http://portland.techshop.ws

Techshop is getting ready for their grand opening in April.  This is
a "membership machine shop" with woodworking, metalworking, clothworking,
and electronics tools.  They are only partially open now, but they have
room for 30,000 square feet of equipment, and a few dozen metal and wood
machines installed.  Much of that equipment is being used to build the
rest of the facility.

They will have some auto shop capability, but that is still hung up
on insurance issues.  But I bet you could build a titanium/composite
bicycle there now, and there is a big truck parking lot to test it
in.  No good place for static-testing large rocket engines, sigh,
but you could probably build one there.  One of their "early adopters"
built a large robotic race car (4 feet on a side) and found out that
the clearance under a dumpster is less than expected.

Relevant to this list is a planned computer and open source lab,
CAD tools, and the like.  They have some funding for open source
projects.  PSU CS is involved.

This is a hard time to start a business, but this shop will make
it easier for others to start hardware-product businesses.  The
$125/mo or $1200/yr membership fees are expensive, but cheaper
than maintaining a personal shop.  

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          [email protected]         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs
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