Inside Manylabs, An Experimental Open-Science Factory On Folsom Street | Hoodline

"At Manylabs on Folsom Street, two monitors on the wall display live air-quality data. The graphs spike during the morning and afternoon rush hours, but they also spike at 3am, before many cars are out on the roads. Electronics engineer Ken McGary, who designed the low-cost sensors, has a working hypothesis: the early-morning spikes are a result of Sightglass Coffee roasting beans around the corner. Building tools to crowdsource air-quality data is one way Manylabs hopes to help regular people engage with science, their communities and nature. At a three-story, 5,500-square foot industrial space at 1086 Folsom St. (at 7th), 12 resident scientist-researchers are working on a variety of projects: electronic notebooks, paper microscopes, cardboard robotics, and a massive database of the global ecosystem, to name a few. Ask people inside the building what Manylabs is, and you’ll get a range of answers: co-working space, hacker-space, maker-space, science art gallery, incubator, trimmed-down university ..."