CNC Tools

We make stuff. And as such, we buy a lot of tools, and do a fair amount of tool research. It's one of the more fun bits of being a Design-Build Studio instead of just a regular old design firm! And while the robot does most of the work, and our trusty Apple laptops never leave our sides, there are a fair amount of smaller hand tools that we couldn't live without.

Fine German Enginnering doesn't just apply to cars.....

Renew! With new digs, comes new changes, and one is that Frank has been rebuilt into a heavy metal monster.

We completed our delivery to SunPower's ( http://www.sunpowercorp.com ) new digs in Richmond, the tables, stools and benches we designed and made for them.
All the furniture has custom colored pieces that match their company colors.
And everything is made with FSC certified maple, and color dyed with water based pigments.

The Green Livin' blog TreeHugger is promoting a really cool campaign of 'downloadable design', and we're honored to be included! TreeHugger approached several small-time designers working in flat-pack and sustainable furniture design. They asked us all to scale down one of our designs to little cute 1/6 scale versions that could be downloaded as a PDF, printed out, and then cut out of paper. Here's our Squirrel Table:

Cute huh? The big idea here is that in the future, you'll be able to just buy a design like you do a music track on the iTunes music store, and then either fabricate it at home or visit your friendly local CNC production shop and have it made. No shipping, close to home, local economies, local materials, custom-made stuff that fits needs better (and is less likely to be landfill-bound). A very Green way to deliver on custom design and to empower folks to have more interesting and engaging surroundings. Two things we're 100% behind!

There is a new company, Ponoko, that is already working to set up a network of CNC shops, Designers, Material Suppliers, and Customers to deliver on this idea. Exciting times, and right in line with some of what we're working hard on here at Because We Can!

We're so into this idea that we're partnering up with TreeHugger and running a contest where anyone can submit their design, which will be reviewed by a panel of judges, and the winning one we'll turn into a ready-to-cut file and fabricate for the lucky winner! Submit your designs here, we can't wait to see what folks come up with!

Not much of a designer? Then we've got another mini-contest for you! Download our mini table, cut it out, and then photograph it on your desk, or home, on your cat's head, or whatever other cool place you can think of. If you e-mail or send us the best photo by the end of October, we'll ship you a real life full-size Squirrel Table of your choosing! Get snipping!

We are currently deep into our new project of ARTGOLF for MAKER FAIRE Austin.
Check the updates on this ongoing project on the new ARTGOLF website!
Go here: www.artgolf.org to see more things like this:

It has come up enough recently, that we wanted to document, (and have an easy place to point to) what makes our products "sustainable" or "green". So we have compiled this list .... with Pictures! ..... to better clarify the steps that we take in this environmental direction.

One thing we like to talk about here at Because We Can is the fact that we're 'Agile'. It doesn't mean we are just handy with the robot, or that we can catching things when you throw them at us (and jump away when those things are sharp), but it actually goes a lot deeper than that. We use something called 'Scrum' to manage our projects and business.

Our friend, Michael Christian, a well-known local artist, approached us with an idea to produce some small, more affordable pieces for a more down-to-earth show he was going to have.

So we don't use Sketchup. Sadly. It's such a great little tool, and does so much, and is a lot of fun to work with. But for what we do we've found Revit to be a better fit. However, our good friends over at Zomadic use it. A lot. And, being that Rob over there has some good Ruby chops, well they wrote their own plug-ins for generating the job files straight from the Sketchup models. Even better yet, they recently released their plug-ins as Open Source, meaning they are now free for all!

Check it out: http://code.google.com/p/zomadicam/

The way it works is via custom right-click menus, it allows you to 'clone' parts out of your Sketchup models and toolpath them. Way cool stuff.

Now, it's Open Source, and works well for Rob but it's not a complete, ready-to-go solution. But for those willing to get their hands a little dirty, what better thing to work on than making Sketchup generate actual real stuff?

Being summer time and living in beautiful sunny Oakland, we recently got a large shade structure to put in our yard to shield us from that blazing beauty in the sky. But once we had the shade structure up it was painfully obvious what was now missing. What was once just a plot of dusty dirt, was now crying out for a deck.

A DECK!

So we answered the call, and built a deck in three days.

Our faithful assistant Dennis levels the blocks in the ground....