Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Auto-Aligning Router”.
My name’s alex i’m here with shaffer shaffer, is developing a new kind of digitally augmented hand tools, so they’re still power tools and they’re still moving around manually, but there’s a computer on board and it is tracking the position of the tool in real time and adjusting To correct any errors, so it’s kind of like autocorrect for your hands: it’s got a camera on it that is tracking the material. So it knows exactly where it is in 3d, relative to the work that you’re working on, and it’s got a two three axis stage. So it can adjust the position of the tool to snap it to a line. So right now we have a loader with a woodworking, router and, let’s say you’re cutting it you’re, trying to cut a straight line out of a piece of wood. You might want to cut this line and you might just sort of approximately follow that uh getting the general area by hand as you’re doing that it’s tracking its position and shifting the router around inside the housing so that the router follows the line perfectly well.
We were here at mega fair last year and this year we’re back with a new name, but also a completely new prototype. So it’s got three axes of control instead of two and it’s got a final industrial design and now we’re closer than ever to bringing it to market we’re aiming to do a limited release in the next six months and after that, we’re gon na go to mass Market, maybe a year later, i came up with the idea originally as part of my phd at mit. I was a computer scientist, but i inherited my granddad’s woodworking tools when he passed away and i tried to make a few different, simple shapes and they looked pretty good when i cut them. But then, when i put the joints together, i realized nothing really matched.
Nothing. Really lined up – and i realized i could get very close, but the last millimeter or two killed me every time. So i invented this uh adjustment, this autocorrect. That just does that last little bit for you automatically.
So it combines the range and the flexibility of the human with a precision of a computer well maker faire is really important to us because we originally want well. We are all makers ourselves and we want to sell this tool to makers to start so, there’s no better place to connect with the audience people who could make the most amazing things with this tool than being here at maker faire, and it’s really exciting for us To see what people come up with that, they want to do with this tool. .