Hong Kong’s MakerBay: a place for inventors to pool ideas and learn from each other
Yau Tong facility brings together hobbyists and inventors to tinker, build, design, and more importantly, learn from each other. It’s surprising more Hong Kong hobbyists aren’t joining in
It took inventors Cesar Harada and Shawn Frayne just a couple of days to create their latest product – an inexpensive children’s building toy consisting of colourful plastic rods with magnetised ends.
Both men’s core expertise lies elsewhere: Harada designs flexible robotic boats that can be used on environmental missions; Frayne launched a micro-wind device company and went on to run Looking Glass, a start-up making 3D displays.
Their collaboration came about because both are part of MakerBay, the shared production space Harada set up a little more than a year ago in Yau Tong, where hobbyists and inventors alike can gather to tinker, build, invent – and learn from each other.
“The idea is a space like this where collaboration happens organically and we can invent something quickly. [Creating something] doesn’t have to be a very long journey. If you’re in the right place, with the right people and a lot of tools, and you build a network that supports these people, then the journey can be much faster,” Harada says.
Being a maker changes the perception of the world. You don’t feel limited. You feel that the world can be changed
“We wanted to make a toy for children without money, without space, and one that we can make very quickly. And so we made a drawing, found some straws in the kitchen and some magnets in the office and we put them together. We ordered more parts from Taobao next day and in 48 hours we had the prototype.”
