this is an amazing facility with all the resources you could possibly want. a fair amount of my own time learning how to advantage advantage of the

people here this isthe heart of silicon valley, but what's going on here has nothing to do with writing the software, yet the people are working on some of the wildest ideas that they've worked up. this is techshop, and one day, there could be one of these places near you. inside techshop is all kinds of manufacturing equipment, welding equipment, laser cutting

tools, and a whole lot more. in fact, just about everything you'd need to make just about anything you could imagine, and i do mean anything. that's because tech shopsh techshop is open to anyone who wants to use it. it's like joining a health club. you pay the fee and get access to the tools in the building. >> you join techshop and get access to the toils to make anything you want want. >> welding and machines. >> all classes, mandatory classes, so all classes are

about two to three hours long, maybe 4 to 6 people per class, and all hands on. don't know how to run a machine? no problem. techshop will teach you how to run and operate everything, and the classes are very reasonable. it's the brain child of jim newton. he created an inexpensive sanctuary for artists and inventors of all types, just off highway 101 of san jose, california. that's the site of the original techshop location. i say original, because his one-time local idea has matured into a nationwide need. >> our goal for techshop is to open hundreds of these things, so anybody who has an idea has an outlet to actually make their

ideas into reality. >> while silicon valley is famous for entrepreneurs working out of their basements, techshop is aimed as those who need just a gun or programming skills, they're aimed as those who want to manufacture something, looking with all kinds of materials and who may need to saw, mill, mold or do a host of other activities that could require expensive machinery. that could be a roadblock for those who can't afford material like that, don't have access or don't know how to use it. but it's not just about heavy t embroidery, silk screening, and how to make glass beads, even table-top robots.

>> how to get in range of that -- >> i think -- it would be a lot for accurate. >> yay! >> there is a bigger goal, the idea is to unleash american creativity, encourage an entrepreneurial spirit. >> the largest untapped resource is the creative class and in america, there are 40 medicillin them. in detroit, there are a lot of them and if we can get them working on problems, including unemployment, that's where the solutions are going to come from, places like this, grassroots opportunities that give people access to the tools, community, and resources they need to build their dream. when we get past that, the sky's the limit.

>> like i said, becoming a member of techshop is similar to joining a health club. you can join an annual membership for $1200 and bring in family members for a fee. plus, there are memberships for students and guests as well. it gives you access to the building and the classes typically cost anywhere from $45 to $90 which will teach you the schools needed to use that equipment. take this aluminum class for instance. >> in this case, you have great one on one options with an instructor teaching how to cast out of molten aluminum.

as you'd expect, a lot of the projects at techshop can be simple and straightforward, while others are literally out of this world. meet william baird, a space enthusiast who is working on a lunar lander. you heard me right. a lunar lander. he wants to compete in an international competition by google and send images and data back to the earth. first prize is $20 million. for william baird, this is a boyhood dream come true. >> when google came out, i knew i had to do it. how could you not? here you are, you want to put

something on the moon, not anywhere. this is the stuff that as kids, people talked about, they'd walk on the moon. i'm going to put myself on the moon. and the thing is, you're not just putting something on the moon and it's there and it's gone like the next day. you're going to be leaving it there forever. it will last there past the time when the pyramids will be gone, past the time that the continents will form and change and everything else, until the sun becomes a red giant and consumes the world. so as i told them that asked me about it, it's the last breath of the last of the world this will be there. >> saying you're going to land something on the moon and going out and building a lunar lander are two separate things. william baird quickly came up against the reality of what his

boyhood dream was going to call him? >> how much for the beast? the dawn is the official name, but the beast. for the custom parts alone would be $150 k, and i was just aghast. i mean, i -- don't get me wrong, i have a decent-paying job, but $150,000 is not something i could just throw at a fun project. >> william baird was dejected. he thought he'd never be able to live out his boyhood dream of building a lunar lander. but then he heard about techshop. >> in spring of 2009, a friend of mine said there's a machine shop down in the south bay that is kind of like a health club. you come and you take classes and then you're allowed to use the machines and you can cut and weld and everything else. and i came down here and i was able to do it with, obviously, with sponsors, but at most -- i

mean, the total expense since then has been $20 or $30 k which is doable within a couple of years with a family and a person and whatnot. >> even if the lunar lander doesn't work or even if it doesn't win the grand prize, he may have come up with a breakthrough, he's come up with a carbon composite. it's lighter than aluminum but stronger and can stand up to the extremely low temperatures of outer space, something thas not possiblith oth cbo >> you lookt and wtn.neng andextremel poundo

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those microwaves nize the gases, and if you work a bunch ofhis r then you crhecaconditioe necessary to turn them into synthec diamond films or synthetic diamond crystals, and that's what this does. >> you think this is all fine and good, but tohat why would someone spend so much time to ke synthetic diamonds? >> they have uses, if you think of coatings on cutting tools like drills and whatnot, the drills last a lot longer when udon very aggressive materials, like the modern composites,airline, graphite composites, things on

the boeing 747s, you're lucky i yoge one hole per drill. diamond composite, 50 to 100 a drill. so thicker diamond films, you can put electrical devices, ons like micro processor chips or diodes, if it's a micro processor you can run it much faster, if it's a laser diode, it takes advantage of the thermal connecti. >> yeah, they're interesting to people who are into those kind of things, but wouldt u wan to know if this little machine can make the real thing, like the kinds of diamonds that go on diamond in? tesetic pieces are interesting, because this kind of technology can als make big ng cst emuality

diamonds and that's what's drawing my interest at this point. >> what they tell you is they love coming here, not cae gives them all kinds of access to really cool equipment, but becausey're surrounded but inventors, artists, and entrepreneurs, like themselves. they want to see what others are working on and talk to them outhr ideas. inevitably, they make suggestions or share ideas on their own, and this is where the magic srtt happen. this cross pollination of ideas leads to more creativity and more inventions, it feeds upon itself. >> i think it's the wave of the future. absolutely. because in here, you walk ou, u' s people working on the most amazing projects that they wouldn't have the means to push these projects forward on their own, and you need these innovative, creative

individuals, you need to be able to give them thereurs t take their dream and make it a reality, because if you wait for a large cpa t come up to solutions, there's a large chance it will never happen. in order for the lar mpy to donate their human resources and fundraising efforts into making a project happen, they need to have a clearid tt there's a huge profit market available to fund it. with a fility like this, you don't need nearly the project to make it happen, because it's just the designer and his passion and you're not having to support the humanreurs a marketing team and the sales team in addition to the engineering team to get t products developed, so here they have the means to make the project and then someone can say that's a great project, let's

mass produce it. and there's stuff in here that's esome nd of itself. you don't need to be doing everything for a profit. >> i love being around this group. i love the mentality here, the helpfulness. you can stop anyone in the building and they will help you with whatever you're working on. >> let's see if we can dig up a place that does industrial sand blaster, and see if they can get it off. >> even more than the help you get from the members here, techshop offers coaching for the entrepreneurs, to turn their ideas into patents, their patents into products, and their products into start-up companies. you can rent office space if you need it, and there are startups out of the building. there's free wifi available, there's a kitchen area with a

fridge and microwave so you can bring in and heat up your own meals. freshly brewed coffee and freshly popped popcorn are available for free. not surprising by, techshop is open from 10 in the morning to midnight and every night, they have to kick people out of the building. the members who are here absolutely love the place. >> you know, because this techshop is a resource that has saved me an incredible amount of time and money. it's made it possible for me to do this an a bootstrap basis without having to go out to venture firms to raise money. give you an example. i've had two prior companies based on synthetic diamonds, and to be able to build this sort of chamber, would cost me on the order of $100,000 in design and outside machinist time, that

sort of thing. here at techshop, you know, my materials cost here was probably $200, and, you know, a fair amount of my own time learning how to use the equipment here and taking advantage of the people here who knew how to do it much better than i did and were willing to teach me. so i was able to go through version 1, which didn't work very well at all, to version 2, that works absolutely beautifully. and hat i'm doing now is designing version 3, which will be much simpler than this, and turning it into a product to sell. so that's why i'm here today with this particular device, because i'm doing some designs to simplify this guy so it can be made quite cheaply and readily by outside machine shops and put it for someone who doesn't have 25 years worth of experience in doing it. >> as we already know, the idea here is to turn techshop into

something of a franchise, who have literally hundreds of techshops all across the country. of course, that's going to take time to put in place. right now, there are here at menlo park, one in raleigh, north carolina, and new ones opening up in san francisco and san jose in california. but then, techshop is coming to detroit. that was a, you know, a direct result of a couple of things. one, we got written up in "the new york times" and wired magazine did a nice little spread on us, and that gave us some visibility, and bill costlynn at ford, the c.e.o., one of their divisions read about it and was thinking about how to do an innovation, licensing type of a center in detroit for the big three as well as obviously all the engineers in the area, saw the article, and a bulb went off, said, this is what i've got to do. a couple of weeks later, he gave

us a ring, when you hear somebody say "i'm from ford," you return the call, and he's serious about having a techshop in dearborn. this happened very quickly after the phone call. we saw his operation, what he was trying to do. we had been thinking about detroit for over a year, we had been out, met with some universities, and detroit needs this. a lot of mechanical engineers in the area, a lot of automotive folks, a lot of creative folks, unemployed folks, so there are plenty of opportunities for folks to put their skills to work. they gave us an offer we couldn't refuse, as we like to say, and we'll get on to detroit as soon as we get there. >> techshop is moving into a building located by the southfield expressway. my guess is, this place will be

a great success. there are so many people in the detroit area who already have the skills to run all this equipment. no doubt many of them would love to put their skills to work on things that mean something to them and others would love to learn to make things with their own hands. >> we have some people who are talking to us about buying them, we have some customers forming now. >> enthusiasm and camaraderie of this place is undeniable. it's an incubator of ideas, the kind of place that's going to attract a lot of people to join in. >> when you look at all the machines that i've had to use to do this and the skills that i've had to learn from other people to do this, i couldn't have done it if techshop wasn't here. techshop made this possible, and so many other things that i'm

working on as well. this is a great place. historically, anyone who came up with a new idea and wanted to develop new technology had to do it either through a university research lab or a corporate research lab or have boatloads of venture capital money to pull it off, but techshop is a brilliant concept that's going to allow ordinary every day americans unleash their inner creativity. captioning provided by caption solutions, llc www.captionsolutions.com