Guatemala school project
Recently, Framingham MakerSpace members provided tools and labor to establish a woodworking shop and taught Scratch computer programming at Bendición de Dios, a non-profit private school in Alotenango, Guatemala. While there, we visited some homes and were appalled at the living conditions. Rusted corrugated steel walls and roof, dirt floors, chickens and dogs roaming throughout, a single 6' x 8' bedroom for the entire family, an outdoor "kitchen" with a wood fired stove creating smoke that made breathing extraordinarily difficult.
Asociación Bendición de Dios has upgraded more than a hundred of these hovels with a concrete bedroom and bathroom over the years, but the process has been necessarily piecemeal. The founder/director, Julio Garcia Gonzalez, explained to us that land ownership was necessary in order to build a house, and few of their families have access to the required money. We asked what it would take to buy a piece of land for many houses to be built from scratch. He said he could get land for 15-20 homes for about $30,000, and if he could get the land, he has donors and other means to build the houses. An anonymous donor committed to providing the initial payment of $10,000 to establish the fund. We still need to raise $20,000 within six months.
You can donate to this project here
New equipment
Lincoln TIG 200 Welder (in house) Hypertherm 45XP Plasma Cutter (this will be used on the CNC plasma cutter) (in house)
Tormach PCNC1100 with 4th axis (in house) GoTorch CNC plasma cutter (in house)
Pocket NC v2, Tabletop 5 axis CNC mill Two more MIG Welders for classes
(ordered 2/21/18, 6 week lead time) Includes (in house)
Autodesk Fusion 360 license.
ShopBot Buddy CNC router, 4HP spindle, power stick which can sut up to 4'x'8' sheet.
Includes V-Carve Pro and Fusion 360 licenses (shipping 3/30/18).
Sawstop Table Saw (in house) Etching Printing Press (48 inch) (due in June)
Framingham Makerspace awarded $101,017 grant from Mass Development
Framingham Makerspace was awarded $101,017 from the Massachusetts Development Collaborative Workspace grant program. Thanks to Charlotte Maynard Managing Partner of Saxonvill Realty Trust for providing much needed support for the grant applicaiton. Here is a link to the perss release Mass Development Collaborative Workspace grant awards.