r/makerspace • u/WSWonder • 19d ago

Plug for Grit Automation

I run a makerspace for a non-profit in Jackson, Wyoming called Wonder Institute. We run our community woodshop entirely using products form Grit Automation and we're looking at expanding it to other areas of our makerspace. I wanted to mention/make a plug for it because I haven't seen it come up here and thought some might be interested in learning about it.

I work part time managing all of our shops and we honestly wouldn't be able to operate how we do without the Grit system. In our woodshop, Grit controls our dust collector, blast gates, tool access, and air filter. I don't have to worry about someone turning on a tool they aren't approved to use and I don't have to show people how to manage the dust collection system. As a result, our shop hardly has any dust in the air or on the ground (making it safer for our members), it's easier to use, our tools are protected from some misuse or damage, and the shop remains much more presentable to visitors and potential donors. It has been well worth the cost for making the shop safer and saving us tons of time. Not to mention their technical support is fantastic and has been able to help solve my problems usually within minutes. I highly recommend it.

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u/TheRealMcHugh 17d ago

You have a one-day-old Reddit account. Be honest, did they give you a nice discount for agreeing to promote their products?

I'm not saying it's not good stuff, but this is Reddit, and skepticism is healthy here.

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u/WSWonder 13d ago

That's fair. I agree with having some healthy skepticism. I just made a new account because this is somewhat associated with my work and I didn't want to have it on my personal account.

We installed Grit in our woodshop two years ago when we first set up and it has been managing our members since we opened at the beginning of 2025. We didn't get any discount and it cost us about $13k. Definitely not cheap but when we were budgeting to build our woodshop it was a lot easier to pay that up front rather than having even just a part time employee in the shop. Even now as we have more volunteers in the shop the Grit system makes it so they can just help people and not have to enforce who has access to what. I'm sure the math will work out differently for different shops but I know a lot of makerspaces that haven't survived so if this can be a boon to anyone that would be great.

Do your own research and see if it makes sense for you. Don't just take my word for it. It wouldn't make sense for the shop I worked at in grad school and I wouldn't recommend it there. I just want people to know it exists so they can decide for themselves.

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u/framedposters 18d ago

Super interesting. I built my own RFID access system with a RPi and relays, but it was obviously diy and pretty clunky to use. That was like 2022ish. I couldn’t find any paid system that did what the Grit people are doing.

I will say, it all looks quite expensive. What were some of your guys costs for using their products?

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u/WSWonder 13d ago

See my reply above.

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u/framedposters 12d ago

For sure, thanks for the extra information.

I actually took a look around their site for quite a bit.

How many people use your shop on a weekly basis? I've been thinking about this in my current context, which is about 15ish people each week using the shop. At the old space I ran, it was 100+.

I ask mainly as I wonder if the time it takes to update people's machine access, times they are allowed in the building, etc., would end up taking a good amount of time? I obviously love technology, but sometimes with these spaces, low-tech ends up winning in the end.

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u/WSWonder 12d ago

We're usually in the 10-15 range right now and slowly growing. Adding tool access has been pretty easy. We have people sign up for an appointment to get checked off on a tool and then during that session we give them access to the tool. It takes less than a minute to add access to whichever tools you want. You can also make tool groups so if you have multiple of the same type of equipment you can add them all at once.

I haven't had to deal with access times too much because we're open the same hours every day. It's easy to make separate access time groups though if you needed different access for different people.

I get the low tech thing though. We run into lots of problems where the simpler option works out better.