Mike Rowe wants to get the Tech Shop into all 50 States

Mike Rowe of the Discovery Show Dirty Jobs was at Maker Faire in San Mateo, California

Mike announced that he is trying to get a TV show developed around the theme of Making things. A goal would to popularize creative personal manufacturing.

The Tech Shop are facilities with nearly $750,000 in advanced machines and tools and 2D and 3D design software. They have facilities in Menlo Park and San Francisco

A $99/month membership provides to the 17000 square foot facilities and the equipment and a community of Inventors, Tinkerers, Hobbyists, Students, Entrepreneurs and others who want to make things.

Mike Rowe said that he wants to get the Tech Shop into all 50 States.

Google also has high tech workshops for employees

Amid all the free food and other goodies that come with a job at Google Inc., there’s one benefit a lot of employees don’t even know about: a cluster of high-tech workshops that have become a tinkerer’s paradise. The “Google Workshops” are the handiwork of Larry Page. age authorized the workshops’ opening in 2007 to try to reconnect the company with its roots.

Originally known as the “Pi” Shop, the geeky getaway is open only to a privileged few among Google’s 26,300 employees. To gain entry, workers must pass a test that includes such questions as “When you are using a band saw, what speed would you use to cut through aluminum?”

There are four separate rooms — for metal, wood, welding and electronics — tucked into an isolated corner of Google’s 4.3-million-square-foot headquarters in Mountain View.

Besides heavy-duty equipment, such as an oscilloscope, plasma cutter and miter saw, there are some children’s toys. One piece of gadgetry currently under construction in the shops partially consists of Legos — the same material that Page once used to build an inkjet printer, years before creating Google.

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