Hardware Community Coming to Life at Circuit Launch

Hardware communities are definitely growing in numbers across the globe. The shift in the overall infrastructure of hardware development, such as the accessibility and affordability of various technologies and the emergence of makerspaces, have allowed hardware communities to flourish, allowing them to build products like never before – a phenomenon that we, here at Circuit Launch, are witnessing on a daily basis.

As we have shared in our first blog about our coworking space here in the bay area, besides providing the resources necessary for hardware companies to take their products to market, it is also our primary goal that we help build the hardware community by cultivating an environment that enables them to succeed in their endeavors. Every day, we are building a creation space that inspires hardware startups and companies to continue their journey in the hardware revolution.

So how are we specifically doing this?

 

Inspiring a Culture of Innovation and Creativity

Here at Circuit Launch, we like to think of ourselves as mad scientists who are always experimenting, always on the look-out for the next big thing, and always working towards the future of hardware development. Consequently, we want to constantly convey and share this same enthusiasm for innovation and creativity with every guest and member of the hardware community that sets foot in our place –a sentiment that has been captured amazingly by the mural done by our graffiti artist friends from Bulgaria, Arsek & Erase.

Taking over our staircase wall, the mural colorfully depicts a mad scientist surrounded by various tools and hardware components – his face all lit up as he holds a light emitting diode.

Through this mural, we hope to always remind our hardware community of their vision, and to continue to spark their passion for making every time they enter our facility.

 

Building a Culture of Learning

For a hardware community to continue to evolve, continuous learning should always be present. At Circuit Launch, we believe that every process, every iteration, and every conversation is an opportunity to learn. This is the principle that we embrace in our hardware community. This is also the reason why aside from making different maker tools available, we are also facilitating various electronics and robotics classes where industry experts are able to share their knowledge and techniques to all our members.

For instance, our Circuit Milling with the Bantam CNC class teaches participants the basics of Computer Numerical Control (CNC) setup and safety, down to creating their own circuit boards. Another example is our “Become a Self-Driving Car Engineer with ROS” class, a multi-series course about Robot Operating System (ROS) — a robotics framework that is now propelling the self-driving car development.

These classes allow us to nurture our knowledge and develop our talents and skills, thereby accelerating learning and innovation in our very own hardware community.

 

Fostering a Community Spirit

As mentioned earlier, we consider ourselves as mad scientists. We are serious about our work and about our vision. But even though we get heavily involved with building our prototypes and final products most of the time, we still make sure that we don’t neglect the relationship building in our hardware community. We do this by hosting regular social events, such as our “breakfasts,” which happens every first Friday of the month, and “happy hours.”

Through these simple gatherings, we get to share our stories with each other, meet new members of our hardware community, as well as discuss both the challenges and promising opportunities that each team or individual is facing.

If you want to drop by and hang with us in one of our events, you can sign up in the form below:

Interested to learn more about our community here at Circuit Launch? Send a message to our team here.