While we were at Autodesk University, we got the chance to sit down with Core77 and do a little four-part interview. Honored to get asked! We love Core77, it's a big inspiration for our work. Enjoy!

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Jeffrey McGrew, our principal and co-founder, gave a keynote speech at Autodesk University this year! The whole keynote is embedded above, and Jeffrey's on around 24 minutes in.

Core 77 also transcribed his speech, and posted it on there blog, with a nice little forward.

We're very proud to announce that our own Jeffrey McGrew will be giving one of the keynote presentations at this year's Autodesk University.

With over 9,000 people attending, this is very exciting news indeed! We'll be briefly sharing the story of Because We Can and some of the work we've done. Buy a robot and change the world!

We're also giving a more formal hour long presentation on 'The Five Myths of Digital Fabrication'. We'll cover the five most common mistakes (and how to avoid them) that we see people make when they first get into making things via Digital Fabrication.

We'll also be doing a bonus talk, more informal, in The Lounge about how we made the tails for the Serpent Twins (that we made a recent Instrucable for).

We hope to see you in Vegas!

A new-ish interior design magazine called Anthology has run an article on one of our favorite clients Hello!Lucky and the interior design in the homes of the two owners.

There are some great photos in the issue of work that we did for the Hello!Lucky office:

And some cool shots of some work that we did for the interior home of one of the owners:

Pick up an issue! It's a cool new magazine!

We were recently called out by Core 77 for our recent residential Library Loft project.

The post talks about all the space saving efficiencies we created within the structure.
From display storage in the curved stairs, to extra storage in the bench seating

Check out the Core 77 post here.

Meet us tomorrow, May 21st, at Maker Faire for our talk: "The Secrets of Secret Doors"!

Having made several secret doors, it's a subject we simply love. Really looking forward to sharing the practical and pragmatic tips on the unpractical practice of building secret doors.

We're on at the Maker Live Stage at 4:30 PM, and wandering around the Faire the rest of the day.

Look forward to seeing you there!

We're proud to announce that we've been invited to give a talk at a wonderful conference: the 2011 KA Connect in San Francisco.

KA Connect is an interesting conference on knowledge sharing, knowledge management, and workflow process with a focus on the building industry. The list of attendees is really impressive so we're really honored to be included!

We'll be giving a Pecha-Kucha style talk on our special seven-step process for digital fabrication that's become a cornerstone in the way we deliver totally awesome projects using modern computer modeling and computer-automated tools.

Hope to see you there!

The Office we created for Three Rings Design was recently used in a SF Chronicle article to showcase how great office spaces retain employees. Here is an excerpt from the article:

Startup executives recognize that a nice office can also help keep employees. Daniel James, CEO of online game company Three Rings, said his unique office in the South of Market district contributes to the company's healthy retention rate.

After all, who would want to leave an office that looks like the Nautilus, the submarine from Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea"? Complete with wood-carved workstations, dividers that look like giant portholes, a game room with 20-foot-long tentacle cushions, a bike-storage room that resembles a ship's engine room and a secret meeting area hidden behind a swinging bookshelf, Three Rings' office is one of the most creative in the city.

"The fact that we have a fantastical office is an expression of what we do as a company, which is making fantastical worlds," James said. "I think employees appreciate that we're willing to spend effort and money on giving them a creative work environment. We certainly have a good record - people tend to stick around in a very competitive market for talented people."

The office was designed by Oakland studio Because We Can, which specializes in custom projects.

"Companies who come to us have pride in what they do, so they want to encourage employees to get excited about where they work," said the studio's co-owner, Jillian Northrup."

We did that office over three years ago, and it still gets great press!

Read the whole article here

Last week while in NYC we dropped in on Adafruit Industries. Run by the brilliant Limor and Phillip, they design and make and sell kits and parts for all your electronic project needs. We're big fans! We're excited they had us sit for a short interview for their great "Ask An Engineer" weekly internet show:

Ask an Engineer 3/19/2011 from adafruit industries on Vimeo.

Thanks Adafruit Industries! Totally inspiring to see you guys. They were nice enough to also give us a copy of the latest Wired that Limor is on the cover of (go Limor!) and a Ardino starter kit that we can't wait to begin playing with.

If you want to jump ahead and just watch the interview with us (and not the whole show above) then watch the video below instead. But the whole show is way better, we're so totally buying some of those new color-changing flexible LED strips for our private office library project...

because we can from adafruit industries on Vimeo.

Thanks again you two!

In late January, we were honored to be last-minute invites to Autodesk's new IDEAS conference.

Part Foo, part mini-TED, part book-launch party, it was a really incredible experience. We got to meet lots of other amazing people and share all sorts of subjects. As part of a company that is strong on how and weak on why, it's always fun to bring our pragmatic and hands-on vision to the big ideas table!

There was a big focus on 'Design Thinking' and the value design has for business, our communities, and our world. Some talks from some amazing folks, then some creative break-out workshops, and of course, lots of conversations over lunch and dinner.

While we're huge fans of Autodesk's tools (especially Revit) the focus on the conference was less about Autodesk and more about just doing amazing things, no matter what tools were used.

One really cool feature of the conference was the visual documentation via photos and cartooning that was going on. Conversations were captured in a really compelling and concise way, while it was happening, by a team of amazing illustrators in the wings. Their handiwork can be seen in the great PDF summary of the conference you can see here. And cameras were everywhere, with the resulting Flickr stream here.

We were really jazzed to meet some of the people from Bespoke, who also do digital fabrication (i.e. make stuff with robots) but instead of custom interiors & furniture, they make amazing artificial limbs.

All in all, a simply amazing time. We hope to get the chance to go again!

The wonderful Mastering Autodesk Revit Architecture series is one of the standard books on Revit. Highly recommended. Put together by this crew of knowledgeable folks, it's currently available from amazon and soon as a downloadable version.

In additional to all the BIM basics, there are extra chapters on all sorts of great work being done via Revit. The one on Revit in the movie industry for set design is stunning! We got to help out on this one too, in that we wrote the extra chapter on BIM-to-CNC fabrication.

So go and grab your copy today!

We're giving a repeat of our Maker Faire small business talk "Turning Pro: Becoming a Professional Maker" at The Remake Lounge tonight as part of the monthly SF:Make meetup.

The talk was a hit at Maker Faire, for it's all about basic business lessons we've learned from the perspective of a professional Maker.

Come check it out, and hope to see you tonight!

We're giving a repeat of our Maker Faire small business talk "Turning Pro: Becoming a Professional Maker" at Tech Liminal (an Oakland technology salon) tonight as part of the SF:Make meetup.

The talk was a hit at Maker Faire, for it's all about basic business lessons we've learned from the perspective of a professional Maker.

We'll be giving it again later this month in San Francisco as well.

Come check it out, and hope to see you tonight!

As part of the news on the wonderful Maker Faire that happened this weekend, several of the core Make: people were invited onto KQED's Forum. It was a great interview, talking about Make: Magazine, the Maker Faire, the lack of hands-on learning within (and outside of) schools, and a lot more. It's a great listen, and you should check it out here.

However the conversation turned towards products and business that have spun out of the Maker movement, and we got a shout-out! Very exciting to get on a radio program we listen to all the time!

Catch us on the Innovation Stage at noon on Saturday, May 22nd. We're giving a talk on 'Turning Pro: Becoming a Professional Maker' and we're super excited to be there!

We'll also be spending our first Maker Faire actually hanging out, visiting with people, and generally walking around instead of running artgolf or a booth or a CNC machine or other craziness like all the years past...

Hope to see you there!

Last weekend we were in North Carolina visiting the birth place of Frank, also known as the Shopbot Headquarters. We went to give a talk at their yearly Jamboree, which is basically a small Shopbot conference. And it was really great! They do satellite Jamborees across the country, so look out for the next one. There were lots of great talks, great tips and interesting people. And lots of Shopbot demonstrations. Our talk was on marketing and how to reach out to potential customers. There is a quick post of the talk here And, the photo below is the new Tyro cutting away. This is their new table top CNC that is not for sale yet, but coming very soon. We were also treated to an afternoon in the Shopbot manufacturing warehouse, where we got to ogle all the blue powder coated parts. Not to mention this new machine set up where they have turned the gantry 90 degrees, now spanning over 8ft and allowing your machine bed to be open on the longer axis. Pretty cool. Note worthy: While we were in the North Carolina Raleigh / Durham area, we went to the new Art Museum, which has just had a major addition and renovation done. It is very cool and worth seeing. And we got some BBQ. Also, very worth doing in NC.

Congratulations to our dear friends (and clients!) Eunice and Daniel for their amazing wedding that we were honored to be a part of. A wedding that made the front cover of the Spring 2010 Martha Stewart Weddings issue!

We've been wanting to post pictures forever, but couldn't until the issue shipped. Expect to see a whole lot more soon here on the blog and under Events. We had a blast working with the very talented Eunice on the design of a flat-pack stage and various signs and props for the event, which we in turn fabricated with our trusty robot Frank.

Click here to see the article!

BIMForum was amazing. We were honored to be included! The presentations were all great. It's certainly wonderful to see the newest developments out there within our industry. As always, the steel fabrication guys are way ahead of the curve. We got to see a presentation from Chris Fischer of Schuff Steel where they talked about going from BIM models (Tekla, in this instance) to their fully automated steel shop, where huge CNC plasma machines and automated conveyer systems process massive steel beams all day long. It's just like we do, except a whole lot bigger and heavier! We also got to hear from my old boss Ken Sanders and a fellow Gensler friend Shawn Geile with a stunning presentation on the epic towers Gensler is working on. One of which was just finished at the LA Live! Center. It was great to see that building complete, as I helped out in the early stages of it years ago when I was still at Gensler. A very complex project that could only be done via BIM, yet a complex project to do with BIM! When it came our turn to talk we focused on our in-house process we use for fully leveraging CNC and BIM together for creative interiors. Happy to say that it went over very well and that we hope to get a video of it up soon. Best thing about the conference was all the new friends we made. There are some amazing people out there doing simply incredible things. Specialty contractors making mountains for Disney, civil engineerings using automated robotic grading machines, huge contractors coordinating whole skyscrapers, to programmers developing totally new ways of collaborating together: across the board, everyone we met was up to something mind-blowing and awesome. We're sad that our schedule won't allow us to make the next one in June. But we certainly hope to go again soon!

To continue our little run of press we've had lately, we were lucky enough to be included in an article on the MAKE: Blog about couples what work together.

We feel honored to be included with other such Maker Couples as Amy Parness and Ariel Churi of Sparkle Labs and Dave and Cheryl Hrynkiw of Solarbotics!
Check out the article here!

The new series on the MAKE blog: MAKER BUSINESS was just mentioned on Boing Boing, and we are the photo!

Make: Online series: Maker Business

So now you are reading about how you can read on Boing Boing about the MAKER BUSINESS article that Jeffrey wrote on the MAKE blog. make sense?!?

We were asked by the nice editors over at MAKE: to write the first entry on their new MAKER Business series. The series focuses on tips for MAKERS who want to go pro- and start up a business. Jeffrey wrote a great 6 steps to getting started article. And you can read the whole article here!

Transmaterial 3 just came out! If you are not familiar with this series, you should definitely pick one up. A great resource and inspirational guide to all kinds of innovative materials, techniques and applications. Need another reason to pick it up? We're in this one! Showcasing our Interactive LED tables

The Three Rings office space in downtown San Francisco is a Jules Verne inspired space complete with portholes to the sea, a secret door and a lounge area made of giant attacking cephalopod arms. We created this space in 2006, and not only does it still look great, it is still getting press. Recently picked up by SuperEco, I think this is the first time this space has been called out for it's eco-friendly fabrication! All the walls and the interior decorative elements at Three Rings were painted with an Ultra-Low VOC paint. The wood finished were all water based dyes and water borne sealers. And no actual cephalopods were harmed in the creation of this office.

Pick up the February addition of Fast Company off the news stand to see Because We Can highlighted in the "Fast Talk" section of the magazine! This month is about innovative LED lighting, and our Interactive LED tables were used for one of the full page spreads. Complete with Jillian and Jeffrey in their Because We Can red jumpsuits! The table used in the photo shoot is the Ripple. Shown also in the photo below.

Penny Arcade recently launched it's own video show, highlighting all things Penny Arcade. It's a wonderful look into a great company, and the highlight so far we think is the latest episode about Child's Play, the way-cool charity they run.

A fun thing about it is that the conference table we made for them last year makes a cameo in the opening credits and sometimes sneaks into other scenes as well. Awesome! We're proud to have been able to make such a thing, and happy that much gaming of all types (as well as business meetings) have happened over that table. The glow-in-the-dark centerpiece hasn't made it into the show yet however...