Chaihuo Makerspace (柴火创客空间) was started in 2011 by the founder of Seeed Studio, the Shenzhen open-hardware company. It's widely described as Shenzhen's first makerspace. The name chaihuo means "firewood": the idea that the fire burns higher when everyone adds wood.
Where and what
Since 2017 Chaihuo has been based at Vanke Design Commune (万科云设计公社) in Nanshan. Its official activity list shows workshops, hackathons and maker talks throughout 2026. Recent examples include a robot-cooking hackathon in April and a XIAO ESP32 vision workshop in September. There's no fixed weekly schedule, so check its activity page and its 活动行 (huodongxing) page for upcoming sessions.
The Seeed connection
Chaihuo sits inside a wider Seeed ecosystem:
- Seeed Studio makes open-hardware modules and runs Seeed Fusion, a PCB, PCBA and manufacturing service (see Seeed's profile).
- Maker Faire Shenzhen is organised by Seeed, with the 2026 edition held at the same Vanke Design Commune (see Maker Faire Shenzhen 2026).
- MakerCamp: residencies where visiting university teams (MIT in January 2024, 2025 and 2026, among others) build open-hardware projects using Shenzhen's supply chain.
Good for
- Makers who want workshops and hackathons with a mostly Chinese-speaking community (with some English)
- Anyone interested in open hardware
- Students and researchers looking at MakerCamp
Related
Sources: chaihuo.org, seeedstudio.com, seeed-studio.github.io/MakerCamp, checked September 2026.
Updated 29 September 2026