Meet Michael McDonald, he has been using the Shopbot to create custom Japanese style shoji sliding doors. You can see the project coming together more and more with each time he comes in.
He first heard about FUSE at 1 Million Cups. He had previously become familiar with the concept of Makerspaces after hearing about one up in Santa Fe. Upon learning that there was one closer to home and that we had a CNC router he decided to check us out.
For Michael his work is mostly a hobby which he uses to build design elements for his home. He recently retired working for Sandia where he worked in several departments manufacturing, robotics, and cyber security. Michael is trying to recapture that same spirit of design development learned at Sandia through the items he makes at FUSE. “Making things is fun. If you’re making something interesting.”
He sees one of the benefits of FUSE to be the people as well as the low cost of entry. He cites that buying his own CNC router and a place to store it is way past the price of membership. Also, if the machine broke “I would be responsible to fix it.” Luckily FUSE has a Marty”.
Outside of FUSE Michael enjoys salsa dancing, is an officiant at his church and attends the previously mentioned 1 Million Cups meetings.
After he is finished with his shoji doors he will be moving on to create a desk and cabinet of his own design. Next time you see him at FUSE say hi.
