Shaper Origin, the world’s first handheld CNC machine, can now be transformed into the world’s most user-friendly, fully autonomous benchtop gantry CNC machine. In my capacity as Shaper’s head of engineering, I led the team that conceptualized, designed, and brought into mass production, Shaper BenchPilot. We designed BenchPilot to be incredibly easy to use – simply snap Origin in and start your cut – all toolpathing is done automatically. Need to do a really BIG cut? No problem – just snap Origin out of BenchPilot and you are back to having an unlimited work envelope. Through ongoing software updates and forward thinking hardware design, we’ve built BenchPilot to support both Gen1 (launched 9 years before BenchPilot!) and Gen2 Origin. Shaper Origin is the “brain of the operation” when using BenchPilot – it sends motion commands wirelessly to BenchPilot, telling it how it wants to be moved around the workpiece to cut out the desired design. Origin’s fine-tuned autocorrection motion control system continues to operate during cuts, ensuring excellent cut quality. BenchPilot seamlessly integrates with Shaper Workstation (or can be used without it), and also benefits from our Shelf Upgrade Kit for Workstation, which we’ve released simultaneously with BenchPilot. Here’s a video that shows just how intuitive BenchPilot is to use:

BenchPilot has won several awards for what it brings to the woodworking industry: The AWFS Visionary Award and the Woodworking Network Editor’s Choice Award.

Reviews from customers have been overwhelmingly positive – you can check some out here.

BenchPilot has meaningfully changed the way craftspeople work. Here’s an example of a paraplegic user on our forum who’s been able to continue making beautiful projects thanks to BenchPilot: Post on the Shaper Forum

Here’s a great video from one of our customers using BenchPilot:

Earlier this summer, we announced Shaper BenchPilot, the latest piece of the Shaper product ecosystem. BenchPilot is like autopilot for Origin (Shaper’s handheld CNC). Clip Origin into BenchPilot to turn it into a hands-free milling machine, capable of vertical or horizontal cutting. With BenchPilot, you can focus on other tasks in your shop while it drives Origin around, making your desired cuts. Essentially, we’ve turned Origin into a Benchtop CNC that leverages the award-winning simplicity of Origin’s user interface. We worked hard to make the experience of using BenchPilot as seamless as possible – if you can use Origin, then there is effectively zero learning curve to adding BenchPilot to your workflow. Simply snap Origin into BenchPilot, it will magically auto-connect, switch to “Pilot” mode, and then you just have to hit the green button and watch it go. As with Origin, we’ve eliminated the CAM programming step from CNC machining, so you can focus on your craft by going directly from design to cutting.

BenchPilot has already won several awards for what it brings to the woodworking industry: The AWFS Visionary Award and the Woodworking Network Editor’s Choice Award.

Now that BenchPilot has begun shipping out to customers, this felt like a great time to share some of the overwhelmingly positive reviews:
“I’ve never had so much fun woodworking. This is the best investment I’ve ever made”
“I absolutely love Bench Pilot. Its an absolute game changer. Ive been using it a week and its become my new favorite shop tool.”
“Are you kidding me? I thought the Shaper Origin was amazing and now they just made it 10 times better. All of their products are so well thought out, tested and user friendly, that it would be impossible not to love them.”
“This is a real time saver and productivity booster! I’ve had it for a few weeks and was impressed with the ease of assembly and getting started. The interface for selecting cuts is simple to understand. The combination with Shaper Studio means my designs can more quickly go from idea to execution with bit sizes, depth and order of cutting easy to define in advance and know that BenchPilot with Origin can get them done! Another great addition to the Shaper ecosystem. One of the coolest tools with so many uses for hobby or professional user!”
“Fantastic ! It’s a great addition to my current Shaper Origin setup. BenchPilot enables me to spend more time working on designing new projects, while repetitive tasks are automatically cut to the specific 3D dimensions. I am enjoying the experience immensely!”
“I expected it to connect and work seamlessly with Origin. What I didn’t expect was the intelligence on multiple cut types and the flexible and intuitive controls for customizing operation.”
“This fits me so well. I love to get stuff done, and this tool allows me to keep working on other things while still creating on it. Very well thought out design with the quick release. Software is good and gets better at each release. Quality tool and company.”
“The experience has been wonderful. Building the bench pilot is very straight forward, instructions were clear and the video was great. Highly recommend getting one, sure frees up your time to do other tasks.”
“Love it, have done several small projects so far. This is a game changer if you need to do any small batch work. My only problem is that I sometimes find myself just watching it work on its own instead of stepping away and doing something else:)”
“I have throughly enjoyed using the Bench Pilot and have made 12 bottle openers for Christmas presents and a jewelry keepsake oval box with lid.”
“I’ve been out of woodworking for the last 3 years (motorcycles) and when the Bench Pilot was announced last spring, I got excited about making again. I’ve had the bench pilot for a week now, and it’s been an amazing experience – high quality build and parts, exceptional functionality – a must own”

Here’s a video from one of our customers, showing some of the incredible things enabled by BenchPilot:

In the time since launching the first generation of Shaper Origin, we’ve introduced a number of tools to make it easier for our customers to solve the “first step” of cutting a project in the shop: making the actual design. ShaperHub makes it easy to download preexisting projects that work great on Origin. Our premium projects that a step further with extremely detailed guidance. With Shaper Studio, our CAD software for craftspeople, making designs for Origin or other digital fabrication tools is a breeze. But for many craftspeople, they are most comfortable working with their hands – that’s why we made Trace. Trace adds digital enablement and precision to hand-drawn designs. We’ve leveraged the robust computer vision pipeline that my team has built for Origin, and paired it with a unique “trace frame” bordered by fiducial markers. Using the Shaper Trace webapp, you make your drawing, snap a pic, and it is instantly vectorized, while retaining perfectly accurate scaling. Trace works great with Origin, but is also great for making designs that you can use with a vinyl cutter, laser cutter, traditional CNC machine, embroidery machines, and more. You can buy trace now on our website. Check out this video showing some of the things you can do:

Shaper Origin is the world’s first (and only) handheld CNC machine – leveraging sophisticated computer vision, high-speed motion control systems, computational geometry, and powerful purpose-built electronics and mechanics, Origin enables you to actualize digital designs into wood, soft metals, composites, and more using its powerful 720W cutting motor. Origin “autocorrects” for your movements – you follow the gross shape of a digital design using the augmented-reality display interface, and Origin moves the cutter bit (recalculating is position in 3D space thousands of times per second) to ensure you cut your workpiece with machine-level precision and accuracy.

I did not take a rest after releasing the first generation of Shaper Origin in 2017. Between 2017 and 2022, we developed and released multiple additions to the Shaper ecosystem of products – all of them (Workstation, Plate, & Studio) are designed to make it easy to go from idea to design to the real world. We also expanded internationally to Canada and all of Europe. Almost immediately after Origin Gen1 production had been stabilized into series production (first in San Diego, and then in Singapore), I set to work with my team to design Origin Gen2. Redesigned from the ground up, the second generation of Origin was a complete overhaul of the hardware and software, driven by learnings from the first generation of the product. It has substantially more computing power, a larger screen, better/faster camera, etc, etc. I served as engineering lead for the Gen2 program, managing the electrical, mechanical, software, and manufacturing engineering. I personally architected Gen2, designed the “brains”, brought up the Linux OS, and developed much of our manufacturing fixtures and systems. I also handled Origin’s multitude of regulatory and safety certifications. Of course, a product this sophisticated is only possible with an incredible team of people – it was an incredible team effort.

If you wanna see the technical details of some of my work, jump to the 10 minute mark in the below video where I show the guts of Origin Gen 2.

How do you manufacture this bad boy?

Shaper was acquired by TTS in 2019, making Festool our sister company. For the uninitiated, Festool is widely regarded as the the maker of the world’s highest quality, most professional power tools. I worked closely with my colleagues at Festool to design Origin Gen2 for manufacturing compatibility with Festool’s state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Germany. Gen2 was designed in San Francisco by my team and I, and is produced in Germany, using Shaper-designed calibration and test fixtures. Every Origin undergoes thousands of automated tests and calibrations to ensure it meets our extremely high quality standards. Here’s a video showing the production line:

Wait, how does Origin Work?

Watch this brief explainer! It’s like magic!

What can you make with Origin?

One of the things I’ve loved most about working at Shaper is seeing what our customers build with our products. Origin is a “creativity multiplier” – it enables woodworking hobbyists (like myself) to joinery, inlays, and furntiure work that would normally require a lifetime of training. For our many professional users, it allows them to work faster and to make even more ambitious projects than they previously thought possible. For all our users, it allows them to “bring the CNC” to the workpiece instead of the other way around – this means that previously impossible tasks like inlaying a detailed design into the floor or a room or into existing furniture is now easy. Check out what our customers are sharing:

#shaperorigin tagged projects on Instagram

Do You Build Stuff with Shaper Origin?

I’m no master woodworker, but I’ve built my fair share of things with Shaper Origin. Check out my woodworking portfolio page for some examples.

But today, I’m particularly proud to announce Origin Gen2. We redesigned it from the ground up to improve everything about what Origin can do. Everything from the Quad-core compute module to the factory calibration systems that subject Origin Gen2 to thousands of rigorous tests where architected, designed, and built by me and my engineering-team colleagues.

Read more about Gen2 here: https://www.shapertools.com/en-us/blog/allaboutgen2

You can watch me walk you through all the nitty-gritty details here:

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The largest bottleneck in the early prototyping stage is often going from design intent to boards-in-hands. You’ve got to get your documentation together, ensure your fabricator and assembly understand your intent, go back and forth on DFM, deal with out-of-stock parts (now more than ever), and more. That’s why I was really excited when Altium asked Shaper’s electrical engineers to help alpha-test their new design-to-manufacturing flow. Altium has partnered with Macrofab to do their fulfillment, which should already give you a great deal of confidence in this new service – I’ve already been using Macrofab as one of my go-to domestic prototyping options for many years.

If you are a designer using Altium, you can sign up to get access to Altimade here. Following is a launch video wherein I describe what is broken about electronics prototyping, and how services like Altimade will hopefully help move the industry forward:

2023 EDIT: As of Feb 2023, V3 is out of Beta and has been promoted to the main branch. Links updated below.

Back in 2013, I first released instructions and code to build a Remote Wake/Sleep-On-LAN server powered by a Raspberry Pi. To my surprise, this project ended up becoming my most starred project on GitHub, and has evolved several times over the last 8 years. I still use this project frequently when I want to Remote-Desktop into my home machine, which I normally put to sleep when not otherwise in use.

During COVID-19 lockdown, I’m doing a lot less traveling than I normally would, so I’ve been using some of the extra time to revamp some older projects (in addition to building smart exercise equipment). One thing that’s been on my list for a while was cleaning up this Remote Wake/Sleep-On-LAN server (RWSOLS) with properly signed HTTPS certificates, and an automatic setup script. Now, I’ve done exactly that, and it’s in a state that’s ready to share. Here are some of the changes:

• Adds an automated installer script that takes out all of the guesswork.
• Tested and working on the latest versions of Raspberry Pi OS Lite, Apache, and PHP.
• Adds full support for signed, Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates with automatic setup.
• Improves security of password hashing approach.
• Simplifies configuration of dynamic DNS updating functionality and supports ddclient installed on the same Raspberry Pi.

So, if you’re up for it (especially if you already use the previous version of my RWSOLS software) consider heading over to the v3_beta branch main branch on my GitHub repo, try out the new installer script, and let me know what you think by opening a GitHub issue for any problems you find! The GitHub wiki provides updated instructions for new installation flow.

I often receive questions from aspiring engineers about what things they should keep in mind as they pursue careers. It is my hope that this video will give them some useful insights!

Most engineers will tell you that they are most effective when they are able to focus on the technical parts of product design. But, in recent years, times to market have decreased, supply chain complexity has increased, and the interplays between the electrical and non-electrical parts of most products have become exceedingly complex. To meet these challenges effectively, engineers and product designers must become comfortable interleaving business, supply chain, and sourcing responsibilities into the technical conversations that they are already having with their vendors and manufacturers. I spend a lot of time focused on supply chain optimization, pricing negotiations, and program management when I’m not designing PCBs. In this talk, I will explain how significant price, performance, and timeline benefits can be realized by expanding your skill sets into these areas, and actively participating in them, alongside your colleagues who may be focused on them. I will provide specific examples of when and how interacting more closely with your component distributors and manufacturers earlier in the design process can save you time in the long run, despite it sometimes feeling like it is “distracting” from the design work at hand.

Check out the full presentation below, and if you’re itching to learn more, head over to the Altium Academy YouTube channel to watch the other presentations from AltiumLive 2020.

You can also check out the keynote addresses that I gave in 2018 and 2019!