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FORD, TECHSHOP COLLABORATE TO SPUR “DIY” AUTO INNOVATION WITH NEW DETROIT-AREA WORKSHOP

Dearborne, Michigan, July 30, 2010 --

Ford and TechShop, the world's first and largest membership-based do-it-yourself (DIY) workshops, announce a collaborative effort to open a communal work center in the Detroit area for individual inventors

Ford is the first automaker to matchup with TechShop, marking the latest move in a series of open-innovation initiatives lead by Ford to empower the crowds to help create the next must-have automotive technologies and features

Technical leaders will discuss Ford's overarching vision for future automotive innovation and information exchange at the Detroit edition of the event that sparked the joint effort in the first place, Maker Faire, to be held in Dearborn at The Henry Ford, July 31-August 1

Ford and do-it-yourself (DIY)-based TechShop have kicked off a collaborative effort to open a workshop in the Detroit area that invites innovators, from backyard tinkerers to software engineers, to come on in and invent the next must-have in automotive technology.

A membership-based open-access concept started in 2006, TechShop (http://www.techshop.ws) offers creative minds of all kinds affordable access to space, tools, and machinery so they can dream up, design and develop prototypes of their latest inventions. To date, TechShop has locations in California and North Carolina, with more than 800 total members.

Ford and TechShop first met up in May at the largest DIY event of its kind, 2010 Maker Faire in San Mateo, Calif., where Ford was invited to show off its "American Journey 2.0" open- innovation vehicle app project with University of Michigan students. That gathering ignited the idea for the matchup that has taken form in less than three months.

"Ford has taken a leadership role in tapping ideas from outside the automotive space, including with academia, consumer electronics and information technology companies, to help create powerful first-to-market technologies such as Ford SYNC. Why not extend those opportunities to individual inventors and the maker community as well; asking them to embrace the vehicle as a possible platform for their ideas," said K. Venkatesh Prasad, group and senior technical leader, Ford Infotronics Research and Advanced Engineering.

Ford technical leaders will share the company's vision on individual inventive contributions and how Detroit-area entrepreneurs can play a part during the Detroit Maker Faire held at The Henry Ford in Dearborn this weekend. "The talent pool and level of skill and knowledge in and around Detroit is incredible," added Bill Coughlin, president and CEO of Ford Global Technologies, the domestic auto industry's only internal licensing group. "TechShop can provide a physical hub for this inventive community, allowing us to connect with them in a way never done before."

Ford is the first automaker to collaborate with TechShop, said Mark Hatch, TechShop CEO. "We are thrilled that Ford wants to work with TechShop to create a game-changing innovative workspace in Detroit, a market area full of a talented community of makers, hobbyists, backyard mechanics and general tinkerers that we have been trying to enter for more than a year."

Open innovation
The Ford and TechShop collaboration is further evidence of Ford's overarching adoption of the open innovation model made popular by social media, software developers and technology companies.

In recent years, Ford's outreach to automotive outsiders for ideas has included a who's who list of academia, suppliers, consumer electronics and information technology companies. That list also includes more unlikely suspects, such as consumers and software developers.

Last spring, for example, Ford actively engaged consumers to submit, share and suggest ideas and technologies on the "Your Ideas" section of the Ford brand interactive consumer Web site, www.thefordstory.com. The pilot session generated some 3,600 submissions, giving consumers the ability to participate in a community-based setting where they could review and rate posted ideas and track what people thought about their own suggestions.

And, more recently, Ford announced the creation of a virtual community to engage software developers to innovate around SYNC. Interested developers can visit the SYNCmyride Web site (www.syncmyride.com/developer) and click to submit their innovative ideas, and sign up for the latest information and news about the upcoming SYNC application programming interface (API) and software development kit (SDK). Through July, nearly 800 app developers have signed up.

In theory, the collaboration with TechShop is an easy extension of the individual engagement fostered by open-source initiatives such as "Your Ideas" and the new SYNC developer network.

"With TechShop, we are bringing the concept of individual involvement to life in a physical space where people can develop their ideas, create prototypes and display them," said Coughlin.

Ford also hopes that the TechShop will inspire its own Detroit-area engineers, designers and scientists to innovate on their own time. "Inventors don't have access to the same type of equipment or tools during off-hours as they do during work hours," said Hatch. "We want to offer them an affordable place to go that has the necessary equipment and resources to make their inventive ideas a reality."

A leader in licensing technology, Ford also sees the broader business potential of TechShop and streamlining the process for inventors looking to not only make physical prototypes of their ideas but license their technology to the masses.

"We want to create a mercantile exchange of innovations and ideas - a one-stop shop where makers can dream, design, develop and license their innovations for the real world," said Coughlin. "We want those dreams to come to life right here in Detroit."

About Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in Dearborn, Mich., manufactures or distributes automobiles across six continents. With about 178,000 employees and about 80 plants worldwide, the company's automotive brands include Ford, Lincoln and Mercury, production of which has been announced by the company to be ending in the fourth quarter of 2010, and, until its sale, Volvo. The company provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company. For more information regarding Ford's products, please visit www.ford.com.

About TechShop Inc.
TechShop is the world's first and largest membership based, open access, do-it-yourself workshop. Each workshop comes with up to 17,000 square feet filled with a community of hobbyists, artists, inventors, entrepreneurs and students using a broad array of tools to build their dreams. For more information regarding TechShop's services, please visit www.techshop.ws.

About Maker Faire
Maker Faire's mission is to inspire, inform, connect and entertain thousands of Makers and aspiring Makers of all ages and backgrounds through the public gathering of tech enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkers, hobbyists, science clubs, students, authors and commercial exhibitors. The inaugural Maker Faire was held in San Mateo, California
in 2006, and in May, Maker Faire celebrated its 5th annual Bay Area festival. As Maker Faire continues to grow in popularity and relevance, Maker Faire has expanded to Detroit and New York City for 2010. Maker Faire is supported by MAKE Magazine, makezine.com, craftzine.com and O'Reilly Media, the premier information source for leading-edge computer technologies. The company's books, conferences and web sites bring to light the knowledge of technology innovators.

Today we had our Open House, Grand Re-Opening party and BBQ. I'm guessing 200 to 300 people came. Lots of new people came for tours, to meet the staff and members, and generally find out what TechShop is all about. Many joined our community by purchasing classes and memberships at special discounted prices. We would like to welcome all the new members.

After the Open house, we had a member only party with steaks, music and beer.

I want to thank everyone who came today and supported TechShop RDU. Without the community, we are nothing more than a pile of tools. A pretty impressive pile of tools I must say, but without you it really doesn't mean a thing.

Thanks go out to Jon Danforth, Jeff Sgroi and Matt Santelli for their instrumental parts in making all of this happen. If you missed it, you really missed something good.

We sold a ton of class Gift Certificates and will be scheduling a bunch of classes for the summer. Keep an eye on our classes page on the website and join us for some summer classes.

So if things get too hot where you are this summer, get out of the heat and join us in our air conditioned facility and "build your dreams here"

Thanks,

Scott

I have six items of interest. All for One Day Only... SATURDAY, June 5, 2010

GRAND RE-OPENING PARTY and BBQ. Saturday, June 5th, 11 AM to 3 PM. Demos, meet and talk with members, instructors and staff. Free burgers, hot dogs and drinks. Bring a friend!

ONE DAY ONLY SALE Saturday, June 5th, 10 AM to 6 PM. Anyone can buy LIFETIME MEMBERSHIP for only $3999 We have never offered this price before and likely will not do it again. One day only!

ONE DAY ONLY SALE Saturday, June 5th, 10 AM to 6 PM. Anyone can buy any of 14 selected classes for only $19.95 Buy them for yourself or give them as gifts. Anyone can use them.

ONE DAY ONLY SALE Saturday, June 5th, 10 AM to 6 PM. New members special pricing. Ask for details.

BY POPULAR DEMAND - ONE DAY ONLY SALE Saturday, June 5th, 10 AM to 6 PM. One last day for our special one month membership and two free classes. $39 Anyone can buy these, but they must be used by new members only. So buy them as gifts.

MEMBER PARTY and BBQ Saturday, June 5th, 6 PM to 10 PM. Beer served.

We hope you can join us for this day of fun and special deals as we celebrate the completion of our move and our Grand Re-Opening party. The address is 5905 Triangle Drive, Raleigh, NC 27617

Here's a Map to TechShop.

See you here,

Scott

We probably will always be working on and improving TechShop but we are to the point where we can call it really ready for you to come and build your dreams. Getting some welding stations and the CNC plasma cutter up in the next few days will go a long ways to calling TechShop complete.

All the trailers are empty and gone. Whew, that was a big deal! We were able to stack and store a bunch of the bin wall stuff and will start to set that up again after we get all the machines up and running. Doing that allowed us to unload the last trailer and get the CNC plasma Cutter in place.

Three more machines arrived for the machine shop yesterday. Among them a Deckel mill. This small but precision mill will be a great addition to our shop as will the two small production machines that came with it. There are several more coming and I hope we have enough room to fit them all in our shop and still have room to work!

I also have received a tentative order for some computer monitor and keyboard/mouse wall mounts. Preliminary talks have indicated TechShop may be supplying about 50 to 100 of these per month. If the job comes through, I am thinking about teaching a class in production machining. The cost will be low and students who do well in the class may get to do part of the actual production runs and get paid to do so. Anybody think they would like to do that? You can answer here or email me at scott at techshoprdu dot com. Look also for special one time classes I will be teaching in the machine shop. One will be how to mount a new lathe chuck to the Clausing lathe and another will be for making the hold down strips for the wood shop Jointer. The blades have arrived and this machine will be ready to go once we make the three mounting strips and power it up.

Another great news item for the wood shop is that we have purchased a good size wood lathe with tooling. We'll be picking it up and bringing it to TechShop this next week and it should be ready to go by the time we have our Grand Re-Opening Celebration.

We'll be closed Monday, May 31 2010 for Memorial day. We will reopen Tuesday, June 1, 2010 for our official re opening and having our Grand Re-Opening Celebration on Saturday, June 5, 2010. I hope you can join us for the festivities.

We are asking for members to be using various exciting tools all day (Laser Cutter, ShopBot, Wood Shop, Machine Shop etc.) If you want to be part of our "demonstrations, let me know and schedule some time on the respective machine or area.

If you have a private rental space it would be great if it were open and clean for when we give the tours... this is STRICTLY voluntary but would be great if it could happen.

Here is our tentative schedule:
10:00 - Open for business
11:00 - First group tour
12:00 - 1:00 - Burgers, veggie burgers, hot dogs, sodas, water served
12:00 - Second group tour
1:00 - Third group tour
2:00 - Saw Stop demo
2:30 - Fourth group tour
3:30 - Open house closes
3:30 - 6:00 Business as usual
6:00 - Machines unplugged
6:00 - 9:00 - Members-only party w/ Burgers, veggie burgers, hot dogs, sodas, water, BEER served
9:45 - Cleanup
10:00 - TSRDU closes for the day

Please remember that TechShopRDU will be CLOSED on Monday, 31MAY10 in observance of the Memorial Day Holiday.

There has been a steady flow of activity at TechShop RDU. More machines are coming on line almost daily. The Wood Shop and Machine Shop are both almost complete. The Tool Crib is up and filled with tools. There are some work tables set up. We're going to make some room in the back building (it's been used as temporary storage since we got it). Once we do that, we can set up the welding stations and the CNC Plasma Cutter.

TechShop Durham closed January 31st but we "officially" told people we were closed on January 20th. We reopened again on April 26th, but are not going to start everybody's membership clock until June 1, 2010. So all memberships that were current on January 20th will have four months and 12 days added to them. We'll be sending out an email to everybody soon, but I thought our faithful blog followers would like to be the first to know.

I won't say much here but there will be a Grand Re-Opening party coming up soon. I'll let you know more as it develops. And yes, it will be a real party!

Hope to see you back using TechShop soon.

Scott

Many new classes have been posted! You can go to our Classes Page any time to see the current offerings, but the newest ones up are:

* Tuesday May 4th Laser Cutting & Etching SBU (10:30-12:00pm)
Vertical Mill SBU (6:00-7:30pm)
* Wednesday May 5th CNC Vinyl Cutter SBU (6:30-7:30pm)
* Thursday May 6th Laser Cutting & Etching SBU (6:30-8:00pm)
* Tuesday May 11th Precision Vector Cutting of Printed Material from a Digital File (6:30-7:30pm)
* Wednesday May 12th CNC Vinyl Cutter SBU (6:30-7:30pm)
* Thursday May 13th Laser Cutting & Etching SBU (6:30-8:00pm)
* Tuesday May 18th Precision Vector Cutting of Printed Material from a Digital File (6:30-7:30pm)

Watch for more classes being scheduled soon.

We are scheduling classes again and new classes have been posted! You can go to our Classes Page any time to see the current offerings, but the first ones up are:

Saturday May 1st
• Laser Cutting & Etching SBU (3:00-4:30pm)
• CNC Vinyl Cutter SBU (5-6pm)
Sunday May 2nd
• Laser Cutting & Etching SBU (10:00-11:30am)
Monday May 3rd
• ShopBot SBU only (6-8pm)
Watch for more classes being scheduled soon.

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We're moving some of the big machines into the machine shop and Wood Shop Thursday.
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And don't forget, we are open from noon to midnight each Thursday.
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All private rental spaces have been reserved and are ready to be occupied now. If you have one reserved, please contact us to arrange payment for your space as soon as possible. If you do not have one reserved but want one, please email me at scott at techshoprdu dot com indicating how much space you want. Our private rental spaces are $1 per square foot per month and range from 65 square feet to 400 square feet or so.

Thanks,

Scott

The public calendar can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/TSRDU