Creativity Unleashed
A Maker Space for Everyone
Creativity for Kids / Gifts for Grown Ups / Boundless Possibilities
Capture That Magic
At Bored Owl, we believe every person has incredible, unique ideas just waiting to be brought into reality. We want to help you to get excited about making things or give you inspiration if you’re already a seasoned maker. Tell us how we can help you bring your ideas to life and what you need!
Maker Space
Our Maker shop is in our Maker space, so if you need supplies to create, then you can purchase them online through our shop, or in person. We’ve put our Maker shop offerings into categories to help you find what you’re looking for, as a guideline only. By appointment we can help you in the Maker space to learn about the equipment and to use it safely. We are hoping to offer planned group activities in the future.
In the Maker space:
Try your hand at 3D printing or laser cutting with supervision by appointment.
Peruse the library shelves for some ideas for your next project.
If you want fabrication services i.e. for us to 3D print or laser cut or engrave for you because you don’t have time, just visit our services page you can always pickup from the shop or we can post it to you.
We don’t want frustration with technology (for adults or children) to be the reason you don’t create awesome things. Desktop manufacturing has such incredible potential so we want to share it with you.
We make real things with real equipment so that means children must be accompanied by their adult at all times onsite.
Designing for 3D Printing - advice for beginners
Here is a little bit of advice to get you started on designing files to do 3D printing:
Watch a few youtube videos or search the thingiverse or similar sites (e.g. BambuLab’s MakerWorld) to see how other people have designed things you’re interested in designing. N.b. as I mention on the fabrication services page we can only print files which you create because you need to own the intellectual property for the files for us to be allowed to print them.
Some super easy beginner programs to use for creating 3D designs for printing are below. You can use free versions of these and still create great designs. Lots of primary schools use TinkerCAD so if kids or teachers want to create designs that software is a great place to start as they may already be familiar with it.
TinkerCAD: https://www.tinkercad.com/
SelfCAD: https://www.selfcad.com/
Womp: https://womp.com/
Designing for Laser Cutting and Engraving - advice for beginners
Here is a little bit of advice to get you started on designing files to do laser cutting and engraving:
Some super easy beginner programs to use for creating designs for laser cutting and engraving are below. You can use free versions of these and still create great designs. Lots of primary schools use Canva so if kids want to create designs or teachers that software is a great place to start:
Canva: https://www.canva.com/ Try using a logo design and pick a template then modify it with your creative flair.
Creative Fabrica: https://www.creativefabrica.com/
TinkerCAD can also be used, but think flat designs as we’re only cutting say 3mm thick acrylic or wood so its a 2D design you’d focus on in TinkerCAD. Obviously you can create a lovely 3D design by having lots of 2D laser cut parts to fit together but its a lot to think about when you’re only getting started so maybe start small then get crazy ambitious!
Remember if you want Bored Owl to do your laser cutting and engraving:
Cut lines must be red and Engrave areas must be black lines.
Save files as svg then nominate what size you want it to end up like on a pdf version of the file. Svg’s can be resized without losing image quality so that’s why we request them.
Maker Shop
For creatives of all ages, visit our maker shop for unique gifts for kids and adults. Think of our supplies as little signposts towards different possibilities. And then, go on your own journey. Send through your art made with our supplies, for our inspiration gallery! We regularly share our community’s art, craft, design and unique little creations with our online community.
Visit the Maker Shop for creative supplies to delight & design
SERIOUS IDEA TIME
On the serious side, our Owl’s come from a deep and broad background. From years of experience in government and public research to the forge of private business, we have worked to deliver large projects and product design cycles successfully for years. We have built products for commercial, defence, manufacturing, scientific and industrial applications. Some of our products have been high valued, low run work and others have been produced in the thousands and tens of thousands. From the most trivial automotive lighting to complex industrial safety sensors and controls subject to testing and certification. We have worked through many requirements and issues for our customers. Now we are making this experience available to you. Great ideas are everywhere, and if you’ve got one of them, we can help you bring it into reality.