Tucked away in a warehouse on the Near East Side lies Sector67, Madison’s own hacker space. Officially dubbed a Center for Prototyping, Technology and Advanced Manufacturing, the mystery of just what goes on at Sector67 remains even after stepping through the nondescript door.

Although the middle of the industrial space is filled with a conference table and haphazard chairs, heavy machinery and other toys for tinkerers lay just out of sight. In one nook sits 3D printers and CNC milling machines, and in another lurks a welding area. Down the hallway is a shared office space, and just beyond that is a computer lab with a 3D scanner. Sewing machines, electric saws, oscilloscopes, and plenty of tools and half-done projects adorn the space as well.

So what is Sector67? Founder and recent University of Wisconsin grad Chris Meyer puts it this way: “Think about it as gym club for people who like to do and build stuff.”

When Meyer was an undergraduate, no such club existed. 

“As a student, I always entered invention competitions and that kind of thing, but I never really had any workspace that I could use off-campus or on the weekends,” he said. “So when I graduated, I wanted to create a space that other people could come in and use to do stuff and build stuff and have the necessary tools and equipment.”

He wrote up a business plan for just such a space and entered it into the Wisconsin School of Business’ G. Steven Burrill Business Plan Competition as a non-profit organization. After winning second place in that competition and third place in the Governor’s Business Plan Contest, Meyer opened Sector67 (“Sector” was inspired by the Argonne National Laboratory, “67” is the number of members needed to remain cash flow positive). He opened the space in October 2010, just a few months after receiving his master’s in engineering from UW.

He labeled Sector67 as both a community workspace and hacker space but is quick to clarify what that means.

“It’s not like getting in and stealing someone’s credit card information; it’s getting in and taking an object and repurposing it for something else,” he explained. “A hacker space is people who are interested in taking something and then reapplying it to something it was never intended for.”

While many members engage in Meyer’s definition of hacking at the space in such ways as using an Xbox Kinect as a large-scale 3D scanner, bike chains as art supplies or Styrofoam to make high-altitude balloons, hacking is just one of many things that goes on there.

When asked what a typical day was like at Sector67, Meyer replied with a smile, “There’s no such thing.”

The membership fee grants members access to all of the supplies and machinery that they’ve been trained in, meaning someone could be throwing pottery, working on a car engine, programming a circuit board or building a dining room set on any given day. For those not making or building physical things, Sector67 has both rental office space in the “business incubator” and an (almost) quiet workspace.

“A typical day could be nice and quiet with folks in the business incubator. Another typical day could be someone comes in and is fixing their car exhaust or something and so you’ve got a grinder running and a welder and all sorts of noise,” Meyer said. “What’s cool about the space is it’s highly dependent on what the members are interested in.”

And what are the members interested in? Project-filled Rubbermaid bins and a towering shelf holding each member’s supplies paint a diverse picture.

“We have a 12-year-old member that’s working on building a single-serving muffin machine,” Meyer said. “We’ve got aluminum casting equipment because one of the members is really into learning casting and foundry work.”

One member is programming a remote control to turn on and off electrical sockets on a timer, and another is working to restore a three-wheeled electric car. Then there’s the tech start-up running out of the business incubator and the artist who welds his recycled art at the space. 

“It’s pretty variable, and that’s a lot of the fun part of it,” Meyer said.

For members, Sector67 provides both a space to work on projects and the tools necessary to start them. But the space has resources for nonmembers as well.

Besides being involved with the community by doing projects for local groups like the Madison Children’s Museum and the non-profit Dream Bikes, the space offers courses in such topics as automotive repair, circuit board sketching and software engineering, all with enrollment open to anyone who is interested.

Although the space is still young and continuing to evolve, Meyer is optimistic about the future.

“Sector67 may go a lot of different directions and do a lot of different things,” he said. “But we’re certainly interested in any opportunity to build cool stuff.” 

As for the immediate future, Meyer and other Sector67 members are happy to take on whatever projects strike their fancy. As Meyer put it, “It just kind of depends on the day and what comes up.”

Sector67 is located at 2100 Winnebago Street. For more information on classes, hours and membership, check out their website atwww.sector67.org.