Goodyear Tract Local Lab

In Fall 2024, Mechanism concluded a five-part discussion and learning series —How To Launch Your Makerspace—engaging a coalition of community and economic development leaders in South Los Angeles. Community Development Technologies (CDTech), the lead organizer of the coalition, brought in Mechanism to provide a comprehensive overview of makerspaces.

Goals & Objectives

The objective of this project was to help CDTech, as well as businesses located in the Goodyear Tract and their supporters, learn about strategies for increasing access to key business resources, including capital, workforce development, commercial real estate, and entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Community Development Technologies (CDTech) Conaxion

RootDown LA

Strategic Actions for a Just Economy

T.R.U.S.T. South LA

South Los Angeles Transit Empowerment Zone (SLATE-Z)

Central Alameda Neighborhood Council

Mechanism organized four online learning sessions for CDTech and guests to gain insights about strategies for helping scale up manufacturing businesses, focusing on:

• Introduction to Makers and Makerspaces

• Matching Makers’ Needs to Makerspace Offerings

• Supporting Entrepreneurship & Business Development

• Facilitating Pathways to Employment and Opportunity

Throughout these discussions, participants delved into the history of makerspaces, examined case studies from across the nation, and brainstormed ways to create a makerspace tailored to the unique needs of South LA communities.

The series culminated in an immersive two-day, in-person workshop with CDTech and stakeholders to collaboratively review and evaluate strategies, focusing on makerspace business models and the essential elements of a successful makerspace. The workshop concluded with a hands-on modeling exercise, exploring innovative ways to integrate tools, technology, and shipping containers to create a vibrant and dynamic makerspace.

Based on conversations throughout the series and after, Mechanism and participants were excited and energized by the learning series. We met our predicted goals and developed some new insights for future opportunities along the way.

Through feedback discussions in-between sessions, follow up calls with the most active members of the series, and a reflection call with CDTech, Mechanism was able to capture the following outcomes:

• Increased understanding, among participants, of how to create and maintain a makerspace, including how to staff and operate the space, what programs can be offered, what technology to provide, and how to develop multiple revenue streams to become financially sustainable.

• Increased understanding of how a makerspace can support new maker and manufacturing centric businesses through programs that introduce making and entrepreneurial skills.

• Increased understanding of how to develop and offer workforce development programs via a makerspace and establish new talent pipelines to established manufacturing businesses.

• Increased opportunities to connect with established makerspaces and to entrepreneurial ecosystems for makers and manufacturers across the country.

• Developed new strategies for partnerships with local manufacturers and community colleges to create pathways from a makerspace to continued education and job placement.

• Developed concepts for new makerspaces in and around the Goodyear Tract that respond to issues that impact South LA communities and create bridges to growing trends and industries in California and across the country.

Local Labs make visible the challenges and opportunities for starting, scaling, and sustaining production ecosystems. Our process allows business owners and workers to work with and alongside each other and a wide variety of industry, intermediary, and community stakeholders, inclusive of a wide variety of identities (age, citizenship, race, gender, employment status, etc). The Local Lab process intentionally brings them all together to better understand and envision the collective benefits and impacts local production can have on a place. Successful Labs co-create, co-design, and build new resources, services, systems, and policies that better support production ecosystems, leading to more thriving and resilient workers, businesses, communities, and places.

Local Labs have three phases: Learn, Design, and Build; however, every engagement doesn’t have to include each of them and each is tailored to a community’s needs.

This project was led by Andrew Dahlgren, with consultation from Tanu Kumar and other Mechanism staff.