【英语中国】创客运动在中国日渐风行

Emily Parker

Several years ago, Peng Ziyun was at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, studying music and technology. She learned about sound engineering and wanted to build something of her own. But she didn't know how, and she didn't have anyone to teach her. An Internet search led her to Xinchejian, China's first formal 'hackerspace,' a community-run workshop where ordinary people tinker with everything from art projects to robots.

Ms. Peng, now 23, wanted to make a tree that could talk. With the encouragement of others at Xinchejian, she learned to drill and solder and to work with arduino, an open-source microcontroller board that is user-friendly. Her new skills helped her to attach sensors and colored lights to an actual tree so that it would react to human touch. The tree spoke both English and Chinese: The more you interacted with it, the more it talked, its sound growing richer and its lights flashing vividly.

Ms. Peng's work, a meditation on the relationship between nature and man, was later shown in an art gallery and spent a month on display in a mall. 'It definitely changed me,' Ms. Peng says of the experience. 'It's given me the confidence to build things like that in the future.'

Already booming in the U.S., the maker movement (or DIY, for 'do it yourself') is now gaining ground in China, challenging assumptions about the country's capacity for innovation. Make Magazine co-founder Dale Dougherty defines a maker as someone who builds, creates or hacks physical materials, whether food, clothing or gadgets. Makers often gather at hackerspaces, or makerspaces, real-world locations where they can learn and work together. There are hundreds of hackerspaces world-wide and over a dozen now in China.

Lone inventors have long tinkered in garages. But today, inventors can use software to design objects to be produced by desktop machines like 3-D printers. They can get funded on Kickstarter. And thanks to the Internet, DIY is thoroughly collaborative. Rather than work on projects in secret, people freely share their ideas and designs online. Chris Anderson, former editor in chief of Wired, describes makers as 'the Web generation creating physical things rather than just pixels on screens.'

Xinchejian, founded in 2010, means 'new workshop.' It occupies a rented room in a Shanghai warehouse. Members pay around $16 a month to use the space and tools, and on Wednesday nights it is open to the public. The Taiwan-born David Li, a 40-year-old programmer and a co-founder of Xinchejian, wants to lower the barriers for experimentation and play. 'It's not about getting together a group of geeks doing something. It's a conduit for people to say, 'This interactive stuff is not that scary, not that difficult.''

One of these tinkerers might develop the next groundbreaking technology, or at least that is the hope of Chinese policy makers. 'Chinese industry has to change. It has to migrate to the next stage. Right now it's purely contract-based. We execute what other people design,' says Benjamin Koo, an associate professor of industrial engineering at Beijing's Tsinghua University. Others wonder why China doesn't have more internationally celebrated brands or a homegrown innovator like Steve Jobs.

The Chinese government has taken an interest in the maker movement. Not long after Xinchejian opened its doors, Shanghai officials announced a plan to build 100 government-supported innovation houses. Last November, according to Mr. Li, the Communist Youth League of Shanghai helped to attract over 50,000 visitors to a Maker Carnival, where makers exhibited their creations to the public.

Officials have also visited Xinchejian, and for now, Mr. Li sees their involvement as a positive development. He notes that the lack of accountability in the Chinese political system sometimes encourages innovation and risk-taking. 'The policy makers we meet here are genuinely very curious. They have the resources. They are not afraid to try,' he says. 'They could build bridges to nowhere, and they will still have a job.'

But simply building more hackerspaces won't transform China into an innovation hub. The country's education system is widely criticized for its emphasis on the gaokao, or university entrance examination, which rewards rote learning. Mr. Li thinks the larger issue is China's rapid development and the great pressure people feel to provide for their families. He says that some of the best hackers in Xinchejian are the 'second-generation rich,' who are set for life and thus free to experiment.

Whatever the cause, many Chinese simply don't have time for tinkering. Tsinghua University's Mr. Koo, originally from Taiwan, described going to one of China's top high schools and asking a group of some 400 people how many had enjoyed five minutes to themselves since childhood. 'Nobody raised their hand,' he said.

Now he is trying to teach Tsinghua students the maker spirit, giving them opportunities to work with their hands. Mr. Koo's classes are project-based, and 'every team, starting from the first year, has to do something on their own.' He gets funding from the university for his students' projects and for organizing maker events. 'I will spend some departmental money to buy a box of toys so they can physically construct anything.'

In the city of Shenzhen, Seeed Studio works with global makers to transform their hardware designs into prototypes and samples. Seeed specializes in the small-scale manufacturing of experimental, niche-market products. The Sichuan-born Seeed Studio founder Pan Hao, also known as Eric Pan, doesn't aim to replace big manufacturing but to complement it. 'When designs go big, the traditional manufacturer will have new products to make,' Mr. Pan told me. 'We are providing more candidates.'

Seeed Studio may be a business, but it still sees itself as a frontier in China's maker revolution. Its recruitment poster for new employees features a picture of the South American revolutionary Che Guevara, his head sprouting electronic components instead of hair. The poster calls for people to come together to 'challenge the hegemony of industrialized mass production in an unprecedented way!'

Some observers see China's maker movement as yet another instance of the country's tendency to produce shanzhai, or copycat goods. But Mr. Pan advises patience. 'China is just on the way,' he said. 'The first time you learn to write, you cannot write novels. You have to copy from the textbook to learn to write A, B, C, D.'

For now, hackerspaces give Chinese inventors a community. Ms. Peng, the maker of the interactive tree, says that her life changed when she went to Xinchejian and realized there are 'people out there that are sort of like me, they just want to build things, and learn.'

Ms. Parker is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and the author of 'Now I Know Who My Comrades Are: Voices from the Internet Underground,' which will be published next year.

Emily Parker

几年前，彭子云（音）在上海音乐学院学习音乐和技术。她听说有一种音效处理方法，想利用这个方法自己搞点东西出来。但她不知道怎么做，也没人教她。在网上搜索一番后，她找到了“新车间”。这是中国第一个正式的“创客空间”，由社区运营，普通人可在这里捣鼓从艺术项目到机器人等一切小发明。

彭子云现年23岁。她当时想发明一棵会说话的树。在新车间其他人的鼓励下，彭子云不仅学会了 孔和焊接，还学会了如何使用操作简便的开源微控制器板arduino。掌握了这些新技术后，彭子云将传感器和彩灯装到一棵真树上，这样人们触摸这棵树的时候，它就能有反应。这棵树可以讲中英双语，你跟它互动得越多，它讲得就越多，而且会越来越声情并茂，灯光也闪烁得十分生动。

Alex Nabaum彭子云的这件作品是对人与自然关系的沉思，后来在一个美术馆里展出，又在一个商场里摆放了一个月。彭子云谈到这个经历时说：这件事无疑改变了我，让我以后对创作这样的作品有了信心。

这种创客运动（即DIY，自己动手）在美国已发展得红红火火，目前在中国也开始逐渐流行，令那些针对中国创新能力的假设受到挑战。杂志Make Magazine的联合创始人多尔蒂(Dale Dougherty)对创客给出的定义是建造、创造或捣鼓出实际材料的人，无论这些实际材料是食物、衣物还是小器具。创客经常在创客空间或制造者空间里碰面，这是现实世界中他们可以共同学习和工作的地方。全世界现有数百个创客空间，其中有十几个目前位于中国。

长久以来，孤独的发明家都是在车库里搞发明。但如今，发明者可利用软件设计物体，然后由3-D打印机等设备制作出来。他们可以在Kickstarter上得到资助。由于有了互联网，DIY过程可以得到全面协作。人们不再秘密地搞项目，而是在网上自由地分享他们的想法和设计。按照《连线》杂志(Wired)前主编安德森(Chris Anderson)的描述，创客是发明具体东西而不仅仅是屏幕像素的网络一代。

新车间成立于2010年，在上海某仓库里占据一个租来的房间。其成员每月缴纳大概16美元的空间和工具使用费，周三晚上对公众开放。新车间的联合创始人李大维(David Li)是一个40岁的程序员，在台湾出生，他希望降低来这里做实验和玩耍的门槛。他说：新车间并不是一群怪人聚在一起搞点什么，而是一个管道，人们通过来这里觉得，交流互动没有那么可怕，也没有那么难。

这些搞小发明的人里，或许就有一个在研发下一个具有突破性的技术，至少这是中国决策者的期待。清华大学工业工程系副教授顾学雍(Benjamin Koo)说：中国工业必须有所改变，必须迈入到下一阶段，现在还完全是基于合同的形式，我们执行别人的设计。还有人疑惑，为什么中国没有更多国际知名品牌，也没有像乔布斯(Steve Jobs)那样的本土创新者。

Emily Parker新车间的联合创始人李大维中国政府已对创客运动表现出兴趣。新车间成立后不久，上海官员便宣布了建造100家由政府扶持的创新之家计划。李大维透露，去年11月在上海共青团的帮助下，创客嘉年华(Maker Carnival)吸引参观者逾5万人次。创客将自己的发明在创客嘉年华上向公众展出。

上海官员还参观了新车间，李大维目前将官方的参与视为一个积极的发展。他指出，中国政治体系一定程度上缺少问责制，这有时鼓励了创新和风险承担。他说，我们在这里见到的决策者好奇心真的非常强，他们有资源，他们不惧怕尝试，他们可以在人迹罕至的地方建桥，并且不会因此被免职。

但单纯建立更多的创客空间并不会将中国改造成一个创新中心。中国的教育体系因为强调高考而备受指责，这种模式鼓励死记硬背的学习方式。李大维认为，更大问题在于中国的快速发展以及人们面临的养家糊口的巨大压力。他说，新车间一些最佳创客都是“富二代”，他们衣食无忧，所以可以毫无顾忌的搞实验。

无论何种原因，许多中国人只是没有时间鼓捣新技术。清华大学的顾学雍说，他曾访问过一所中国顶尖的高中，他在那里向大约400人提出一个问题——多少人自童年以来享受过属于他们自己的五分钟。他说，无人举手。顾学雍来自台湾。

现在他正尝试向清华大学学生传授创客精神，为他们提供动手实践的机会。顾学雍的课堂都是以项目为基础，他说，从第一年开始每个团队都要独立创造出点什么。他从清华大学获得资金用于学生的项目和组织创客活动。他说，我会把部分学科资金用于购买一箱子的玩具，学生们就可以动手组建任何东西。

在深圳，Seeed Studio与全球创客进行合作，将他们的硬件设计转换为原型和样品。Seeed专长于实验和细分市场产品的小规模生产。四川出生的Seeed Studio创始人潘昊(Eric Pan)并不打算取代大型制造商，而是致力于成为他们的补充。潘昊说，当设计趋于成熟，传统制造商将会生产新产品，我们向他们提供更多的选择。

Seeed Studio或许是一家企业，但仍将自身视为中国创客革命的开拓者。该公司招聘新员工的广告附带一幅南美革命家切•格瓦拉(Che Guevara)的图片，图中他的头上长出了电子元件而不是头发。这则广告号召人们聚集在一起以史无前例的方式挑战工业化量产的主导地位。

一些观察人士将中国的创客运动视为中国制造山寨产品趋势的另一个例子。但潘昊建议耐心等待。他说，中国还在起步阶段，你刚开始学习写字的时候，你是无法写出小说的，你要先照着教科书来学习写A，B，C，D。

目前创客空间为中国的发明者提供了一个社区。会说话的树的设计者彭子云说，来到新车间后她的生活也随之改变，她意识到这里有和她一样的人，他们只是想创造东西和学习。

Parker是新美国基金会(New America Foundation)的高级研究员，著有《现在我知道谁是我的伙伴了：来自网络被压抑的声音》(Now I Know Who My Comrades Are: Voices from the Internet Underground)一书。这本书将于明年出版。

（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）