Saturday is the final day of Bloominglabs’ “Meet Your Maker” event — a membership drive taking place from 7 to 10 p.m. The event began Oct. 27.
It will take place at Bloominglabs’ warehouse location at 1609 S. Rogers St.
The club usually only has open-public night once a week, during which non-members can come in and use the space and equipment for free for crafting.
With Halloween approaching, participants can take advantage of the extra time at the warehouse to create homemade Halloween costumes.
The drive is an attempt to get more members to join the club. Currently, there are a little more than 30 members.
Club founder Jenett Tillotson said the group’s goal is to recruit up to 40 ?members.
The fees accrued from the new members would help to financially support the new space.
This space, Tillotson said, is three times the size of their previous one.
“We need about 35 members to afford the space and 40 members would mean we would have extra money, which would mean we could save up and buy some extra stuff which would be super cool,” Tillotson said.
Tillotson added that the club initially branched from IU’s robotics club, which disbanded once its president graduated.
However, five or six people still had an interest in continuing the club, so they met instead in Tillotson’s basement as a hackerspace.
The group grew in size throughout the years and moved from place to place before finally settling in the 3,000-square-foot warehouse where the group is housed.
The warehouse is filled with projects, machinery and various equipment.
Signs on the ceiling point out scrap yard, wood tools, metal tools, power tools, chemical tools, a soldering station, a forge to melt metal and even a laser ?cutter room.
Completed projects include a “Weiner dog race,” a life-size Dungeons and Dragons-related puzzle and a reusable shopping bag that Tillotson formed by molding plastic, disposable shopping bags together.
Although the Bloominglabs equipment is for more mature and experienced crafters, the club features activities for children as well.
Tillotson teaches several workshops to children through Bloominglabs, and on Oct. 28, community member Brian Lloyd toured the warehouse for the first time with his children Olivia, Abby and Brayden.
Lloyd said he wanted to get his kids “involved early-on with hands-on activities,” and jumped on the opportunity when he saw an ad for the membership drive online at ? visitbloomington.com.
He said the types of projects he would be able to do by using the equipment at Bloominglabs were things he’d always wanted to learn himself and things he’d like to start doing with his kids.
The family is considering getting a membership to the club, which costs $40 per month.
Members are granted access to the warehouse and equipment 24/7 and can also use the equipment at a ?reduced cost.
Lloyd said his children seemed to enjoy the time spent running around exploring the equipment warehouse while being monitored by members such as Lambert and member Heath Roush.
“They are not patient, and they want to get their hands on everything,” Lloyd said. “I can probably only bring one at a time.”
Tillotson plans to use some of the open-house time over the next few days to make herself an Oompa Loompa Halloween ?costume.
While Roush said he won’t be creating a Halloween costume, he will surely be working on one of his many current projects over the next few days, because he is, as he said, “always doing ?something.”
“Really, we’re just doing our thing, and it’s awesome,” said Tillotson.
