Freeside Atlanta makes space for local hackers (1)

At a regular Tuesday night meeting of Freeside Atlanta, there's talk of building a RepRap machine. A RepRap, treasurer Raiford Storey explains, is a prototyping device that can make its own parts. Once one's built, it can be used to create another and another and so on. Thousands of machines could be made, replicating one another like a hive of robotic insects gestating inside Freeside's Metropolitan Warehouses space. A 2006 Guardian article suggested the RepRap might "bring down global capitalism, start a second industrial revolution and save the environment." But no one here is talking about post-capitalist apocalyptic visions. The collective members of Atlanta's recently opened hackerspace are simply brainstorming another project, something new to make.

The term hacker calls to mind a time when the Internet still trafficked through dial-up modems – or a mid-'90s Hollywood movie starring Matthew Lillard and Angelina Jolie. In a way, the folks at Freeside Atlanta are the direct descendents of that time and culture. Almost everyone in the hacker collective has some sort of technological background, whether as a Georgia Tech alumnus, Linux administrator, or an information security researcher. But the focus here isn't only on programming or circuitry. "You don't just have to hack computers," says interim President James Sheheane. "You can hack metal, you can hack wood."

Fostered by Make magazine and Boingboing.net, members of the current generation of hackers are as likely to call themselves "makers" and cite a background in woodworking or welding as tantamount to their skills with computers. The common principle of making, rather than buying, things guides this technologically bent, do-it-yourself culture, which has blown up in the form of community spaces across the U.S. and Europe over the past two years. Noisebridge in San Francisco, Pumping Station: One in Chicago, and c-base in Berlin are among the leading hacker groups that inspired the founding of Freeside Atlanta.

Three friends from Columbus, Sheheane, Storey and Ken Wehr, initiated the project earlier this year after moving to Atlanta. Instead of securing a space and then seeking out members, the trio first tried to find people who wanted to collaborate. "We said, 'Let's get a bunch of people and let them pick the space,'" Storey says. "Once the word got out around Georgia Tech and places like that, it really exploded." Weekly meetings at Manuel's Tavern regularly attracted about 30 or 40 people. The group moved into its warehouse space in late June and currently counts 55 official members.

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(Photo b Joeff Davis)