{"id":1883,"date":"2013-05-20T20:52:35","date_gmt":"2013-05-21T03:52:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kqed.org\/makingof\/?p=1883"},"modified":"2013-05-20T20:52:35","modified_gmt":"2013-05-21T03:52:35","slug":"the-making-of-techshop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/2013\/05\/20\/the-making-of-techshop\/","title":{"rendered":"The Making Of&#8230; TechShop"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F93271236\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Laser cutters, 3D printers, sewing machines, injection molders, welders, notchers, planers, lathes, hand tools, computers. Enter TechShop, San Francisco\u2014three vast floors of every kind of maker\u2019s tool imaginable.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.techshop.ws\/tssf.html\">TechShop<\/a>\u00a0is a community based workshop on a mission to democratize access to the tools of innovation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Any given day its a mix of hobbyists, artists, people who have invented things they&#8217;re trying to get to market or to prototype,&#8221; says Blaine Dehmlow, General manager for SF TechShop. &#8220;Today I saw a guy making a bicycle rack here \u00a0in the welding department, another person making jewelry on the laser cutter. And there&#8217;s a group here making a medical device for prototype.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s a<a href=\"http:\/\/www.orukayak.com\/\"> folding kayak<\/a>,&#8221; interjects Jesse Harring Au, the Maker Advocate for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autodesk.com\/\">Autodesk<\/a>, the software company that partners with TechShop providing free programs for makers. &#8220;It folds up into a suitcase so anybody can take a kayak out. And there&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.typeamachines.com\/\">Type A Machines<\/a>. They make their own 3D printers from scratch in house.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>There are three TechShops in the Bay Area.&#8221;A member can come in with an idea, take a class and three hours later they can be cutting stuff and making amazing progress,&#8221; says Blaine.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So many people come in with just that napkin on a bar sketch,&#8221;\u00a0says Jesse. &#8220;Just to see something physical come out as soon as possible, I think that&#8217;s where the software side of it comes in.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jesse&#8217;s the Techie&#8230;Blaine is Old School\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<figure  id=\"attachment_1884\" class=\"wp-caption left\" style=\"max-width: 372px\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.kqed.org\/makingof\/2013\/05\/20\/the-making-of-techshop\/img_4206\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1884\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1884\" alt=\"Blaine Dehmlow, Shop Manger SF TechShop and Jesse Harrington Au, Maker Advocate at Autodesk.\" src=\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/61\/2013\/05\/IMG_4206-620x413.jpg\" width=\"372\" height=\"248\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Blaine Dehmlow, Shop Manger SF TechShop and Jesse Harrington Au, Maker Advocate at Autodesk.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m an analog guy,&#8221; says Blaine.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The &#8216;hammer&#8217; of Tech Shop,&#8221; interrupts Jesse.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve missed a whole generation of inventing, of working with our hands, taking shop in school,&#8221; says Blaine.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;All that stuff just got passed away in the last 20-30 years. I think it was probably a liability issue. Remember when that whole thing came in? Everybody decided that if you couldn\u2019t guarantee absolute safety you couldn\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No. I disagree,\u201d Jesse counters.\u00a0\u201cWith the advent of the internet and the advent of the home computer, as a whole country we said \u2018let\u2019s stay on top of the new technology.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think you\u2019re right!&#8221; Blaine shoots back, \u201cBecause nobody ever lost interest in woodshop\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut if you\u2019re a high school\u2026,\u201d Jesse argues.A gigantic water lathe fires up next to us, drowning them out.<\/p>\n<p>The two are a comedy team, playing off each other from opposite ends of &#8220;the making&#8221; spectrum. They&#8217;ve actually started doing a weekly podcast together\u00a0which they record on their lunch break live from TechShop SF. It&#8217;s called Safety Third.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My dad was a gold and silver miner,&#8221; Blaine recounts. &#8220;We grew up out in the middle of nowhere. When we got a piece of equipment or a toy you had to learn to repair it and alter it. And there was never a point in our life when we weren\u2019t making a sling shot or a deer rifle or a go-cart.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Personally I was sort of so so on the hand skills,&#8221; says Jesse. &#8220;Blaine was never really interested in CAD, but just through our relationship working here together, we\u2019ve built a car\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA roadster,\u201d corrects\u00a0Blaine.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe built a roadster,&#8221; says Jesse. &#8220;We\u2019re making watches. We call it CAD to craft.<\/p>\n<p>The two ran a guitar making workshop at TechShop. Thirteen people each made a guitar in six days. At the end of the sixth day everyone had to play their guitar.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We had a father come in with his two sons and they all built guitars so they played a song together,&#8221; says Jesse. &#8220;And we had a woman who was making a guitar for her fianc\u00e9. She didn&#8217;t know how to play. She makes this gorgeous guitar, sits down and starts strumming and he plays the notes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Destructive Testing<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.kqed.org\/makingof\/2013\/05\/20\/the-making-of-techshop\/img_4251\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1887\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1887\" title=\"\" alt=\"IMG_4251\" src=\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/61\/2013\/05\/IMG_4251-300x200.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a>Near the front door sits a rugged, hip looking \u00a0bamboo bike. &#8220;Putting the bamboo pieces together was the problem,&#8221; \u00a0Blaine says.<\/p>\n<p>Their solution was fiberglass orthopedic tape, the kind the doctor uses to make a cast when you break your arm. It hardens quickly and it\u2019s cheap.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We were criticized almost instantly,&#8221; sasy Blaine. \u2018It\u2019ll never work &#8230; it probably won\u2019t hold up.\u2019 So we thought, \u2018Well, let&#8217;s do some destructive testing.\u2019&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>They took the first bike up on the TechShop roof and threw it off \u2014 eleven times with no failures.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We only stopped because security came by and told us to stop throwing things off the roof,&#8221; says Blaine. &#8220;Then we made a jig so anybody could walk up and make a bike in six hours. Whole project \u2014 we can get it out the door for about $45.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Gamelatron<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.kqed.org\/makingof\/2013\/05\/20\/the-making-of-techshop\/img_4236\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1888\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1888\" title=\"\" alt=\"IMG_4236\" src=\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/61\/2013\/05\/IMG_4236-300x200.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a>In a side building next door to TechShop, there\u2019s a quiet, clean space for meetings and brainstorming with large paper pads on easels covered with ideas and maker mantras: play, reuse, subvert, challenge, question&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>A large installation covers one wall. Blaine walks over and presses a button. \u00a0&#8220;These are actual Tibetan gongs but they\u2019ve been mechanized. It\u2019s called a Gamelatron.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The piece is a robotic gamelan orchestra created by conceptual artist and composer Aaron Taylor Kuffner. \u00a0After studying in Bali Kuffner created the piece as part of a residency at the TechShop.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He\u2019s made six of them around the world now,&#8221; said Jesse. \u00a0&#8220;He came into TechShop to build the bent tubing and all the welding.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When people come in they\u2019re really putting it all on the line,&#8221; says Jesse.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Maybe they&#8217;re in between jobs,&#8221; Blaine says,&#8221;or maybe they&#8217;re taking money out of their budget and they don&#8217;t know if they should be putting time or money on this deal. It&#8217;s a really risky, tender moment for people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arc from Tradition to Technology<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Jesse makes fun of me because I come from that old side of the tradition and I make fun of him because all he does is double click on a little mouse and thinks that he\u2019s made something,&#8221; says Blaine. &#8220;But the truth is that when we\u2019re done fighting, I\u2019ve been able to work on projects like our car. I already knew how to build it, but I couldn\u2019t complete the design phase of it without the software and the modeling side.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So now I\u2019m a believer. But I just need someone who\u2019s twenty years old to do it for me and I just buy him pizza or beer.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think building this arc from tradition to technology is going to be how this whole maker movement gets really well founded.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Laser cutters, 3D printers, sewing machines, injection molders, welders, notchers, planers, lathes, hand tools, computers. Enter TechShop, San Francisco\u2014three vast floors of every kind of maker\u2019s tool imaginable. TechShop\u00a0is a community based workshop on a mission to democratize access to the tools of innovation. &#8220;Any given day its a mix of hobbyists, artists, people who &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/2013\/05\/20\/the-making-of-techshop\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Making Of&#8230; TechShop<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11456,"featured_media":1885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[46,86,183,583,629],"coauthors":[],"series":[],"affiliates":[],"programs":[],"collections":[],"interests":[],"class_list":["post-1883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-autodesk","tag-cad","tag-diy","tag-shop","tag-techshop"],"acf":{"template_type":"standard","featured_image_type":"standard","is_audio_post":false},"template_type":null,"featured_image_type":null,"is_audio_post":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11456"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1883"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1883"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=1883"},{"taxonomy":"affiliates","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/affiliates?post=1883"},{"taxonomy":"programs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/programs?post=1883"},{"taxonomy":"collections","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collections?post=1883"},{"taxonomy":"interests","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/interests?post=1883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}