Autocorrect for your hands

We catch up with our friends across the pond at Shaper Tools who have just launched a hand tool that will turn anyone into a pro craftsperson - Shaper Origin.

We’ve had our eye on this San Francisco-based start-up for a little while now, and I’m sure we’re not alone. Origin is a hugely exciting prospect for anyone who has ever felt an urge to make something, but wants the experience to be a little more engaging than hitting play on a 3D printer. It represents a huge step toward autonomation in digital fabrication. Automation with a human touch that ultimately makes you feel like a craftsperson, not a machine operator.

Shaper Origin is a unique tool. Through its heads-up display you are able to place a drawing anywhere on your workpiece. On request, the router will begin cutting material. Using the heads up display, the user follows a guided path, vaguely tracing the drawing. As the user traces, Shaper constantly corrects the positioning of the router bit, translating a vague tracing into an accurate tool path. The result is a making experience unlike any other.

Shaper Origin makes light work of an Edie stool.

What excites us most about Origin is its impact on the accessibility of making. With so many design files available openly under Creative Commons licenses, it’s important to us that hobby makers have the capabilities to enjoy the resources we share. CNC milling machines cost upward of £8000 (at least), weigh over one tonne and take up at least two square metres - not the most accessible tool for the hobbyist. With Shaper Origin coming in at around $1,500 during the pre-order campaign and weighing less than your average household vacuum cleaner, the barrier to entry has dropped significantly. Anyone with a flat surface, spare material and a burning desire to make can have one. It breathes new life into the phrase “make it yourself”. We hope Origin will empower a new wave of hobby makers to download and fabricate Opendesk designs in their home garage or garden shed.

Onto bigger things, Origin tackles the original Studio Desk.