2025 has been a year of big changes and bigger plans for Santa Barbara Hackerspace.
As many of you know, we’ve moved into our new home at 302 Pine Ave, Goleta. This new space marks the next chapter in our mission: to create a vibrant, accessible workshop and community hub for makers, tinkerers, artists, and inventors of all ages.

Why We Moved

Our old space served us well for years, but the building sold in April and the new management set rent prices above what we could reasonably afford. The good news is the new Pine Ave location gives us:

• More square footage for tools and equipment (~3,700sq/ft => ~5,000sq/ft)
• Dedicated rooms for electronics, wood, and metal work
• A larger community classroom and dedicated meeting area
• Future capacity for even more tools

It’s a blank canvas, and we’re already turning it into something amazing.

What We’re Working On

Since moving in, we’ve been:

• Designing safe, accessible workspaces
• Planning public classes and workshops that anyone can attend
• Laying out zones for robotics, electronics, woodshop, metal fabrication, textiles, and more

Why It Matters

Santa Barbara Hackerspace is more than a workshop.
We’re a community resource where people can:

• Learn hands-on skills
• Share knowledge and collaborate
• Build prototypes, projects, and ideas that otherwise wouldn’t leave the napkin

Makerspaces like ours help bridge the gap between ideas and real-world impact. Whether you’re a high school student wanting to learn soldering, an entrepreneur building a prototype, or a hobbyist perfecting a passion project, this is your space.

How You Can Help

We’re a non-profit and run almost entirely on member dues and donations. Right now, our biggest needs are:

• Funding for tools, safety equipment, and infrastructure Donate Here
• Volunteers to help set up the new space
• Community support to spread the word

If you’d like to contribute - financially, with tools, or with your time—please reach out to us. Every bit helps.

What’s Next

Our immediate goals for the rest of 2025:

• Complete unpacking and tool setup
• Host a 15th anniversary / grand opening party in mid August
• Open the doors wide to new and current members

We’re building something that will serve Santa Barbara and Goleta for years to come. The energy and creativity in this community is unmatched, and with your support, this new hackerspace will become a hub for it all.

Visit us at 302 Pine Ave, Goleta
Follow along as we transform an empty building into a buzzing, creative workshop—and join us in building the future.

The Raspberry Pi runs a simple python script waiting for an input from the button press. Once pressed the script contacts the Unifi controller, requests a wireless access code, adds some formatting and prints. The code for the Raspberry Pi and Unifi can be found on GitHub. The thermal printer is available from Amazon.

With that, lets get into how to do it.

Connecting the Button

Required Tools:

• Soldering iron

Required Hardware:

• Momentary pushbutton (LED-lit optional)
• 10k ohm resistor (1/4 watt)
• 22 gauge wire

Optional Hardware: heatshrink 5×2 2.54mm (.1″) female header

The button requires only 3 pins on the Pi to be connected and a 10k ohm resistor. Pin 2 (3.3V) pin 5 (Ground) and pin 7 (GPIO 14 / TX). Pin 2 is used to Power the button LED and provide the positive rail for the common pin on the momentary switch. Pin 5 to provide a ground for the LED and to connect one side of the 10k ohm resistor to. And pin 7 to be connected to the Normally Open (NO) pin of the switch as well as the other leg of the 10k resistor to prevent the GPIO pin from floating. We used a 2×5 pin female 2.54 mm (.1″) connector and some 22 gauge wire to connect everything.

Here’s the fritzing verion:

Closeup of the completed wiring harness on the Pi for reference:

Now that everything is connected together, it’s time to install the software that powers it.

Setting Up the Controller

The script that runs on the controller accesses the controller’s MongoDB database directly, so first, install git as well as the library for that. Our wireless controller runs CentOS, where the commands to do that look like the following:

# yum install http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm
# yum install git pymongo

With the libraries installed, it’s time to grab the script:

# git clone https://gist.github.com/gholms/760fa4f6621c91001b9f2b449e4e4155 wifi-button
# cd wifi-button

The script needs to know the internal ID number of the site in your Unifi controller in order to add everything to the database correctly. Once you have this number, open the script in your favorite text editor and edit the UNIFI_SITE line.

# ed voucherator.py

Finally, install the script and tell systemd to run it when the system boots.

# cp voucherator.py /usr/local/bin/voucherator
# chmod +x /usr/local/bin/voucherator
# cp voucherator.service /usr/local/lib/systemd/system/voucherator.service
# systemctl daemon-reload
# systemctl start voucherator.service
# systemctl enable voucherator.service

Don’t forget to allow traffic through the controller’s firewall if necessary. By default, the script uses TCP port 8080.

With the controller’s setup complete, it’s time to set up the Raspberry Pi to manage button presses and the receipt printer.

Setting Up the Pi

To install the script on the Raspberry Pi open the terminal or SSH in from another computer.

Next, install the script’s dependencies that are packaged as part of Raspbian. These commands will vary if your Pi happens to be running another operating system.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install git build-essential python3-rpi.gpio

Now install the python printer interface and requests library.

$ pip install python-escpos requests

With the repositories installed its time to grab the scripts.

$ git clone https://gist.github.com/gholms/760fa4f6621c91001b9f2b449e4e4155 wifi-button
$ cd wifi-button

The top of the button-managing script has a couple settings that you should tweak as well.

$ ed buttond.py

At a minimum, you should edit the VOUCHER_URL setting to tell it where to find your voucher-creating server. For example, if you need to access it using the IP address 192.0.2.1 then that setting may look something like the following:

VOUCHER_URL = 'http://192.0.2.1:8080/voucher/new'

The script also assumes you have a cool logo installed at /srv/voucherprinter/logo.jpg. If you have such a logo and you put it somewhere else instead, edit the LOGO_PATH setting. If you do not have such a logo, comment out the line of code that attempts to print it further down in the script. We should improve this in the code later.

Next, install the script and set it up as a service so it can run when the Raspberry Pi starts:

$ sudo cp buttond.py /usr/local/bin/buttond
$ sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/buttond
$ sudo cp buttond.service /usr/local/lib/systemd/system/buttond.service
$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
$ sudo systemctl start buttond.service
$ sudo systemctl enable buttond.service

Now connect the Pi to your network, press the button, and see if it works!

Here’s our finished printer with a sleek built in button and all the Raspberry Pi bits tucked into the printer for inspiration:

This is a four week class, constisting of a one hour class per week. The class assumes zero knowledge of Eagle CAD and PCB / circuit design, though the depth of the class will likely be informative for those familiar with Eagle CAD. PCBs are the heart of most every modern electronic device and being able to create them can be an extremely useful skill for executing most any electronic device.

Eagle CAD is a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) design tool with a version of the software available for free. It is widely used by the hobbyist community and is a powerful tool for PCB creation. Eagle CAD includes tools for creating a schematic and generating a PCB from the schematic.

Below is the class outline which outlines the goals of the class and what will be covered. The class will be taught by Mike “Swiss” Bales and other SB Hackerspace members.

An Intro to Using Eagle CAD to design circuits and PCBs

Class Outline and Goals:

The goal of this class is to teach participants with no CAD or circuit design knowledge the necessary skills to take an idea and develop it into a working circuit / PCB. PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards) are an integral part of nearly all modern electronic devices. Eagle CAD is one of the most popular entry level tools available for developing schematics and PCBs. The class will cover every step of the PCB design process from schematic design, PCB layout, production, and assembly.

Prerequisites:

A computer capable of running Eagle CAD (specs and download available at: http://www.cadsoftusa.com/download-eagle/ )

A desire to learn how to create an electronic device with a PCB

Class Schedule:

The class will be held over the course of three weeks, with one, one hour and a half classes per week. Classes start Thursday 7/7/16 with the next two on the following Thursday evenings (7/14 and 7/21)

Class Schedule:

Class 1:

Why use Eagle CAD

Installing Eagle CAD (on Windows, Mac, and Linux)

Navigating the Eagle UI

Creating a new project, Schematic, and PCB

Installing additional libraries

Using Github for revision control and collaboration

Class 2:

Adding parts to a schematic

Connecting components and nets

Schematic best practices

Creating a PCB from schematic

Part placement and signal routing

PCB layout best practices

Class 3:

Working in 2 layers, Vias, Planes

Assembling a completed PCB

Making a PCB at home / sending a PCB for manufacture

Soldering

Debugging PCB errors and iterating designs

Class Fee:

The class fee is $25 for non-members and covers the materials included in the class and a fee to help fund the space and make more classes like this possible.

SBHX member’s fee is $20

We want to make our classes as available as possible, if you would like to attend the class but are unable to pay the fee please email us for other arrangements.