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Repair Café
Venues where people gather and repair everyday items From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Repair Café is an organisation with venues set up to provide people with a place to work on repairing objects of everyday life, such as electronics, mechanical devices, computers, bicycles, and clothing. Repair Cafés are typically held at community locations including churches, libraries, and college campuses where tools are available and device owners can fix their broken goods with the help of volunteers.[1] Repair Café is a part of a grassroots movement that aims to reduce waste, overconsumption, and planned obsolescence.[2] It can re-ignite the "do-it-together" and "do-it-yourself" spirit and strengthen social cohesion.[3][4][5][6][7][8]
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History
In 2009, Martine Postma, a Dutch journalist with an interest in driving local-level sustainability, introduced the Repair Café in Amsterdam.[2][9][10] On 18 October 2009, the first Repair Café was held at Fijnhout Theater, Amsterdam-West. On 2 March 2010, the Repair Café Foundation was set up. The foundation was formed to support local groups around the world in setting up their own Repair Cafés.[11] Since then, the number of Repair Cafés has grown quickly. In March 2016 Postma registered more than 1,000 Repair Cafés worldwide, 327 in the Netherlands, 309 in Germany, 22 in the UK, 21 in the US, 15 in Canada, four Australia and one in India.[12] In 2019, the Guardian estimated 1300 around the world.[10] The Repair Café foundation estimated the number of Repair Cafés had exceeded 2000 in 2021.[13]
In 2017, the first International Repair Day was announced. It is intended to be an annual event, taking place on the third Saturday of October each year.[14]
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Knowledge sharing
In 2017, the Repair Café Foundation developed an online tool—RepairMonitor—enabling volunteers to collect and share knowledge about repair data via the database. In March 2018, information about almost 4,000 repairs had been entered into this system, aiming to promote repairability and durability of products.[non-primary source needed]
3D printing of broken parts
Some Repair Cafés have begun to use 3D printers for replicating broken parts.[15] Broken pieces of domestic appliances may be able to be pieced or glued back together, after which they can be scanned with a 3D scanner. Examples of 3D scanners include David Starter-Kit, 3D Systems Sense, MakerBot Digitizer, Fuel 3D, Microsoft Kinect, and Asus Xtion.[n 1] Once the physical object is scanned, the 3D model is rendered. It can be converted to a .stl or .obj format and revised using geometry processing software such as makeprintable, netfabb, MeshLab, Meshmixer, Cura, or Slic3r.[n 2] It is printed using a 3D printer client, creating a physical part using the 3D printer. The complete process takes some time to complete.[citation needed]
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External links
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