I was thinking that it would be nice to have small donation jars like we do for pizza around different work stations. Like a small one by the makerbot and a small one by the soldering stations. This way if somebody is using those stations they could drop in a quarter or something to help pay for additional maintenance and supplies for those stations. You wouldn’t be required to put money in it, it would just be there for those who use that station the most. This would go to buying abs for the makerbot and solder and desoldering stuff for the solder station.
Does anybody have small jars or cans we could use for this? Similar to the ‘feed the hive’ can?
Would something like a Flattr url converted to qcode work for a
digital version of this? Is there a different kind of non-cash
micropayment system we could use?
Hah, that’s an interesting idea. I know a bit about Flattr… would be be able to do something like have a qrcode that when you scan you donate .25 cents? That would be badass. Are you familiar with how to setup a Flattr account so that the money goes into our account or something? Or at least in a way that we can use the cash to pay for the supplies easily. I need to look more into Flattr…
That would be good in general. I was think a micro donation thing. I don’t know how much the abs is but the solder and stuff is <$10 and we probably only need to restock every 4-6 months. I’ve been using the solder station a decent amount the last 2 days and I could just go buy solder but if there was a can I would drop in a quarter after I got my pop… I’m planning on printing some things after Dave’s openscad class and I don’t want to use up his abs w/o paying for it, etc. But again, I’m sure the amount I’m using is really cheap.
I like the idea of being able to scan a QR code to go to a donation page, but it looks like Flattr takes 10% of any donation and requires a monthly payment to them, then Paypal will take another % of that donation as well.
It might make more sense to just make a simple paypal “Donate” page, can you attach notes to paypal donations? Maybe make a simple php page that takes a parameter to indicate what QR code was scanned and auto-attaches a note to a paypal donation. The page could have a small textbox that you can enter the amount on it. The other question is does paypal charge a flat rate for small transactions? if so it could be kinda pointless to do this.
We could make different paypal donation buttons to show which one was used but I think paypal will always take a %
It’s probably not worth the effort. We don’t need everybody to donate even if you use the station. Just if you have some change and want to drop some it, I’m sure that would be enough to buy supplies when needed. Also the costs of these supplies is so low a person could just buy them and donate them for a “Thank you” receipt they could use on their taxes. So maybe it’s a mute point but I was just thinking it would be nice to drop some extra change to make up for the stuff I’m using.
This is getting too complicated. I think a couple of change jars is all that’s needed. One for the electronics supplies, one for the makerbot supplies, etc. A quarter here, a dollar there would add up.
Hmm… We could install some massive electro-magnets under the floor and ceiling, then by adjusting the current between the two it would raise and lower the floating benches. Stability might be an issue though.
