[act-ma] 4/28 Fixit Clinic in Alston Honan Library

[Charlie Welch]

Harvard’s Fixit Clinic Builds Reuse Culture


*/Next Clinic Saturday, 4-28-18, Honan Allston BPLibrary/* 
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfZclG6YI3221ttofBquYsEqX9ZqkUN-jAFKdOqYcywLLS9Hw/viewform?c=0&w=1>

Cabot Science Library and Harvard Recycling co-hosted over 20 Fixit 
Clinic coaches to help members of the Harvard community learn how to 
repair clothing, appliances, furniture, and audio equipment at the 
first-ever Fixit Clinic at Harvard University February 13, 2018. M.I.T. 
has hosted the clinics since 2011, and this year Harvard Recycling 
sponsored Clinics at the Honan-Allston Public Library and Brighton’s 
Presentation School Foundation Community Center. We hope to run another 
Clinic at the Cabot next Fall.

Clothing repairs included patches, zipper fixes, a zipper installation, 
and a re-glued shoe buckle. Electrical fixes included several lamps, a 
flashlight and an electric toothbrush. We rescued many other items, 
yielding an overall repair average of about 50% with another 25% needing 
a part which the owner planned to get later.

We were lucky to have the presence of Peter Mui, an MIT alum now living 
in Berkeley CA, founder of Fixit Clinics 
http://fixitclinic.blogspot.com/. Peter came from California to spread 
his inspirational “We-can-fix-this!” gospel at Harvard. He also exhorts 
producers to design for durability and repairability. In Peter’s words, 
“A Fixit Clinic is a party for fixers and the public can crash it.” WGBH 
aired this video 
<https://news.wgbh.org/2017/04/26/science-and-technology/fixit-clinics-help-people-revive-their-broken-items>from 
M.I.T. last year.

Deep thanks to our Cabot Science Library hosts SUE BERSTLER, AMY van 
EPPS, ROBYN ROSENBERG, RON LACEY and others. Thanks also to ROB HART of 
the Physics Teaching Lab who brought his amazing caddy crammed with 
useful and exotic tools and hardware up from his first floor lab. 
Special thanks also to illustrious coaches who lugged their tools and 
hardware to Harvard, including Jerusha Achterberg, Stuart Cody, John 
Pelletier,  Ray Pfau, Brian Saper, and Joe Wooters! Read more about such 
skill-building do-it-yourself events, and check out this article about 
Fixit Clinic’s close cousins, Repair Cafés, here.


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