
Google’s secret perk? A private hackerspace - yan
http://hackaday.com/2011/04/27/googles-secret-perk-a-private-hackerspace/
======
kaib
I've actually worked at Google and been certified to use all of the shops
including welding and metalworking. And the industrial grade heavy duty plasma
cutter. The shops are really cool and they serve a slightly different purpose
than for example TechShop. At TechShop a lot of the tinkering is more social,
the Google shops are definitely less crowded. We run a similar much smaller
shop at Tinkercad and I hope to expand that one in the future as well. The
only gripe I have is that the campus is large enough that the Pi shops are a
short distance away so you might not drop down there as often as you would
like. That said the EE shop was pretty close to core campus.

As for the certification and elitism. The cert process was very
straightforward and relevant. People easily forget that metalworking and some
woodworking machines don't let you learn by experimenting. These machines kill
in seconds, sometimes for mistakes that are very unintuitive. Like wearing
gloves has killed several people. Which is unintuitive when you are handling
razor sharp pieces of metal. Or the recent fatal accident at Yale where
student was pulled in by her hair.

As for the particulars of Ihab. He is a very smart and diligent guy but he had
very little practical machine shop experience. He recognized it himself and
took classes to compensate. These standards aren't high just due to Rod, but
because most Googlers are smart enough to be critical of their own skills when
faced with lethal equipment.

Re-posted from this earlier thread on the same subject:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2487979>

Edit: s/MIT/Yale/ for the lathe accident. Thanks.

~~~
jordanb
> Like wearing gloves has killed several people.

This is interesting. How/when are gloves dangerous? I've been TIG welding for
about a year now, I self-studied my way through a welding textbook[1] and have
friends who are professional welders (union pipe-fitters, etc) and have
_never_ heard anything about gloves being dangerous. In fact according to the
pipe-fitters, gloves are in the category of eye and head protection of "must
be worn on a union jobsite."

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Welding-William-
Bowditch/dp/156...](http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Welding-William-
Bowditch/dp/1566379873)

~~~
wewyor
As someone with light machine shop experience (building things in my ME
schooling) gloves are dangerous on machines like mills
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milling_machine>) where they are spinning so
fast when they catch the glove you will not be able to brake and you most
likely will not have parts or all of your hand.

~~~
jordanb
Yeah I suppose that makes sense with milling machines. When I read the OP's
comment I was thinking he was referring to grinding machines.

I always wear my TIG gloves when operating grinders and was glad I do a while
back when my hand made contact with the wheel: what would have been a nasty
and painful gash ended up being a scuff mark on my glove.

But that raises another question: Why on earth would your hand be _anywhere
near_ the head of an operating milling machine?

EDIT: Thinking about this more, we might have different concepts of "glove."
TIG gloves are thin, tight-fitting, and leather.

They also have a "gauntlet type" cut that extends up your forearms and over
your sleeves. I don't think they'd be any more likely to catch a machine part
than your skin would, and I think they'd actually reduce the chance that a
sleeve gets caught.

OTOH, it makes sense that the thick, heavy fabric gloves that are used for MIG
or stick would make your hands more clumsy and prone to getting caught in
machines. I agree that those are probably pretty dangerous.

~~~
unshift
your hands need to be near the tool in a mill for a couple of reasons,
including clearing chips and applying oil/coolant.

also when you zero out a mill, you need to touch off a tool (don't know the
name) to define your origin spot. it's not sharp and you should spin it at low
RPM, but it's still moving, and you shouldn't have gloves anywhere near it.

~~~
vlisivka
My brother lost two fingers trying to stop rotating part of _powered off_
machine by bare hand 25 years ago.

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newmediaclay
This sounds a lot like the design studio at Apple. It's basically Jony Ive and
~10 designers who have full rights to prototype new products, even if they're
completely random. I think a telling difference is the fact that this is a
part of the core myth of Apple and the emphasis on beautiful design and small
teams. It's not some hidden away secret.

Source:
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1367481/Appl...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1367481/Apples-
Jonathan-Ive-How-did-British-polytechnic-graduate-design-genius.html) \- "Jobs
swiftly brought Ive in from the cold, moving the designers into a building on
campus and investing in the latest rapid-prototyping equipment. He also beefed
up Apple’s security, locking down the design studio to prevent leaks and
installing a private kitchen so designers wouldn’t talk shop in public.

~~~
martythemaniak
Sounds nothing like it actually - this one being open to any employee who
wishes to take advantage of it, the other one being a private perk for a top
exec and his close associates.

~~~
starpilot
And I doubt the Apple shop has welders or bandsaws.

~~~
pclark
They certainly have bandsaws

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joeyespo
Awesome.

I'm personally so much more of a software hacker. But I do have a friend that
can do all kinds of hardware hacks, from woodwork to welding. He loves doing
it too, but often hits a roadblock with certain ideas since he doesn't have
the required machinery and is currently employed outside this field of work.
And without the funds, also doesn't have the opportunity to go very far with
his hobby.

Unfortunately, he also doesn't have the software background to work at Google.
It's an amazing perk they offer for sure. It'd be really cool if they expanded
this to allow some non-computer geeks to pitch in every now and then though.

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meterplech
This is incredible. I think Google is doing a great job of transitioning from
a startup to a big company. They have so many things like this, 20% time, and
letting tech guys focus on tech and still get promotions. I feel like they are
trying to make themselves the Mecca for brilliant technologists. If you aren't
a startup with an "us" against the world mentality, you have to add compelling
reasons to attract talent.

~~~
unshift
transitioning? they've had over 20,000 employees for a few years now. you
cease to be a startup after you've started up. for them that probably happened
around 1998-2000.

~~~
ja27
IBM has 426,000. AT&T has 294,000. GE has 287,000. Those are big companies at
least in the tech community.

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martian
TechShop in SOMA (San Francisco) has similar machinery and equipment, from the
sound of it. <http://techshop.ws/> A potential perk for SF-based startups
could be access to shops like this. Buying all that equipment is expensive.
Austin TX has a similar communal workspace <http://www.makeatx.com/> and I'm
sure similar spaces exist in other cities.

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Darklink
Very interesting, I wish there were some more pictures of the inside of the
shop itself. Knowing Google, I'm sure everything in there is top of the line.

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mkramlich
I bet that's where SkyNet will be built. (Has been built?)

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xster
def jealous

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latch
Even within a small company cliques are a fact of life. But, something about
the way this is worded seems...awful?

"which is open to any employee that meets some pretty strict requirements. A
written test is given before an employee can access the facilities, and even
then they must be deemed worthy of working on particular pieces of equipment"

I'd like to assume this is a safety issue, but this is Google which is known
to be pretty elitist. Some employees will always get more perks than others
(more money, more vacation time, more options...). Part of the very nature of
picking "haves" is that you inherently devalue the "have-nots".

One step forward for having a more streamlined interview process, one step
back for having interviews/tests for access to perks even after you're
employed.

~~~
joe_bleau
It's a safety issue. Pressurized acetylene must be treated with _great_
respect, and just the other day I read about a chem student that was killed in
a lathe accident at Yale.

~~~
latch
thanks for explaining. Still seems a bit like having a golf course and only
letting employees with a certain handicap play. Maybe they could balance this
out by offering an area with less dangerous equipment and/or
lessons/instructors/supervision for everyone else.

~~~
ceejayoz
If your golf handicap is "liable to kill someone", I'm fine with you being
banned from the course.

~~~
metageek
Yes, golf and caber tossing both come from Scotland. No, that doesn't mean
they mix.

