Community facility helps build ideas into realities

Inventors, dreamers and fabricators now have a place to call their own in Round Rock. TechShop, a membership-based community workshop, offers customers the use of specialty equipment, tools and computers to design, build and assemble whatever they choose.

TechShop opened Oct. 13 in the La Frontera shopping center next to Lowe's and features 18,000 square feet of space and more than $2 million worth of equipment, TechShop Facilities Manager Cale Bessent said. TechShop membership has grown from 100 in October to more than 400 in January.

"You can build whatever you want," Bessent said. "We've seen some wild stuff in here."

The tools and equipment at TechShop go a step beyond what the average craftsman could afford—or even fit—into his or her own garage. The facility is divided into several work areas, including wood, metal, welding, electronics and plastic engineering workshops.

In exchange for their annual fees, TechShop members are given free reign of the facilities and its advanced tools, including computerized wood routers, industrial sewing machines, laser cutters and engravers, and a water jet cutting table capable of making precise cuts through steel up to 8 inches thick.

"[TechShop] has fantastic shops for wood and metal," said Yi Xu, a recent University of Texas-Austin industrial design graduate. Xu, said he was using the shop's facilities to help him gain hands-on experience in the engineering process.

"You take a class, become certified, and then you can come in any time and use any of the machines," Bessent said.

120 Sundance Parkway, Ste. 350 Round Rock, 512-900-4664, www.techshop.ws/austin_round_rock.html

• Open daily 9 a.m.–midnight