The open house and livecast tonight was truly epic.
First: apologies to those in the livestream; it took us an hour to figure out how to give yous something worth watching. We’ll get it right from the start next time.
My highlights from the night:
Opening up the door to our office and seeing 50 people lined up to visit us. (That was just the line at 6:30!)
Meeting all the amazing people here I’d only met online.
Running 50-odd prints nonstop, except for that time we tripped the breaker.
Watching people unleash artistic forces of nature on itsy bitsy squares of clear acrylic, making them do things we’d never thought of before.
And one thing… well, I’m just going to say that Michael’s a lucky guy, and I hope he says yes.
(If you came or watched, please post your thoughts and pictures below!)
We got there just after the picture was taken, I think.
First, thanks to everyone at Glowforge who “put on the show” last night. It’s always “interesting” to turn your workplace into an exhibition space, but everyone was friendly, helpful, informative, friendly, enthusiastic, encouraging… did I mention friendly?
Second, it was exciting to see a Glowforge “in the flesh” and see it working. Yes, I’ve seen videos and the excellent article at tested.com, but seeing a unit for real was great. Seeing all the things on the sample bench and being able to handle them/examine the work helped inspire me. There were a couple of “You can do that?” moments as well.
Thirdly, I enjoyed meeting the various makers/hackers/craftspeople/artists/engineers and their hangers-on/children. It was a bit overwhelming – I wasn’t expecting so many people
Last night was a great experience, thanks to all the good folks at Glowforge for opening the door for us!
So. Many. People. All there to see what you can do with a glowforge, and they all seemed to have the same question for each other, “what are you going to make with yours?”
It started even before we got in the doors while waiting in line (wow, there is a line!). I think I had at least 6 separate conversations that started that way, and the range of answers was incredible. There was the fellow who is going to make parts for his startup that is democratizing Scanning Electron Microscope manufacture. There was the woman who does letterpress and wants to make wood type. Of course there were several REALLY excited kids.
I saw some old friends, made at least one new one, gathered some interesting ideas to follow up on, and absorbed lots of enthusiasm to help me through these long dark Glowforge-less nights until my unit ships.
Wow, excellent! I had checked in on the livestream a couple times, but it was early on and there wasn’t a lot to see beyond a room full of excited people
Should you guys ever have the time or interest in doing an open house event or meetup in San Francisco, we’d be happy to try and help get something set up at the makerspace we belong to (Tech Shop), as well as volunteer to help facilitate the event.
I hope Michael said yes! Congratulations if so! I can’t wait to see the video, about to watch now. I bet it was awesome to be there! Thanks for doing this, Glowforge peeps!
David’s editing out some of the slow parts so you have a better version to watch. Maya gets huge props for being the one who picked up the camera and made things interesting!
Sounded like a great event! If you and/or team plan to be in Boston any time soon, we would be happy to host a similar demo event - we have the space for it!
Yes! We need this because I am still debating if I want to buy one. It looks great but I am wondering what else could it do (bigger items than what people have in their hands in the photos above).
