The Spirit of Passion

 Martin Cash captured the spirit of AssentWorks perfectly in the Winnipeg Free Press on the day before our announcement. "When there is passion involved in any pursuit in life, the meaningfulness of the enterprise is enhanced", Cash said. AssentWorks Directors, Members and Volunteers demonstrate this passion everyday.

Many people came to AssentWorks on March 1st for the first time. They witnessed something very special. Kerry, Mike, David and Chris articulated their passion and vision in a way that only they can. As co-founders, they all have the same vision and that is what helps to make a business successful.

Vic Toews, Federal Minister of Public Safety made his much anticipated announcement in the way of a $467,000 commitment to AssentWorks. Funding that will take our facility from entrepreneurs creating finished prototypes AND facilitating the creation of the actual businesses that surround them, thanks to Ramp Up Manitoba.

A fundraising effort is also underway on the crowd-funding site Indiegogo to help deal with some of the additional costs associated with the additional space. Your sponsorship will help us make cutting edge equipment available to the community, develop training opportunities for specialized skills and reach out to entirely new audiences across the province about entrepreneurship and invention. All donations receive amazing AssentWorks produced products; check out the list of rewards at the campaign site.

Come see the passion for yourself any Tuesday night at our weekly open house. If you can not come visit us, consider sponsoring through our Indiegogo campaign. Or just follow your own passion. Whatever it may be.

AssentWorks
3rd Floor, 125 Adelaide St.
Winnipeg

Be Part of Something Very Special

Do you want to be part of Manitobans bringing their ideas to life; part of a community support for entrepreneurs; part of something very special...join us on March 1st.

The Honourable Vic Toews, Minister of Public Safety, on behalf of The Honourable Lynne Yelich, Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification, will make a special announcement at AssentWorks on March 1st, 2013. You're invited to hear from the minister and receive a unique tour of AssentWorks, one of Canada's largest and most accessible public fabrication centres.

The event takes place at 10AM on the morning of March 1st, 2013 at AssentWorks, 3rd floor, 125 Adelaide Street in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

The event will also include brief announcements from AssentWorks regarding our 2013 Phase 2 development activities that include a new home for RampUp Manitoba.

Registration is open to the public.

Event Details:
10:00 AM - Noon
AssentWorks
3rd Floor, 125 Adelaide St.
Winnipeg

Register for the event here

For additional information, please contact:
Kerry Stevenson
Director, AssentWorks
kstevenson@assentworks.ca

Crowd-sourced Renovations – Now That’s Innovation!

 By: Chris Johnson

  

Day 1 of the massive ‘Renovation for Innovation’ at @RampUpManitoba and @AssentWorks presented itself with a unique challenge (something our membership love to overcome on a daily basis).  We had a trailer full of 600 10’ 2x4’s, with an elevator that decided to throw a hissy-fit (you would too if you were 100 years old!).  Well, it took approximately 60 seconds to make a human train consisting of 9 people to hike them up the fire escape to the third floor.  Isn’t that something?  9 people on site on a cold winter Saturday at 8AM who were willing to toss 2x4’s up a fire escape.  I was impressed, but that kind of excitement can’t keep up right?  These people are volunteers!

60 days after the outset of this project I am pleased to report that the crowd-sourced volunteers of Ramp Up Manitoba and AssentWorks, with a little help from some of our founding sponsors, have delivered an exceptional effort building our shiny new #StartupSpace!

It’s very exciting for Winnipeg that we have enough volunteers to take on a project of this size (almost 10,000 sq ft space) in such a short period of time. Quite frankly, it makes it all worthwhile!  It was the norm to show up to the space and meet totally new people who just pitched in with whatever skills they had to contribute, and even learned a few new skills along the way.


We had teachers turned framers, developers turned nail-pullers, engineers moonlighting as drywall installers and more.  Did you know your city was full of such giving, energetic, and passionate people?  We are so lucky to have a membership willing to give up their Christmas holidays, New Year’s, and countless evenings and weekends away from their families just trying to leave Winnipeg a better place than they found it.  This is the spirit that drives Ramp Up Manitoba and AssentWorks.  We owe a huge thank you to our dedicated members, and a number of private sector supporters including HIGH SPEED CROW (dozens of man hours donated), Moskal Electric (data cabling donated), Benjamin Moore (primer/paint donated), Best Price Painting (paint application donated), and more.

So, with space renovations coming to a close, it’s now time to turn our attentions to finishing touches inside the space.  Shuffling of equipment and tools on the AssentWorks side, and startups moving in to their new offices on the Ramp Up Manitoba side.  It’s time to get back to the business of innovating, prototyping, and commercializing.  And not a moment too soon, Winnipeg is bursting at the seams with great ideas that need to be built.

We undertook this project to expand our prototyping capabilities at AssentWorks while adding co-working space for innovative Ramp Up Manitoba startup companies to thrive together.  We have a lot more to announce in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!

Lastly, if you read this and said to yourself even once, ‘Hey, this sounds great – I would love to be involved in something like that’…  we’d love to meet you!  Visit us at the below sites to learn more, or pop in any Tuesday evening  for our Community Night where you can get a site tour and meet some of our members.

RAMP UP MANITOBA

 

Yes we do have 3D Printers in Winnipeg!

Actually we have 2 and soon we will have 3. They are all very capable depending on the needs of the user. Here is a summary of each:

BFB3000

The BFB 3000 is a very capable low-end extrusion-based 3D printer. It can accept two types of 3mm filament plastic, ABS plastic and PLA plastic in 1Kg spools. Small objects of arbitrary shapes can be printed in plastic, up to 20cm (PLA) or 10cm (ABS) from 3D models you supply in STL format.

UPrint

The uPrint Plus is a very capable medium-end commercial extrusion-based 3D printer. Prints 1.75mm ABS filament plastic in one pound 30 cubic inch cartridges. Small objects of arbitrary shapes can be printed in plastic, up to 10cm on a side from 3D models you supply in STL format. Parts printed on the uPrint could be strong enough to use in your machine prototypes.

Now imagine scanning and printing in color!

Kerry Stevenson, Director of AssentWorks said why he choose the new Zprinter “Along with the color scanners, members can easily scan full color images and print realistic color models with astonishing results”.

Advanced Color 3D Printer Zprinter 650

Color and resolution! Z Corp states a resolution of 600x540 dpi, saying it's "the highest resolution in a 3D printer."

360 Color Scanners - The Skanect and VIUscan

Can you say “Color?” You'll be able to scan with precision accuracy to 0.1mm and in full color! 

The Skanect system is an easy to use tool that captures casual color scans of medium-sized objects, a person or a room and can create 3D meshes out of real scenes in seconds. Its “rapid” scanning capability lets you quickly move around our 3D camera to capture a full set of viewpoints, and you will get a mesh before you can say "I can't believe it was that easy!"

Our VIUscan handheld scanner is ideal for higher precision scanning of small or large parts that you can use for reverse-engineering with our RapidForm software. If you need high-resolution 3D colour data and shape the VIUscan will capture every detail and deliver hyper-realistic results.

For additional information on 3D printing: visit us on a Tuesday night open house 6 PM - 9 PM, 3rd Floor, 125 Adelaide St. Also Kerry Stevenson, Director AssentWorks tracks developments in Fabbing, 3D Printing and Desktop Manufacturing through his blog read throughout the world, Fabbaloo. http://fabbaloo.com

We're half way to a brand new AssentWorks!

IT REALLY IS like starting all over again.

Michael Legary, Chairman of AssentWorks said it well:
“As many of you already know, January has been an exciting month at AssentWorks.

“We have expanded from 4400 to 8800 square feet and have laid all the plans to execute Phase 2 of the AssentWorks facility. We're going from the ability to make rough prototypes to a facility that can create complete finished prototypes AND also facilitate the creation of the actual businesses that surround them, thanks to Ramp Up Manitoba (RUM).”

“The capabilities and facility we (you) are building will be a first for a non-profit, community accessible, 100% volunteer ran organization in North America and potentially anywhere in the world.”

“First off, a super big thanks to everyone who has helped out over the past month to get the space to where it is! “

“A huge thank-you to all of our corporate sponsors, with a special thanks to High Speed Crow, Bryan King and his amazing staff who have donated massive amounts of labour to help get the space looking awesome.”

“It has been a pretty tough slug through the holidays, but we're approaching the half way mark for the renos. The first big push of getting the space shaped for new capabilities and equipment has been completed. “

“Over the next two months, we need to prep the space, configure several new large pieces of donated equipment (Including the 7 axis CNC, a new 3D Full Colour printer, 150W laser cutter and much more) and raise additional funds to finalize the complete Phase 2 build.”

“For many of us it feels like starting all over again. In reality IT REALLY IS like starting all over again. Lots to do and lots of great things to come out of it for our busy Manitoban business and inventor community.”

If you want to be part of this community effort we will be coordinated volunteer times on Saturdays 10am - 3pm as well as Tuesday and Thursday nights 6:30-9pm.

If you're available during any time slot,  you can drop by the space and help out with something that fits your skill set. Interested in learning a new skill or being the first to tackle a new machine? Come on down!

3rd Floor, 125 Adelaide Street, Exchange District.

Renovate to Innovate

Suddenly we had 9000 sq ft of space - our original square footage doubled overnight! Last month members quickly came together just as they had when AssentWorks was began in 2011. Many put their existing projects on hold and instead putting their making skill to use renovating the third floor of 125 Adelaide St. Members and others from our community have been framing, insulating, dry walling, relocating equipment to create superb new work areas. Our space has changed but the support from our members and the community hasn't. And we are not done.

One exciting addition is for our Ramp Up Manitoba members. Their new Startup Space will be co-located with the AssentWorks workshop at 125 Adelaide St. More exciting changes are coming, too: larger member storage space, more room for tools, a new kitchen, and much more.

Some pretty spectacular equipment have begun to arrive. Already our new 7 axis robot arm is on the floor. What else? Well, you'll have to come out and see for yourself.

 

 

My First Day at AssentWorks: What are you working on?

My First Day at AssentWorks:  What are you working on?

I joined AssentWorks to help organize membership administration, but it turned out to be a lot more than just that.

The weekly meeting in the Planning Room was my first official activity.  The planning room was jammed full with over 20 people and everyone was to say their name and what they are working on.   I don’t remember all the names, but what I remember more was what people were building.  It ranged from “I just like to make stuff “ to “I’m making snowboards”.  When it was my turn, I said that I was responsible for the memberships and I said something about my day job.  I felt out of place.  I see the creative passion in the people attending the volunteer and member meetings every week.  And I witness their commitment to give back to a facility that gives them the tools, expertise and space to be creative.  I think some members clean the shop more than they would at home!

I do want to make something myself sometime; maybe 3D Printed Typography or Pottery.  The creativity is starting to be contagious which I knew it would.  At a future meeting I’ll introduce myself and say what I am building.