Camp ShopBot in St Helena on March 25, 2006

[johnm]

Hello All -

Well, there were about 2o folks at the Northern California Camp ShopBot at St. Helena High School, graciously hosted by Mr. Mike Snowden the Shop Instructor at SHH. His shop has two 4x4 ShopBots and the usual assortment of woodworking iron.

Bill Palumbo made the trek after discovering that while you may not need a snowblower in Willits, a bulldozer and backhoe can come in handy after the heavy rains. Folks came from all over Northern California, one fellow even came down from Bend, Oregon!

Bill discussed use of the various software packages out there and stressed that you DON'T need to be a 3D (or 2D) guru to make a go of things with your shopbot. There are enough talented folks around (especially here on the forum) that can create files for you, or produce files that are either free for the asking or for sale, saving new (and experienced) 'botters the trouble of learning curves and software, um, adventures...

Mike discussed how he conducted his classroom and shop instructional efforts and demonstrated basic file and operational protocol that he uses with his students.

We were all able to ask questions about operational issues and snafus that we'd had, and I came away from the seminar with another pocket full of notes...

Other attendees will (I hope) chime in with their feedback, but I thought I'd give my two cents and post some pictures of the event.

Rose and I had a wonderful time and would like to thank St. Helena High School, Bill Palumbo and Mike Snowden for putting on a great day of botting, including a great lunch and munchies spread for everyone.

John Moorhead
Rose Davidson
Lakeport, CA
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[kc10flteng]

I'll echo John's comments about the Camp...Thanks to Mike Snowden for hosting a very informative event with Bill Palumbo as speaker. This was the first time I have ever laid eyes on a ShopBot - mine will be here this Thursday...how fortuitous this Camp was. For those buyers who are still on the fence, take the time & trouble to go to one of these events. It's not so much to see the machines - they sell themselves, but rather to take to the ShopBot operators who are the real "gurus".

[billp]

The Camp at St. Helena HS was our first in that area. But in spite of some very soggy conditions we had a good group of people with a variety of interests and applications.
Mike Snowden has a great shop, and the school administration is fully behind his program. As a high school student there you can take classes in Autocad, Rhino,Vector, and now Artcam Pro ! Then you can go into the shop and cut your parts out...
With all of the winerys in that area, there should be NO shortage of future work for his graduates.
As mentioned above we got into some design work using Artcam Pro, we discussed ways to use the'Bot to make prototypes and molds, and we even had some time to troubleshoot software and machine questions from the group.
I've posted a few pictures of the Camp on the Flickr site; http://www.flickr.com/photos/campshopbot/
Thanks again the the folks at St.Helena HS for being such gracious hosts...

[evan]

Thank you Mike Snowden and St. Helena HS for hosting the First (and hopefully) Annual NorCal Shopbot Camp. Thanks to Bill and everyone else for sharing information and techniques. I only wish I could have stayed for the afternoon session.