brmlab

Imagine Anna wanting to build a simple temperature sensor without a soldering iron or any experience in electronics. A shared workshop can offer equipment and someone to explain the circuit. Sharing tools and experience is what makes a workshop like this useful. Here, a hacker explores how things work and finds creative ways to modify them. The word does not automatically mean someone breaking into other people’s computers. [1] [12]

The community began organizing brmlab on 22 June 2010. By October it had space in the Orco building near Vltavská in Prague. It describes itself as the first Czech hackerspace. A December record from the technical community conference 27C3 already mentions workshops and a laser projector with open software under development. From the outset, this was more than an online discussion: people gathered around real equipment and unfinished ideas. [1] [6]

A shared space needs rent paid, tools maintained and rooms cleaned. brmlab relies on its community, membership dues, donations and people’s work. Membership also brings a vote in collective decisions. You can still attend a gathering or join a project without being a member. Anna therefore need not buy membership before asking a question; regular involvement naturally also means helping the workshop work for others. [3]

brmlab spent its early years in Orco. Renovations starting in late 2017 meant finding another home; its place page records the move to Eclipse on 25 March 2018. It describes roughly 250 square metres at Pod Kapličkou 20 in Prague. Older photographs and articles may therefore show a different workshop. Before travelling, use current visiting instructions rather than an address from a historical account. [2]

The equipment reflects the range of interests: electronics, mechanical work, microscopes, biology and a small chemistry laboratory, as well as amateur radio. There are also 3D printers and a home-built CNC machine, meaning a machine controlled by a computer. One person would struggle to assemble all this alone. A list is neither a reservation of working equipment nor instructions for safe use; availability and any training must be arranged with people there. [2]

Projects have pages on a wiki, a website that its contributors can update together. Recording a method, components and results helps another person understand what worked and where work stopped. The catalogue covers robotics, biology, radio and Bitcoin. It also holds completed experiments, work in progress and proposals. A page’s existence therefore does not mean a project is currently active or a finished product is available to order. [4]

Talks and hands-on workshops are part of life at brmlab. Its history also includes a series of brief presentations called Lightning Talks. Here that means a short-talk format, not the payment system Lightning Network. Beginners can start by listening and asking questions. If Anna brings a broken device, she should not assume someone there will repair it for her: brmlab explicitly explains to visitors that it is not a repair shop. Any help needs to be agreed with a particular person. [5] [11] [13]

A meeting in 2011 is particularly important for Bitcoin. According to SatoshiLabs’ history, Marek Palatinus, known as Slush, and Pavol Rusnák, known as Stick, met at brmlab. They were interested in protecting private keys, the secret data an owner uses to authorize spending bitcoin. Their work led towards a separate device: a Hardware Wallet can sign a payment without handing the key to the connected computer. This reduces exposure to malware; backups and checking payments still matter. [7]

The collaboration continued with Alena Vránová and the creation of SatoshiLabs in 2013; the first Trezor devices began shipping in 2014. brmlab’s role is the setting where people met and developed ideas. Development and business belong to a separate team. It is therefore more accurate to credit the environment for collaboration than to attribute ownership of Trezor to the workshop. Nor should its other projects automatically be treated as Bitcoin projects. [7]

brmlab matters because it brings curiosity together with practical experience and other people. To plan a visit, start with the official calendar and the community’s instructions. OPEN and CLOSED on the wiki indicate the reported opening status of the space, not the creation or closure of the organization; its FAQ also says the indicator can be out of date. Arranging a visit is more useful than relying on a green symbol alone. A first visit can start with a simple question about how something works. [11] [2]