• Modified power tools racing down a 75 foot long plywood track.
• Art Party Tables filled with handcrafted goods for sale.
• Columbus Maker Fair events including many exciting tool demonstrations.
• FOOD
• Prizes!

The event starts at 4pm Saturday August 21st

For more information on the event visit the website: toolraces.com

For a segment about the event featured on the local news visit out youtube page: here

Meetings are held on the second Wednesday of the month.
In addition to the usual collection of bots and banter, Rick
Pollack will be coming out to give us a look at Makergear’s
new Mosaic 3D printer.

Makergear is already well known for their line of 3D printer
upgrades and accessories, so the Mosaic has a lot of
proven technology behind it.  Come on down to the
Columbus Idea Foundry this Wednesday and be one
of the first in the world to see it in person.

The meetings are free and open to all with an interest in the
technology regardless of prior experience.  Bring your
enthusiasm down to the Columbus Idea Foundry, and if you
know someone who wants to learn more, bring them along, too.

Thanks and Regards,
Columbus Idea Foundry

You can find us in the “All Hands On Art” area near the intersection of Gay Street and Washington Avenue, behind the parking lot for the Columbus Museum of Art.  Hours of operation are:

• Friday, June 3 and Saturday, June 4: Noon – 10pm
• Sunday, June 5: Noon – 6pm

More coverage of local participants in this year’s festival can be found in the Dispatch and Columbus Alive!.

Classes
We’ll be hosting an “open forge” night at the shop this Thursday, from 6pm-10pm.  If you’ve previously taken one of Adlai Stein’s classes (blacksmithing, bladesmithing, etc), please feel free to come and sharpen your skills; Adlai will be present to provide assistance and advice.   Please RSVP, and bring $10 to cover propane and materials.

We will also continue to offer monthly smithing classes, casting classes, welding classes, lockpicking classes, laser cutting classes, CNC machining classes, and more.  We’re moving from a monthly announcement to a longer-term quarterly schedule, so that participants can have an easier time scheduling our classes.  Look for a seasonal course catalog to come out soon!

Media and Events
The Columbus Idea Foundry is grateful to have been declared one of the innovative organizations helping small manufacturers flourish in Central Ohio.  Check out the article in last week’s Metropreneur.  Glad to help contribute to the reason that Forbes Magazine calls Columbus the #1 up and coming tech city!

We’re also grateful to have recently received endorsements from various design and manufacturing organizations around Columbus (including the Ohio Manufacturing Institute), and will soon have a “sponsors + endorsements” page on our website.

We were also invited to showcase one of our exciting new projects at the OSU Center for Automotive Research last week (more about that below); we hosted a booth at the ARTillery-sponsored EarthDay event at the Franklin Park Conservatory this past Saturday, where we offered kids the chance to design and take home their own “solar sun jars” (solar powered night-lights).  We will be exhibiting our services and products at the Innovation Summit at OSU this week, sponsored by TechColumbus and the OSU Fisher School of Business.  Lastly, we’ll be attending the Wonderland Science Fair at COSI this Saturday, noon to 5pm.  Come check us out!

Projects
The CIF is extremely proud to be hosting our friend and long time member Todd Perkins, a self-taught freelance industrial designer, and his “Inhaler Project”, at the shop.  Todd has been designing an all-electric 1923 Ford Model T-inspired hot rod since 2005, but has only started fabrication in the last year or two, welding the frame at our shop, using our CNC equipment to machine foam for fiberglass lay-up for the body, and more.  Not only does it look breathtaking, but its design specs will take your breath away too – at 600 HP and 1200 pounds, it’s designed to be one of the fastest street-legal electric sports cars around, with a target top speed goal of 200 MPH!  We were invited to present his car at the Center for Automotive Research (where the fastest electric vehicles on the planet are built – such as the Buckeye Bullet 2.5).  We will also be exhibiting his car at the TechColumbus Innovation Summit, as well as at the Wonderland Science Fair at COSI – so check out his website “like” his Facebook Page, come visit it at our various events, and be sure to keep an eye on its progress!

As always, please feel free to email us to schedule a tour, learn about our classes, or to discuss membership at our community workshop.

Trendspotting — By Melanie McIntyre on April 19, 2011 at 8:00 am

For many, the term “manufacturing” is synonymous with noisy factories and assembly lines a dozen workers deep, not to mention faceless corporations headquartered outside the United States. However, a more streamlined form of manufacturing is gaining momentum domestically− at the smaller end of the scale. In fact, small manufacturers, making products as varied as bicycles and baby teethers, are flourishing right here in Central Ohio.

No one knows that better than Alex Bandar. As director of The Columbus Idea Foundry, a grassroots design/prototyping shop and small production run facility that provides design and manufacturing services to small businesses, he views the state of small-scale manufacturing through a unique lens.

Equipment at The Columbus Idea Foundry.

“I see it on the rise, as innovators with new ideas walk in our door and ask us how to help design and manufacture their products,” he says. “I see small businesses needing to expand their production and asking us how we can help them use technology, such as desktop manufacturing resources like laser cutting, computer numerical control machining, 3D printing and more, to boost their volume or reduce their per unit price.”

Bandar regularly collaborates and communicates with other local manufacturing, technology, and retail organizations, such as the Ohio Manufacturing Institute, TechColumbus, and Wonderland, and generally they are optimistic about small-scale manufacturing in Central Ohio, he adds.

That rosy outlook appears to be warranted, as small manufacturers claim they have distinct advantages over their larger counterparts.

One, they can customize a product fairly easily.

“ Most of my clients have been riding for years and have a very specific laundry list that cannot be filled by production bicycles,” says Adam Eldridge, owner/builder at Stanridge Speed Cycles. ”The bikes they want will never be built by The Big 3 [bicycle manufacturers] because they would not be profitable.”

Two, small manufacturers seem “more human than a big giant company sometimes,” says Amy Sharp, who along with her husband Joe owns Little Alouette, a company that makes wooden toys (including the teethers mentioned earlier) from locally sourced and organic materials.

“We share our life via blogging and social media,” she continues. “Our customers know this. People like special. These toys are really made by hand. These toys have love in them, not mass produced. Often Joe is making each as the order comes in!”

Eldridge shares a similar sentiment, saying “We give clients a story. We’re attached spiritually to the bicycle they ride. I made the bike with my hands, they know the me, they know my story.”

Large manufacturers have investments in capital, stock, inventory, and personnel that mean they can lower the margins on their specific products to a very competitive level, Bandar says. However, changes in market demand and technology are difficult to react to quickly.

“Smaller manufacturers can adapt to market and technology changes faster, staying on top of, or ahead of, market trends, employing novel technologies sooner, and pouncing on exciting opportunities rapidly,” he adds.

The primary hurdle small manufacturers face is producing at high volumes.

“We can normally craft one bicycle, not including paint and assembly, in 27 hours,” Eldridge says. “How long do you think it takes XYZ Corp. in Taiwan to make a bike? Thirty minutes? An hour? My client wait list is eight months to 12 months at the moment.”

Work in progress at Little Alouette.

Likewise, Little Alouette never has much inventory on its shelves.

“We don’t have all the law and testing and labs in-house like big companies do,” Sharp explains.

Due to economies of scale, ramping up production means per unit prices drop and per unit profit can increase, Bandar says. However, that requires greater investment in capital, which small manufacturers don’t have.

“This means that there are ceilings to the revenues possible within their markets and thus they must intelligently strategize to leverage their advantages to remain competitive,” he continues. “Furthermore, small manufacturers, with less cash flow, are more susceptible to market downturns, fluctuations in material costs, etc. In many cases their advantages can counterbalance these disadvantages, but, again, it requires being strategically nimble.”

Being technological savvy doesn’t hurt either.

For the Sharps, a CNC machine has been an excellent time saver in terms of production and Business Catalyst has been a useful content management system, as they do quite a bit of business through Little Alouette’s website.

“It is easy to learn and sell from,” Amy says of the latter.

Skype has been particularly useful for communicating with international customers, Eldridge says.

Bike frame under construction at Stanridge Speed.

Thinking of launching a manufacturing startup? The future of small-scale manufacturing looks quite bright to Bandar, thanks to what he calls “a confluence of several exciting revolutions.”

“The availability of increasingly powerful, open-source software and generally available technical knowledge is making the how-to aspect of design and production no longer the bottleneck,” he says. “The prevalence of the Internet makes access to these resources nearly universal. And it’s not a one-way street. There are a lot of technical design and manufacturing forums where professionals and enthusiasts alike help each other to fine tune their processes.”

Plus, desktop manufacturing resources are becoming cheaper and more capable, making it possible to assemble one’s own workshop or small production line easier than ever before, he adds.

Eldridge also expresses confidence in the future of small-scale manufacturing.

“Anyone anywhere can make a product or idea work as long as they’re passionate, have a strong work ethic, and stay mentally strong,” he says.

SO TO SPEAK
Class opens door to lock-picking
Tuesday, March 29, 2011 03:06 AM

The Columbus Dispatch

COURTNEY HERGESHEIMER | DISPATCH
Ethan Dicks of Columbus tries to pick a lock during a class at the Columbus Idea Foundry.

COURTNEY HERGESHEIMER | DISPATCH
Bill Sempf explains some of the inner workings of locks during a class that teaches how to pick them.

COURTNEY HERGESHEIMER | DISPATCH
Ethan Dicks of Columbus tries to pick a lock during a class at the Columbus Idea Foundry.
I learned how to pick locks the other night, but your belongings are safe.

I wasn’t too good at it.

Bill Sempf, the teacher, is far more accomplished; but he’s no threat, either.

The first rule of “hobby picking” is never to try it on a lock that you don’t have permission to pick.

“We’re not training the next level of burglars here,” said Sempf, 39.

About 20 people participated in his lock-picking at the Columbus Idea Foundry, 1158 Corrugated Way, a community workshop (www.columbusideafoundry.com) that teaches useful skills such as welding, soldering and blacksmithing.

Of what use is lock-picking?

A lot of computer security people learn it so they’ll understand just how vulnerable their equipment might be, even behind locked doors.

Picking is also an interesting intellectual exercise – “like solving a Rubik’s Cube in the dark,” said Sempf, a software developer and an author of programming books.

Many of his students were there because they relished the challenge.

“I enjoy puzzles – and this is just another kind of puzzle,” said Ethan Dicks, 44, of Columbus.

As Sempf explains it, most of our front doors are secured by pin-tumbler locks, which rely on a series (usually five) of tiny metal pins and springs to keep a cylinder from turning. When the key is inserted, it pushes the pins into a position that allows the cylinder to rotate.

Lock-picking is the art of moving those pins with the assistance of two thin metal rods instead of a key. (In the movies, the picker typically uses one rod and opens the lock in seconds; neither scenario is realistic.)

Sempf passed around a set of picks and a series of progressively more secure locks for the class to attack. I managed to pick the first one because it had only one set of pins. Beyond that, I wasn’t too adept.

Lock-picking might be something of a trend right now. YouTube offers a variety of how-to videos, and Locksport International – formed in 2005 to draw hobby pickers together – has several chapters, including the one in Columbus that Sempf organized.

The sport in the name indicates what lock pickers do for fun: They compete against one another in lock-picking games.

But don’t try this at home, or at least on your home. It’s easy to damage a lock while trying to pick it, Sempf said. Hobby pickers work with unmounted locks.

Sempf’s own front door has an exotic lock with 14 sets of pins and a key featuring a double row of teeth. It would be extremely difficult to pick – not that Sempf has any illusions about that protecting his property. A criminal would just break a window, he said.

Lock-picking is too slow for most burglars, said Columbus Police Sgt. Rich Weiner. Criminals prefer forcing a door or window open through cruder, faster means, such as prying with a crowbar.

Sempf’s fancy door hardware springs from a motivation other than security.

“It’s because I’m a lock geek,” he said.

Joe Blundo is a Dispatch columnist.

jblundo@dispatch.com

]]> http://www.columbusideafoundry.com/dispatch-locksport/feed/ 0 http://www.columbusideafoundry.com/open-house-gallery/ http://www.columbusideafoundry.com/open-house-gallery/#comments Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:42:09 +0000 guestadmin http://www.columbusideafoundry.com/?p=801 http://www.columbusideafoundry.com/open-house-gallery/feed/ 0 http://www.columbusideafoundry.com/columbus-alive-columbus-idea-foundrys-new-space/ http://www.columbusideafoundry.com/columbus-alive-columbus-idea-foundrys-new-space/#comments Sun, 13 Mar 2011 16:42:18 +0000 guestadmin http://columbusideafoundry.com/?p=768 Continue reading →]]> Link to article here.

“We’re still settling in,” said Columbus Idea Foundry director Alex Bandar while leading a tour of its new, much larger space just off East Fifth Avenue – but the process doesn’t seem to be curbing activity any.

Members were chatting and working on individual projects in what was previously the showroom for an electronics distribution company and is now a gallery. Former office spaces have been repurposed as cubbyholes for computer stations, 3D printing facilities and laser-cutting equipment. Even the kitchen will double as a screen-printing shop.

In the warehouse work area are studios for artists and small businesses like wooden toymaker Little Alouette. One space holds designs and parts for Dieselpunk rockets. Stations for welding, blacksmithing, metal casting and a massive ShopBot router help fill the rest of the space.

Altogether, the place suggests a vibe somewhere between Santa’s workshop and Doc Brown’s lab in “Back to the Future.” The curious can get a taste for themselves at the Idea Foundry’s open house party this Saturday.

Bandar, who writes software for the metal industry, started the Idea Foundry in part to have a physical connection to his work. The big-picture goal is to encourage experimentation, collaboration and a blending of artistic and engineering practices, and also to provide access to machinery and expertise that’s out of most individuals’ reach.

“We’ve helped make more than we’ve made ourselves,” Bandar said. “We act more as a catalyst.”

The open house will include a show of some of the foundry’s creations, including Bandar’s touch-screen music player in a replica of an Edison phonograph and a Chevy tailgate coffee table by member Allison Meade.

Interactive fabrication demos, food from local restaurants and raffle prizes are also on tap. And the event is an unofficial kick-off for a full suite of public classes starting in February, including metal fabrication and a jewelry workshop led by Diamond Cellar goldsmith Margaret Kennedy.

]]> http://www.columbusideafoundry.com/columbus-alive-columbus-idea-foundrys-new-space/feed/ 0 http://www.columbusideafoundry.com/basics-of-mig-welding-plasma-cutting-workshop/ http://www.columbusideafoundry.com/basics-of-mig-welding-plasma-cutting-workshop/#comments Sat, 12 Mar 2011 21:17:26 +0000 admin http://columbusideafoundry.com/events/basics-of-mig-welding-plasma-cutting-workshop Continue reading →]]> Saturday April 2, 2011 – Saturday April 2, 2011

1158 Corrugated Way

Map and Directions | Register

Description:

12:00pm – 5:00pm

Instructors: Matt Bowman, Jesse Mills

Cost: $75 Instruction $10 Materials

Workshop size: 8 people

Learn the basics of MIG Welding and Plasma Cutting at the Columbus Idea Foundry. Participants will be shown safety, set up and operation of a MIG welder and plasma cutting system. Discussion of process, weldable metals, and prep work will be followed by hands-on workshop where attendees will fabricate a take-home project utilizing the Columbus Idea Foundry’s Welding facilities.
Demonstrations of proper techniques will be reinforced by individual weld time with one on one coaching. The course is technical in nature, but students will take home a simple metal form such as a bookend or sculpture as a result of what they have learned. This workshop lasts five hours, from 12 PM to 5PM. Proper safety attire must be worn, including all natural fiber clothing, long pants and shirt sleeves. Welding helmets and gloves will be provided, but attendees are encouraged to bring their own if preferred.
As for all of the classes taught at the Columbus Idea Foundry, participants who are trained on a particular workstation (such as our TIG welder) can purchase a membership to our shop and use our tools to work on their own personal projects, business products, artistic creations, etc at their own pace.

Register

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