What's happening?
Crashspace is a 501c3 nonprofit based in Culver City. We focus on education and providing resources to makers, students, and artists. Our community workshop has many tools you might need, but could never have at home, like big drill presses, saws, microcontrollers and programmers, PCB kits, soldering equipment, 3d Printers, Laser-cutters, milling machines and lathes, welding equipment, dangerous chemicals, and a fully stocked workshop of hand tools.
We make all this available to members, and teach classes in how to use the many tools and technologies you might want to use in your project, from Arduino programming to sandblasting.
One tool that we've always had a high demand for is a good CNC Mill. We've had a few in the past, and still have a small router, but a nice one is somewhat expensive for a small nonprofit like ourselves.
A CNC Mill allows you to do some magical things, like take 3d models and turn them directly into real objects, milled right out of wood, metal, or plastic! CNC can also be used to render 2d patterns on plates or plaques, and is sometimes used to cut out patterns for PCB boards or templates for painting and masking.
Knowing how to use CNC is critical for a job in many hardware positions, but getting time on one is expensive or rare, often requiring expensive tuition or for you to try to go it alone, assembling kits or buying used.
A good CNC Machine will allow you and our members to learn how to use this powerful technology at very low cost! Backing our campaign is one of the cheapest ways to get a full course on designing, planning, and executing a whole project on a CNC machine.
What We Need & What You Get
We will buy a ShopBot Desktop CNC, Which is a mid-size CNC machine that is reliable and capable, much stronger and more powerful than the smaller hobbyist mills and routers we've used so far.
- The Mill and all the tooling and enclosure costs are included in our funding goal.
- If you back us, you can get a variety of fun little flair, former projects of crashspace members, t-shirt, or things made with our 3d printer, lasercutter, or the mill itself.
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- The best level are the classes, where you can come to Crashspace and get instruction in how to use this powerful new technology in whatever your heart desires. Each class is just five people, so you'll have all the hands-on time and personal instruction you need.
You can make a difference!
Crashspace is made up of volunteers and community members, and we only accomplish things as a group. We want your support, not just for the funding, but to help grow that community:
- We want to teach anyone who wants to how to use the CNC Mill, along with all our other tools. Providing such low-cost classes and materials takes the support of people like you!
- We will always provide classes for the CNC Mill and all our tools, but they may never be this cheap again!
- Many of our members have run successful crowdfunding campaigns, but this is the first one we've run as an organization.
- The support goal listed is approximately half of the money required to buy the mill and all equipment, the other half will be matched by Crashspace itself.
- We will unveil stretch goals for when we exceed our initial funding level: more equipment for the mill, and a lower burden on Crashspace itself.
Support us in other ways
Please share this campaign with anyone who might want to learn how to make things with CNC, or just to help support Crashspace:
- Facebook and other social networks aren't a place we have a lot of presence in, please share in any communities that might be interested.
- Let people in any LA-local groups or companies know about our campaign, even five years after starting Crashspace, I still get to have the "hackerspace" conversation with a coworker or conference-goer at least once a month.
Thanks for your support!
Special Thanks To:
Diego Porqueras of deezmaker.com
Joshua Kirsch of joshuakirsch.com
Michael Clive of SpaceX
Shopbot Desktop footage courtesy of American Woodworker at www.americanwoodworker.com