[Noisebridge-discuss] Fwd: [discuss] Further thoughts/feedback about How to Make Almost Anything

giovanni_re john_re at fastmail.us
Fri Oct 18 00:28:49 UTC 2013


----- Original message -----
From: Gui Cavalcanti <gui at artisansasylum.com>
To: "discuss at artisansasylum.com" <discuss at artisansasylum.com>
Subject: [discuss] Further thoughts/feedback about How to Make Almost
Anything
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2013 13:06:52 -0400

All,

Thanks to everyone who replied! So far it's looking like, between 
private emails and list emails, there are about 8 people who want 
weekdays, and 6 or 7 who want nights and weekends. That, plus a lot of 
encouraging individual emails, seems like a fairly robust reply, so I'll 
be pursuing the course planning further.

I'd like to continue to pick your brains if you're willing, and 
fine-tune this into something that's offerable. Check out my thoughts on 
your responses so far below, and some questions I'd like to pose to you 
guys at the end.

- - - - -*
*
**How long would it be, and how much would it cost?

**I've done the math and some of the broad strokes of class planning. 
Right now it's looking like somewhere between $1,500 and $1,800, 
depending on the materials cost of the class and how much individual 
tooling is purchased by the Asylum and how much is purchased by the 
student. This would be for a 3 month class that meets twice a week for 3 
hours. The class would spend 2 weeks (4 sessions) in the machining, 
welding, woodworking, and electronics shops, as well as 2 weeks learning 
CAD at the beginning (with refreshers throughout) and 2 weeks working 
with CNC machines (including the plasma cutter, 3D printer, and Sharp 
CNC mill at a minimum). There'd likely be some schedule fluctuation as 
some things take more time and others take less, but that's about the 
shape of it.
***
There should be both a nights and weekends offering, as well as a 
weekday offering.

*I was thinking a little bit more about how to offer a nights/weekends 
class. What would you guys think of class that met Friday night and then 
a weekend day? Since the class has to move around various shops, it'd be 
very difficult to schedule it for a Monday-Thursday slot in the regular 
Asylum schedule, but Fridays are always free.

As to the weekday offerings, what time would be best, assuming the class 
was 3 hours long? I'm leaning towards mornings around 10ish, which gives 
time to break for lunch and still have the rest of the day.

*Can there be a way to pay-as-you-go, catch up on classes, or miss 
classes I already know about?

*Some of my classes (notably, Intro to Hydraulics and Pneumatics) have 
been deliberately split up into independent sections before, so I don't 
see why that model couldn't work here. Would it be more appealing to 
have the option to pay per class type? Would it be helpful to have 
monthly billing for the class, instead of a lump payment?

*Would multiple instructors be involved?*

This one's a tough one. Multi-instructor classes are difficult to pull 
off, given scheduling constraints and the difficulty of team teaching to 
one consistent syllabus. I could easily imagine working with a 
woodworking instructor (since I can teach framing-grade woodworking, but 
not fine woodworking) and an electronics instructor, but it's something 
I'd want to think carefully about.

- - - - -

Now, my questions to you all:

  * How important is building a cohesive, completed thing (as opposed to
    practicing on scraps, and the like)? I can think of a couple of
    projects that include components of all of those shops (namely, a
    pretty intense workbench with vises and the like built into it), but
    I don't know if that would have universal appeal to people who might
    otherwise want to take the class and not bother building a completed
    thing.
  * In my head, the course focuses on the shops that mesh well together
    with CAD/CAM to produce multi-disciplinary, engineered structures
    and projects. This likely means that silkscreening, fabric, jewelry,
    glass, and bike repair would probably not be included. Is that OK,
    or should I be working to expand the offerings?
  * If the class is multi-month, there's a possibility
  * I'm guessing the ideal number of students would be somewhere between
    3 and 5 per session - that's about the same size as machining and
    welding classes. It's a bit more than the standard tool training
    session, but less than big classes like Build a Chair and
    Metalworking Intensive. Does that sound about right, for those of
    you who have recently taken such classes?

Thanks for the feedback, everyone!

-- 
Gui Cavalcanti, Founder
Artisan's Asylum, Inc.
http://www.artisansasylum.com
Cell: (857) 366-9599 (NEW)

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