Repair Cafe Palo Alto— a place where anything can get fixed
Do you have your grandma’s old lamp, a toaster, toy or a radio that needs to be fixed ? How about learning how to fix a flat tire ? Go to a Repair Cafe in your area and where anything gets fixed at no cost.
What is a Repair Cafe ?
How many of us really try to fix if a gadget when it stops working? We throw away a lot of stuff and immediately run to the shop to buy a new one. Why can’t we take some time to understand how it works, what went wrong, consult your techie uncle, aunt or a professor, and try to get it fixed. You could learn the practical, hands-on knowledge needed to fix basic stuff and pass it on to the next generation. That’s where Repair Cafe comes in.
Repair Cafes are free meeting places and they’re all about repairing things (together). Bring your broken things and work with the on-site repair volunteers to assess what it would take to repair them. You can work with our volunteers to do the repairs yourself (with their guidance) or have them tackle the job directly. With luck, you’ll walk away with a once-again useful item and some knowledge of how to repair other things in your universe.
The idea of a Repair Cafe was initiated by Martine Postma in 2009. Martine organized the very first Repair Cafe in Amsterdam, on Oct 18, 2009. Since then, over 1,400 such cafes have been started worldwide. Visit one in your area or start one yourself!
My experience at Repair Cafe — Palo Alto
Location : Museum of American Heritage, 351 Homer Avenue, Palo Alto, California, USA
Date : February 4, 2018 | Time : 11am to 3pm
Check website for the upcoming “cafe” sessions.
There were two types of work stations. Outdoor stations — bike, mechanical fixers, sewing and jewelry and any other large items. Laptops, CPUs, peripherals, smart phones, complex (anything with chips) and general appliances such as CD players, radio, lamps, vacuums, etc. were being fixed indoors.
The work stations were set up with power, basic tools, vises and inventory of some basic supplies such as wires, connectors, voltmeters, resistors, soldering iron, etc. was also available. The volunteers and fixers had brought their own tool kit, basically whatever they required to get things done.
People had brought their broken radio, tablets, table lamps, typewriters, piano, surge protector, speakers, surveillance camera, coffee machine and wall clocks.
I was very fascinated on seeing a mommy with her kid carrying an old remote-controlled toy car and a cute little noise-making toy. They sat there for about 1.5 hours while the fixers tried to understand what going on in the electronic circuitry. That toy meant the world to the innocent kid and was so wonderful to see the happiness on his face when it started working.
Outdoor stations had visitors with lawn mowers, broken vase, bicycles, (artificial) jewelry sets and even some clothes to be altered and stitched.
After arriving a little late and since this was my first visit to a Repair Cafe, I hung around to see how things work — visitor sign-ins, describes the state of his broken item, and later a coordinator matches this request to available fixer. On most occasions, the visitor sits next to the fixer and observes the whole process.
I had also signed up as a volunteer and got to work on a Bose Wave Radio CD Player. The player could not detect a CD, but the radio worked fine. We dismantled the player trying to understand what could have gone wrong.
After searching on google for probable cause and reading some customer reviews, we guessed that it had something to do with a potentiometer on the main CD player’s circuit board. It was worth giving a shot. On adjusting the potentiometer and dusting the internal circuitry, the CD player started working. This it was a team of three — a senior mentor, another apprentice and myself, who worked on this project.
That was my first successful repair job at the Palo Alto Repair Cafe.
Who can volunteer ?
About 75% of the volunteers are fixers, working with visitors to get their broken items fixed. The rest help out managing logistics, including registering visitors, supporting the fixers, and generally doing whatever else needs to get done.
A volunteer can do any of the following :
- Fix things & teach others how to fix things
- Help organize and/or run events
- Work on social media, web design and maintenance or marketing activities.
The Repair Cafe teaches people to see their possessions in a new light. And, once again, to appreciate their value. The Repair Cafe helps change people’s mindset. This is essential to kindle people’s enthusiasm for a sustainable society.
It was fun seeing fixers breaking complex stuff into smaller tasks, consulting each other for technical assistance and making the owner understand what went wrong and how he or she can fix things on their own.
Why don’t you give it a go?
Note : The article contains excerpts taken from Repair Cafe’s and Repair Cafe Palo Alto’s website. All the photos inserted in this article are clicked by the author.
