I've been hearing a lot about hackspaces cropping up around the world, where curious maker enthusiasts get together and hack things using whatever tools, equipment and materials they can get their hands on. Genspace, which I've mentioned before, is a DIYBio Hackspace in New York.
"Biohacking in the form promoted by DIYbio is about engineering elegant, creative, self-reliant solutions to doing biology while relying not on institutions but wits. The solution is the hack. Hacks do not require fancy lab equipment, federal funding, or peer review. They simply need as many hands, eyes, and brains focused on a problem as possible." [Wohlsen, Biopunk: DIY Scientists Hack the Software of Life, page 5]
Luckily there's a similar initiative happening in London called Hackspace, so on Tuesday evening I popped into the open day to see what it was all about. I have to say I was totally blown away by what I found: a busy, welcoming, relaxed environment with lots of great tools and machinery where people can basically have a go at making whatever they dare to. Apart from a few logical protocols and general rules that ensure nobody accidentally sets the place on fire, it's pretty much a free reign situation, where there is no authority or big boss man and every member has joint ownership of the space.
While I was there I got chatting with BioModd, who were having their first meeting in the BioHack area. Super friendly and passionate about their upcoming TEDx talk in December, they immediately welcomed me into their conversation and didn't hesitate to open doors for collaboration, which was amazing.
I also made friends with one of the BioHack regulars (let's call him Mad Scientist), who I think is really representative of the ethos of Hackspace. With no official training in biology of any kind, Mad Scientist is a self-taught DIY scientist who sees no reason why he shouldn't be able to experiment on the cellular level given his growing interest and background knowledge in the area. After a little introduction and conversation about my interests, he promptly got me started on making up some petri dishes and taking bacterial samples from different areas of my body.
All in all I ended up staying at the Hackspace for several hours, but it felt like minutes. I went home on a high, feeling really excited that I'd found this underground space full of such lovely and interesting people with a great perspective on harnessing creativity. I went back the next evening to see if anything had grown, but unfortunately there aren't any signs of life yet. However, after more conversation with some other DIY scientists, we began speculating on what we could do with this bacteria once it does start growing. One man mentioned that it would be quite easy to change makeup of the microbes so they smell different – like the ones from my armpit, for example. I immediately saw a link to the smell-o-scope I had made just the day before. Definitely something to consider!
