richard lushai
New Member
This is Richard Lushai, from Tikkun Olam Makers (TOM) in Calgary. My background is in mathematics and mechanical engineering technology. I work as a mechanical design consultant with experience in plastics design and rapid prototyping.
TOM puts together teams of designers, engineers, trades specialists, general problem solvers and pairs the teams with people living with disabilities (we call them need knowers). The person living with disabilities becomes part of the teams and gives the teams a personalized unique challenge. The teams work on the challenge for a month and at the end of the month TOM facilitates a 72 hour Makeathon: where the teams get non stop access to fabrication facility to come up with a prototype of their solutions. I would post links to the event but I don't think I am allowed yet by forum rules, but you can google or youtube "Tikkun Olam Makers" to find out descriptions of our global operations.
We have been operating in Calgary for three years now, completely volunteer run not for profit corporation and we are the first in Canada to build a TOM community around innovative assistive technologies (we also beat the Americans in the first North American operation in San Francisco by 6 hours in 2015
). We take on challenges for which there are either no solutions in the market or the available solutions are too expensive for most people. TOM in Calgary is run by a number of young engineering and engineering technology recent graduates. We have so far taken on 12 different challenges from 12 different individuals from Calgary through 2 different Makeathons, with over 200 additional completed projects from our Makeathon events around the world.
I am coming to this forum asking for help in a dire situation. We have been negotiating with University of Calgary for sometime now but we have serious doubts of being able to successfully navigate through the bureaucracy in time for our event timeline at the end of August. We have had no luck at the local maker space. We are planning on leasing out a warehouse and deploying equipment for the 72 hours. We have 3D printers coming from Javelin tech, electronics equipment coming from Western Canadian Robotics Society, and tools from Tool Library. But we are lacking metal working capability. We have funds for transportation and machinist's time. I hope the super heroes of these forum would be interested in our plea.
Thank you.
TOM puts together teams of designers, engineers, trades specialists, general problem solvers and pairs the teams with people living with disabilities (we call them need knowers). The person living with disabilities becomes part of the teams and gives the teams a personalized unique challenge. The teams work on the challenge for a month and at the end of the month TOM facilitates a 72 hour Makeathon: where the teams get non stop access to fabrication facility to come up with a prototype of their solutions. I would post links to the event but I don't think I am allowed yet by forum rules, but you can google or youtube "Tikkun Olam Makers" to find out descriptions of our global operations.
We have been operating in Calgary for three years now, completely volunteer run not for profit corporation and we are the first in Canada to build a TOM community around innovative assistive technologies (we also beat the Americans in the first North American operation in San Francisco by 6 hours in 2015
). We take on challenges for which there are either no solutions in the market or the available solutions are too expensive for most people. TOM in Calgary is run by a number of young engineering and engineering technology recent graduates. We have so far taken on 12 different challenges from 12 different individuals from Calgary through 2 different Makeathons, with over 200 additional completed projects from our Makeathon events around the world. I am coming to this forum asking for help in a dire situation. We have been negotiating with University of Calgary for sometime now but we have serious doubts of being able to successfully navigate through the bureaucracy in time for our event timeline at the end of August. We have had no luck at the local maker space. We are planning on leasing out a warehouse and deploying equipment for the 72 hours. We have 3D printers coming from Javelin tech, electronics equipment coming from Western Canadian Robotics Society, and tools from Tool Library. But we are lacking metal working capability. We have funds for transportation and machinist's time. I hope the super heroes of these forum would be interested in our plea.
Thank you.
