🚀 Builder-in-Residence at TinkerSpace

Where hardware ideas grow into working prototypes, in the open, with the people around you pitching in.

📌 Apply Now

Spots are limited. If you've got a hardware project you want to finish, get your application in.

👋 Welcome

Builder-in-Residence is a nine-week, in-person program for hardware makers who want the time, space, and tools to take an idea all the way to a working prototype.

You build at TinkerSpace, alongside other makers, with technical mentors on hand and a community that gets involved in what you're making.

What sets this cohort apart: you build in the open, and the community builds with you.

🎯 What It Is

Nine weeks. In person. Hardware only.

You come in with an idea and leave with something you can power on and hand to someone. Along the way you get the workspace, the prototyping gear, mentorship from the community, and a room full of people who'll actually pick up parts of your build.

This isn't an incubator or an accelerator. No funding, no equity, no business mentorship. Just the space and the people to build.

✨ What Makes It Different

Scoped so you can actually finish. Every project is sized to what TinkerSpace can do: 3D printing, breadboards, microcontrollers, SBCs. If it can't be built here in nine weeks, it isn't the right fit for this round.
Building in public is the whole point. Your work stays open as you go. Open repo, open BOM, a running list of what you need help with. No building quietly in a corner.
The community gets hands-on. Not just feedback and beta testing. People jump in at whatever level fits them, from printing a part to debugging firmware to designing an enclosure.
You still own the finish. Help is help, not a handoff. However much anyone pitches in, getting it done is on you. That's what keeps the contribution loose without ever putting the outcome at risk.
It all ends up open-source. Everything built here gets open-sourced: firmware, hardware, CAD, docs. Whatever a contributor adds lands under the same license. The ownership question is answered before it can come up.