At zWORKS, we’ve seen how beneficial collaboration can be. One zWORKS startup is looking to bring collaboration to the engineering world in Indy.

Brian Hull is one of the founders of Maker Factory and his goal is to start a maker space in Indianapolis.

A maker space is coworking for engineers and builders. It provides the tools and supplies needed like lasers, welders, 3D printers, design software, tools, etc.

“I’m a part of zWORKS because I think it’s similar,” Hull said. “It’s a coworking space and I think the next generation of workers are experimenting with coworking.”

Hull has been a design engineer for about 10 years and re-evaluated his goal with engineering after his dad passed away last year.

“The vision for maker factory is that when people sit down and make things together and that process happens in a collaborative space, it really builds community,” he said.

The Maker Factory’s goal is to acquire a building to bring Hull and the other co-founders’ vision to reality. Currently, they are focusing on classes such as robotics classes provided at the Zionsville Library. These usually involve kids building robots and trying to figure out how to take down the other robots.

Hull said their next class they want to offer is a welding class. But overall, the idea would be to get creators from all different areas into the same place.

“When you bring all these creative people together in a hub, you get really interesting things that don’t typically happening,” Hull said. “We’re trying to encourage collaborations.”

He gave a few examples of members of their Facebook group. Some sew and do fabric work, some make cheese and soap, and so on.

Hull said there has been a real demand for maker spaces. He added that the goal is to change production in the U.S. economy.

People are usually drawn to something like a 3D printer and then they’re able to see everything else a maker space has to offer. There are hundreds around the U.S. and it’s only growing.

“To make some of these products, you need drilling equipment or welding equipment and it doesn’t make sense for people to go out and buy,” Hull said. “If we can offer a maker space for something like $100 per month, they can have opportunities open up.”

But a maker space would offer more than a place to build products.

“It runs the gambit from training new workforce people who need training to community organizing to offering production engineering services to companies,” Hull said.

Hull and Maker Factory’s next goal is to find some co-op space to be a base of operations for different classes and for different designing, fabricating and engineering projects. After this step, they would look into a building of their own.

For more information, check out their website or email Hull at brianhullart@gmail.com.

Getting to know Brian…

• Brian is an avid rock climber, being a member at Hoosier Heights.
• He has summited a 5,000-foot mountain.