Shelter 2.0 – An Open Design Project

I’ve been making things with ShopBots and sharing designs for ShopBot projects since the early days, almost 20 years ago. There have been boats, furniture, and design tools like Open Source Joinery, but the thing I’m most proud of is a side project, Shelter 2.0, that I work on with my friend and collaborator Robert Bridges. Robert and I …

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A New Design Resource for ShopBotters Doing Collaborative Work: Fusion 360

I’m always on the lookout for resources for small shops doing digital fabrication – resources that will help these shops operate profitably by improving communications with customers and improving collaborations with partners working on the same project. For small shops doing CNC, 3d-printing, laser cutting, and applying other digital fab technologies, I think of …

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ShopBot Plays Host to International FabLab Visitors

ShopBot’s Sallye Coyle, FabLab manager Walter Gonzalez Amao, and ShopBot’s Ted Hall display the Peruvian flag (home country to many of ShopBot’s recent guests).

 

“It was nice to be able to just spend casual time and compare notes with other FabLab managers.” “It was fun to enjoy our community.” “The seminar was very …

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Circle Strings custom guitars adds ShopBot to the mix

Adam Buchwald of Circle Strings; photo ©Shem Roose

 

Adam Buchwald is the owner and principal luthier of Circle Strings, a company he first opened in Brooklyn, NY, in 2005, and now operates in Burlington, VT, where he and his family relocated in 2008. Adam focuses on building guitars, mandolins, tenor guitars and double …

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FabLab Tacoma serves a community of students and entrepreneurs

FabLab Tacoma and Created to Create’s collaborative group

Founded in late 2012 by Stephen Tibbitts, FabLab Tacoma is a community-based prototyping and technology workshop that’s open to the public with a membership business model. I spoke with Stephen recently to learn more. “We opened up the FabLab to provide easy access to cutting-edge design …

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An Experiment in the Next Industrial Revolution

Digital fabrication joinery is used in producing Handibot “Smart Tools”.

 

You can think about Handibot as ShopBot’s experimental platform for exploring manufacturing strategies for the “next industrial revolution”. In a recent blog post responding to a customer challenge about open collaboration, I’ve tried to lay out why digital fabrication will be the catalyst …

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Adventures of a High School CAM Class: Episode 9

My name is Lexus Pickett and I am with the Renaissance Academy Woodworkers. I am currently a senior who is interested in computer aided manufacturing.

We are currently cutting out pieces for our Adirondack chairs on our CNC (ShopBot) machine. Our CNC machine has made manufacturing these chairs much easier. We used to use templates …

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CNC and STEM (STEAM) Education: 1

In 2003, the director of technical education at the Clark County School System in Las Vegas, NV took a big step: CNC (computer numerically controlled) equipment was introduced into the woodworking programs at most of the middle schools and high schools in the district. It was a bold step, one taken to introduce technology (computers) …

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How to start up a micro-factory in your garage.

A Case Study: Ryan Patterson’s MyHue.

The potential for individuals to create, design and manufacture products themselves continues to be realized every day all around the country. With the affordability of robust digital fabrication tools such as the ShopBot Desktop, running a micro-factory out of handy space is not a dream, but reality. We …

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Mike Annetts’ students learn STEM subjects and gain confidence by making with a ShopBot.

Teacher Mike Annetts

For almost 20 years Mike Annetts has been an Industrial Arts teacher in Manitoba, Canada, for students from grade 7 through 12, and he has been running a ShopBot tool in his classroom for over a decade. When we reached out to him to see if he’d like to talk about …

Continue reading >>> Mike Annetts’ students learn STEM subjects and gain confidence by making with a ShopBot.