Mill With Jill

Summary

 As part of Dr. Beth Kolko’s DRG, I learned how to use a Bantam Tools Othermill. As part of a team, we learned how to do various projects on the mill, and developed, tested, and ran a protocol to teach others how to use Othermills. I later continued this program by running a Mill with Jill workshop at the UW Co-Motion Makerspace the next year.

Introduction

I had done some 3D printing, but I had never used a mill before. Fortunately, neither had anyone else, so we all set out on a mission to learn how. Using the website instructions, we played with the mills and made a variety of dog tags and rings. Once we had a general idea of how the machines worked, we completed observations of other workshops and took detailed notes to create our own instruction set. After each iteration, we’d run through the entire thing ourselves to make sure the work was clear.

Workshop

Using our carefully complied information, we ran multiple workshops to make sure our lesson plans would work for a variety of users, especially as an introduction for new users. The final workshop was a success! We introduced 5 people to the Othermill and had them all make coasters. They all rated our workshop highly and many expressed interest in continuing to use the materials to make new things!