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TOM Makeathon, Calgary.

R

richard lushai

New Member
This is Richard Lushai, from Tikkun Olam Makers (TOM) in Calgary. My background is in mathematics and mechanical engineering technology. I work as a mechanical design consultant with experience in plastics design and rapid prototyping.

TOM puts together teams of designers, engineers, trades specialists, general problem solvers and pairs the teams with people living with disabilities (we call them need knowers). The person living with disabilities becomes part of the teams and gives the teams a personalized unique challenge. The teams work on the challenge for a month and at the end of the month TOM facilitates a 72 hour Makeathon: where the teams get non stop access to fabrication facility to come up with a prototype of their solutions. I would post links to the event but I don't think I am allowed yet by forum rules, but you can google or youtube "Tikkun Olam Makers" to find out descriptions of our global operations.

We have been operating in Calgary for three years now, completely volunteer run not for profit corporation and we are the first in Canada to build a TOM community around innovative assistive technologies (we also beat the Americans in the first North American operation in San Francisco by 6 hours in 2015 :) ). We take on challenges for which there are either no solutions in the market or the available solutions are too expensive for most people. TOM in Calgary is run by a number of young engineering and engineering technology recent graduates. We have so far taken on 12 different challenges from 12 different individuals from Calgary through 2 different Makeathons, with over 200 additional completed projects from our Makeathon events around the world.

I am coming to this forum asking for help in a dire situation. We have been negotiating with University of Calgary for sometime now but we have serious doubts of being able to successfully navigate through the bureaucracy in time for our event timeline at the end of August. We have had no luck at the local maker space. We are planning on leasing out a warehouse and deploying equipment for the 72 hours. We have 3D printers coming from Javelin tech, electronics equipment coming from Western Canadian Robotics Society, and tools from Tool Library. But we are lacking metal working capability. We have funds for transportation and machinist's time. I hope the super heroes of these forum would be interested in our plea.

Thank you.
 
Interesting post Richard. I'm not certain though what you actually need? Equipment? People to help? Help getting stuff machined?
 
Janger said:
Interesting post Richard. I'm not certain though what you actually need? Equipment? People to help? Help getting stuff machined?
Click to expand...
Hello John,
Thank you for replying. We are in need of equipment and people. The 72 hour Makeathon is fairly intense and we need to be able to provide our teams with metal fabrication ability on site. We have sourced a small Sherline cnc machine today. We might have a small size lathe coming in. We have welding equipment coming. But metal working wise the Sherline machine may not be able to handle some of the projects. We can partner up with EGB Manufacturing (they hosted our event last year, but this year we would really like to have the event in Calgary) from Cochrane for some of the pre-Makeathon prototypes, but in our experience by the second day, the prototypes change quite dramatically and equipment should be on site to help with that.
I know this is an unusual request, but the reason I am bringing it here is because I met Jwest7788, at Calgary Maker Faire in 2015 at Telus Spark. They had a booth for Canadian Hobby Metal Workers and there was a lathe that was being used to demonstrate metal working to the public. We are hoping we can interest the community to help with the equipment for the Makeathon.
 
Repost this in the question forum section. Not everybody reads the new person intro part.

Equipment is expensive and really difficult to move. As a fall back maybe people could help from their shops? Probably get more interest from the group that way. The lathe on display was a loaner from one of the equipment suppliers. @Jwest7788 ? @Alexander ?
 
Richard
I've been aware of TOM for a couple of years. I think it is a very worthwhile concept and have been thinking about getting involved, perhaps now is the time.
I do have a lathe and mill that could be moveable and they are certainly more capable than a sherline. The last week of August could be a problem though as I'm hoping to be viewing the total eclipse early that week and don't have a firm date when I will be back in Calgary.
If our schedules will work I'm willing to volunteer my time and machines.

Is there a way to get in contact off this list?

John
 
Johnwa said:
Richard
Is there a firm date when this is taking place?

John
Click to expand...
Hello John,

Thank you, apologies for not getting back sooner. The event is during 25th to 27th August. There is alternative date line being placed on August 30th to Sept1st in case the University of Calgary decides move the conversation forward. But right now looking at the stagnancy in the uni front, we are getting ready for August 25th to 27th as we do need to start recruiting and have final conversations with sponsors. We also prefer the August 25th to 27th date now as we feel there will be more professionals who would be willing to come during weekends rather than on weekdays. Any advice from the community here would be greatly appreciated.
 
Janger said:
Repost this in the question forum section. Not everybody reads the new person intro part.

Equipment is expensive and really difficult to move. As a fall back maybe people could help from their shops? Probably get more interest from the group that way. The lathe on display was a loaner from one of the equipment suppliers. @Jwest7788 ? @Alexander ?
Click to expand...
This option is being kept open, but during the event sometimes things change really fast and we would like to be able to help the participants make the pivots as they need.

Do you mean under "General Metalworking and Machining" section?
 
Hey @richard lushai
Sorry for the delay.

It's good you posted to the forum, as noted, we do not have a centralized location, nor a central shop, and all of our members own their own machines and tooling.

I'm pretty confident some will step up to help.

I am unfortunately not in the city from Aug 18-29th on vacation. The weekend is probably best though, you're right, as many work through the week. Myself included.

@Janger , @Johnwa ,
If you or anyone else wants to, you're welcome to my mini milling machine, which is probably easiest to transfer, and also robust enough to handle the type of milling and precision requirements of the TOM event.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I'll move this thread to the right section and rename it too. Heads up!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Hello Richard:

Have you spoken with Tetra? They have both woodworking (off of Blackfoot Tr) and metalworking (Inglewood) shops in Calgary and cater to assistive devices for the disabled and elderly. They are mostly retired machinists and engineers and woodworkers. They are also a registered charity. I was a member for a while and have donated a lot to them. Maybe they can partner somehow.
 
CalgaryPT said:
Hello Richard:

Have you spoken with Tetra? They have both woodworking (off of Blackfoot Tr) and metalworking (Inglewood) shops in Calgary and cater to assistive devices for the disabled and elderly. They are mostly retired machinists and engineers and woodworkers. They are also a registered charity. I was a member for a while and have donated a lot to them. Maybe they can partner somehow.
Click to expand...
Hello Peter,

We tried to speaking to Tetra last two years and are very open to working with them since both our works and theirs' is very similar . Right now it seems its they would be more involved in post Makeathon project continuations but not during the Makeathon itself.
 
Sounds like you've had conversations at least. I like their goals and vision, but have to admit I struggled with some aspects of their organization. It reminded me too much of work :(

Best of luck in your efforts Richard.
 
Jwest7788 said:
Hey @richard lushai
Sorry for the delay.

It's good you posted to the forum, as noted, we do not have a centralized location, nor a central shop, and all of our members own their own machines and tooling.

I'm pretty confident some will step up to help.

I am unfortunately not in the city from Aug 18-29th on vacation. The weekend is probably best though, you're right, as many work through the week. Myself included.

@Janger , @Johnwa ,
If you or anyone else wants to, you're welcome to my mini milling machine, which is probably easiest to transfer, and also robust enough to handle the type of milling and precision requirements of the TOM event.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Thank you, is there a way for us to get in touch with you? We would greatly appreciate the milling machine.
 
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