Be Part of Something Very Special

Do you want to be part of Manitobans bringing their ideas to life; part of a community support for entrepreneurs; part of something very special...join us on March 1st.

The Honourable Vic Toews, Minister of Public Safety, on behalf of The Honourable Lynne Yelich, Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification, will make a special announcement at AssentWorks on March 1st, 2013. You're invited to hear from the minister and receive a unique tour of AssentWorks, one of Canada's largest and most accessible public fabrication centres.

The event takes place at 10AM on the morning of March 1st, 2013 at AssentWorks, 3rd floor, 125 Adelaide Street in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

The event will also include brief announcements from AssentWorks regarding our 2013 Phase 2 development activities that include a new home for RampUp Manitoba.

Registration is open to the public.

Event Details:
10:00 AM - Noon
AssentWorks
3rd Floor, 125 Adelaide St.
Winnipeg

Register for the event here

For additional information, please contact:
Kerry Stevenson
Director, AssentWorks
kstevenson@assentworks.ca

Crowd-sourced Renovations – Now That’s Innovation!

 By: Chris Johnson

  

Day 1 of the massive ‘Renovation for Innovation’ at @RampUpManitoba and @AssentWorks presented itself with a unique challenge (something our membership love to overcome on a daily basis).  We had a trailer full of 600 10’ 2x4’s, with an elevator that decided to throw a hissy-fit (you would too if you were 100 years old!).  Well, it took approximately 60 seconds to make a human train consisting of 9 people to hike them up the fire escape to the third floor.  Isn’t that something?  9 people on site on a cold winter Saturday at 8AM who were willing to toss 2x4’s up a fire escape.  I was impressed, but that kind of excitement can’t keep up right?  These people are volunteers!

60 days after the outset of this project I am pleased to report that the crowd-sourced volunteers of Ramp Up Manitoba and AssentWorks, with a little help from some of our founding sponsors, have delivered an exceptional effort building our shiny new #StartupSpace!

It’s very exciting for Winnipeg that we have enough volunteers to take on a project of this size (almost 10,000 sq ft space) in such a short period of time. Quite frankly, it makes it all worthwhile!  It was the norm to show up to the space and meet totally new people who just pitched in with whatever skills they had to contribute, and even learned a few new skills along the way.


We had teachers turned framers, developers turned nail-pullers, engineers moonlighting as drywall installers and more.  Did you know your city was full of such giving, energetic, and passionate people?  We are so lucky to have a membership willing to give up their Christmas holidays, New Year’s, and countless evenings and weekends away from their families just trying to leave Winnipeg a better place than they found it.  This is the spirit that drives Ramp Up Manitoba and AssentWorks.  We owe a huge thank you to our dedicated members, and a number of private sector supporters including HIGH SPEED CROW (dozens of man hours donated), Moskal Electric (data cabling donated), Benjamin Moore (primer/paint donated), Best Price Painting (paint application donated), and more.

So, with space renovations coming to a close, it’s now time to turn our attentions to finishing touches inside the space.  Shuffling of equipment and tools on the AssentWorks side, and startups moving in to their new offices on the Ramp Up Manitoba side.  It’s time to get back to the business of innovating, prototyping, and commercializing.  And not a moment too soon, Winnipeg is bursting at the seams with great ideas that need to be built.

We undertook this project to expand our prototyping capabilities at AssentWorks while adding co-working space for innovative Ramp Up Manitoba startup companies to thrive together.  We have a lot more to announce in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!

Lastly, if you read this and said to yourself even once, ‘Hey, this sounds great – I would love to be involved in something like that’…  we’d love to meet you!  Visit us at the below sites to learn more, or pop in any Tuesday evening  for our Community Night where you can get a site tour and meet some of our members.

RAMP UP MANITOBA

 

Yes we do have 3D Printers in Winnipeg!

Actually we have 2 and soon we will have 3. They are all very capable depending on the needs of the user. Here is a summary of each:

BFB3000

The BFB 3000 is a very capable low-end extrusion-based 3D printer. It can accept two types of 3mm filament plastic, ABS plastic and PLA plastic in 1Kg spools. Small objects of arbitrary shapes can be printed in plastic, up to 20cm (PLA) or 10cm (ABS) from 3D models you supply in STL format.

UPrint

The uPrint Plus is a very capable medium-end commercial extrusion-based 3D printer. Prints 1.75mm ABS filament plastic in one pound 30 cubic inch cartridges. Small objects of arbitrary shapes can be printed in plastic, up to 10cm on a side from 3D models you supply in STL format. Parts printed on the uPrint could be strong enough to use in your machine prototypes.

Now imagine scanning and printing in color!

Kerry Stevenson, Director of AssentWorks said why he choose the new Zprinter “Along with the color scanners, members can easily scan full color images and print realistic color models with astonishing results”.

Advanced Color 3D Printer Zprinter 650

Color and resolution! Z Corp states a resolution of 600x540 dpi, saying it's "the highest resolution in a 3D printer."

360 Color Scanners - The Skanect and VIUscan

Can you say “Color?” You'll be able to scan with precision accuracy to 0.1mm and in full color! 

The Skanect system is an easy to use tool that captures casual color scans of medium-sized objects, a person or a room and can create 3D meshes out of real scenes in seconds. Its “rapid” scanning capability lets you quickly move around our 3D camera to capture a full set of viewpoints, and you will get a mesh before you can say "I can't believe it was that easy!"

Our VIUscan handheld scanner is ideal for higher precision scanning of small or large parts that you can use for reverse-engineering with our RapidForm software. If you need high-resolution 3D colour data and shape the VIUscan will capture every detail and deliver hyper-realistic results.

For additional information on 3D printing: visit us on a Tuesday night open house 6 PM - 9 PM, 3rd Floor, 125 Adelaide St. Also Kerry Stevenson, Director AssentWorks tracks developments in Fabbing, 3D Printing and Desktop Manufacturing through his blog read throughout the world, Fabbaloo. http://fabbaloo.com