
- One of the older Milwaukee 1/2-inch drill/drivers was retired (was placed in the Graveyard, and noted in the Stuff-Exchange Slack channel). The drill/driver chuck clutch was slipping and was marked for repair or replacement.
- A new Milwaukee 1/2-inch drill/driver (tool only) was acquired through the generous donation of one of our new members, Joel Sherman. Thanks Joel!
- Added links to the Operator Manuals for all the Milwaukee cordless power tools, batteries and chargers.
- Also added links to the Operator Manuals for some of the corded and pneumatic power tools.
- Updated the hammer and mallet section to make it easier to accept the larger tools toward the left. Marked the location of all current hammers and mallets.
- Several i3 members attended the Kitts Industrial Tools offsite warehouse sale ($2/lb. then $1/lb.) in late March. Besides several very large size combination wrenches (thanks to David H. and Roger S.), I picked up the following for the zone: a couple of work aprons, an elastic back brace (small), some wooden handles for our existing file collection, some new files of various sizes and cross-sections, a couple of general purpose scissors, a couple of close quarters saws, a set of radius gauges, a hack saw, a fairly nice all metal square, a couple of 6-inch metal scales, and a metric 150 mm vernier caliper. Additional items from the warehouse sale also came into the zone from Nate B. and probably some others, and I thank you all for thinking of the Tool Crib.
- Plans are forming to level up the pocket hole capability in the space. More to come.
- Taught several folks to cut vinyl recently, we might have some new i3 bumper stickers out in the world now!
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- The build of the mobile dust cart has been completed with some additional enhancements planned. See the full description in the Wiki equipment page. Using the dust collection with the Random Orbit Sanders, handheld router, handheld planer, etc., keeps dust out of the air, your lungs and others as well.
- The vintage miter saw finally bit the dust. We now have a new miter saw with substantially greater capability and capacity. It's currently in process of getting set up.
- We need to build a new Miter Station for the new saw. If interested in helping with this, let Tim know.
- A few more classes have been held. These always go well and are designed for any ability.
- We now have 11 members who have completed the 3 phases of training on the Avid CNC.
- And it never is too often to remind everyone to use the dust collector, remember to open and close blast gates, and clean up around your work area so others don't have to.
- Maintaining the woodshop is not without its cost. Equipment breaks down, blades break, need sharpening, sandpaper and glue gets used up. Donations to the zone are what keep it going, so throw a few bucks in the kitty.
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Event is this Saturday! (April 11th)
- We will be doing setup on Friday (any time after lunch, mostly after 6pm) and I could use some help
- I will also need some help the day of the event to help getting people in the door and checked in. Doors open at 8am!
- Or just come by to spectate and enjoy the mayhem! :)
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COWBELL
Broom Party!
Action Item Summary
No action items.
Proposal Summary
No proposals.
Meeting Metrics
- Time completed:
- Attendees:
Attendance
- Chair
- Secretary
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