What's a ShopBot Camp? For the past six years there have been an ongoing series of get-togethers which have become known as “Camp Shopbot.”  The first one was held in Bill Young’s shop back in 1999 for ShopBot owners interested in using the machine to build boats.  Four tool owners and a few interested onlookers attended, and those of us there realized that this was a great way to exchange information and tricks of the trade very easily. [Scheduled Camp Dates and Locations]

Since that simple beginning, there have been dozens of Camps, with some of the latest having more than 50 people attending. The process is simple; a Shopbot owner volunteers his or her shop for a gathering of other local ShopBot owners. Sometimes there’s a specific topic - boatbuilding and indexer Camps have been held - but most cover as wide a range of topics as time will allow.

Even when there’s a theme for the Camp, they remain flexible enough to change the focus “on the fly.”  With the number of ShopBot owners growing by leaps and bounds, the pool of knowledge has expanded.  Camps have become a great way to both learn new techniques and share the tricks that you’ve learned with others.  But Camps are not necessarily training sessions; they also offer great chances to meet with others who have similar interests and do some informal networking.

A favorite feature at every Camp is the “Show and Tell” session, where people bring either a project they’ve done or pictures of it and give a brief presentation on how the projects was done and the design decisions behind it.  The range and variety of these pieces is always impressive.  It’s not a contest or a “juried” session by any means; just a good chance to show off something you are proud of and to help others improve their skills.  Reports from the Camps is a continuing blog about ShopBot Camps.

Is there a Camp Shopbot near you? Check the Schedule of ShopBot events.

If you're interested in attending a Camp in your area or maybe hosting one, let us know by filling out this webform.