hey everyone I'm Kelsey and today I'm
here with Peter Mui the founder of
fix-it clinic and we're gonna be working
together on a series of repair videos
that will be resources for local
community repair events and they'll help
you fix your everyday stuff so if you
see Peter on the channel that's what
he's doing here thanks for coming by and
filming this with us it's a pleasure
thanks so much for having me here so we
talked a lot about repair cafes and I
fix it but the fix-it clinic is a little
bit different so can you tell us why
sure fix-it clinics we ask the
participants to materially participate
in their own repair so rather than just
sort of helping them by fixing it for
them we help them by coaching them
through the repair and teaching them how
to fix it themselves yes you can't just
bring in your device and have somebody
else fix it for free you're actually
expected to do it yourself and learn
something
well sometimes the fictive coaches just
do it I mean I can't hey they can't help
themselves they love the idea of being
able to help people but but really the
goal is to try and disseminate these
skills through the civilization and not
keep them to ourselves so how long has
fix-it clinic been going on so the first
fix-it clinic was December 1st 2009 at
UC Berkeley's Albany Village Community
Center and there were two fix-it coaches
and there were about six participants so
how many fix-it clinics are nationwide
now so at this point there have been
close to 500 fix at clinics last year
there were over a hundred so that's two
a weekend
that's a lot yeah it's a lot I mean
there's still so many things that you
know need to be fixed can you talk a
little bit about the types of things
that you see come in toasters we see a
ton of toasters okay and then we see a
lot of things out the number one fix it
fix it clinics we replace a ton of
double-a batteries because what happens
is people come in and they say I put new
batteries in and it still doesn't work
and I say look not that I don't trust
you but do you mind if I try my fresh
batteries so there's some of those easy
fixes but then there's also some more it
was like more complicated fixes but you
know changing out capacitors and thermal
fuses and some
skills that that we don't have we're
gonna address those in the series but
some of those little tiny components
also are you know designed to fail
nobody's checking up on that so some
level this is an experiment these videos
are in temp to see can we deploy
slightly more complex repair using a
video format as opposed to in-person
community repair event thing like repair
cafes and fix a clinics do are people
willing to try these sorts of things on
their own and and if they try it I'd
like them to report on that so I've got
a broken item report form that I'm
deploying and I'd love for us to to
promote that and talk about that as well
so why is it important for us to collect
this information and know we work I fix
it works with you on you know collecting
this so the world knows what types of
things are breaking but yeah why collect
all this data and information on it well
so we can inform manufacturers over time
that you know we or we can inform
ourselves so we can reclaim our powers
as consumers to be able to take back
that power and say we're going to spend
our hard-earned dollars on devices that
are durable and provide good value to us
and we can we can keep in their highest
utility possible for as long as possible
and you talked a lot about planned
obsolescence because manufacturers
aren't thinking about the evolution of
these products at the end of life of
these products and they're definitely
not giving us the resources so we have
to make them ourselves we'd love for the
manufacturers to hold their feet to the
fire and and us as consumers to reclaim
that power that we have to basically say
you know what if you're going to keep
making junk we're going to keep fixing
it and keeping in service and we don't
have to buy any more of your junk so
where can people learn more about fix-it
clinic or learn where they can possibly
start their own right so we have a
website fix of clinic org you know all
one word no hyphen between the X and the
TI and I really want to make a personal
appeal for fix-it coaches because
they're the limiting constraint somewhat
flippantly say that any two people can
start a fix-it clinic as long as one of
them knows how to solder but if you want
to start a fix-it clinic there's a link
under our website on how to start one
and contact me and I'll try to give you
all the encouragement and help and
resources there's lots of stuff online
to get you going and we would love to
have you as part of the fix the clinic
Network so we'll have links to fix-it
clinic and the broken device report card
in the description
so be sure to check those out and don't
forget to subscribe to the channel this
new series is coming out and we're gonna
be fixing things that we don't normally
fix on the channel and they'll be really
helpful for you and for all the local
repairman so thank you so much Peter for
being here thank you again for having me
yeah and we'll see you all next time