TechShop University – Good Pursuits

Twenty five years ago I graduated from undergraduate with a degree in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering … and left to spent a career in information services. Recently I learned about new fabrication tools (3D printing, laser cutting, CNC milling) and became intrigued. So much did I want to understand this new landscape of production technology that I decided to invest six weeks of my life at TechShop San Francisco.

TechShop is a sort of health club of tools. You pay a monthly membership fee and for that you can use their workshop as much as you like. What tools do they have? Pretty much everything under the sun. Can you just walk in and start using any tool? No, before you can do much of anything you have to take classes on safety and basic use. With that as my reality I defined my plan.

Over the course of six weeks I planned to take as many classes as practical to entitle me to use as many tools as possible. This resulted in a curriculum of 21 classes taken at three TechShop facilities that qualified me to use all but a hand full of tools. The three month membership bundle with extra classes came to around $1000. It was an intense but gratifying process.

Entry level classes got my juices flowing and during them I completed basic projects. As I learned more I started to mix techniques, e.g. vinyl cutting can create stencils that are useful in silk screening. With increasing software sophistication I was able to drive more complicated projects, e.g. using Autodesk Inventor to design an plaque which was milled on a ShopBot. While I came away a relative amateur, my re-initiation curriculum gave me a strong foundation on which to grow my skills independently. It was time well spent and I’d recommend the experience to anyone trying to achieve the same goals.

Below you’ll find my curriculum followed by some pictures of my journey: