The Idea Foundry was the Brain Child of Alex, Mandy & Nikki with the cooperation of a dozen others who helped build the place a little over a year ago. Since then the space has morphed and transformed itself almost weekly to accommodate new equipment and ideas to the point some of the more exotic non-working equipment had to be edited out. As it stands today the shop is a very functional space for many different avenues of creativity including: woodworking, welding (mig, tig, stick), plasma cutting, blacksmithing, sand casting, CNC/CAD (Shopbot, Bridgeport, Makerbot), screen printing, electronics, jewelry making and much much more.
How might one go about becoming a part of this awesomeness you say? The test for membership is a grueling 6 week long process where you are locked up deep in a mountain cave with only metal scraps, machinery parts and old warheads. You then need to construct a full body suite which will allow you to take out a small Afghani army and make your way to freedom. Only then can you join this fraternity of mischief making… well that or you can pay $25/monthly, complete a short safety course and then pay a few bucks additional each hour, depending the equipment you are using. Membership info
Once you are a member the Idea Foundry is a community workshop where you can come use all these tools sure but it’s also a great place to learn new skills from a weekend class (also open to non-members) or private instruction from other skilled members. The real value in my mind comes from the vast knowledge all the other members poses, whatever you are thinking about doing chances are someone there has way too much knowledge on the subject. The Foundry is always looking for new instructors to teach, if you should have some unique skills to share. The space is also ideal for group meetings, which there are several currently call the foundry home base. Have a group of 20 people you want to teach to make beer? Not only is it a great space you’ll have a bunch of volunteers ready to taste test as well I promise.
The group takes on commission work as well to support their habits from cutting out hundreds of wood kid toys on the CNC to building a lifelike model of Samuel L. Jackson’s head that actually moves with creepy eyes that follow you around thanks to the Arduino talents of some of the guys. If you have a project you would like to get the gang involved in just fill out this form.
The group is also involved in lots of events around town including one near and dear to my heart, the Power Tool Drag Races. This event will definitely be held again in Columbus for 2010, more info on that to come shortly. As the group was really just getting on its feet last year we were happy with the turn out and it was a lot of fun. This year, now that the group has grown and developed new relationships, it looks like the 2010 PTDRC could potentially be a pretty big event and even more good times ahead. If that is something you would like to be involved in or sponsor in some way go ahead and email [email protected].
