The feed
AI + THE MAKER
One person with good tools can now do what used to take a shop full of people — and the tools are changing monthly. This feed tracks what’s happening, and what makers are actually doing with it, so you don’t have to chase twelve websites to keep up.
On the bench. The first digest lands here shortly — then a steady rhythm you can set your shop clock by.
The beat
What we track
Design tools
Words & photos in, drawings out
Text-to-CAD, photo-to-plan, AI drafting — the tools that turn an idea into something a machine can cut. Which ones are real, which are landing pages.
In the shop
What makers are actually doing
Real projects where AI carried weight — and honest accounts of where it fell on its face. Both matter.
The machines
CNC, lasers, printers, robots
Where the intelligence is moving into the machines themselves — toolpaths, probing, vision, setup.
The arguments
The takes worth your time
Craft, authorship, what “handmade” means now — the conversations the community is really having.
House rules
How this feed works
- Our own words. Every item is summarized by us — never copied text.
- Always credited. Every item names and links its source. Good work deserves the click.
- Curated, not scraped. A person decides what’s newsworthy here. If it’s hype, we say so; if we’re wrong, we correct it.
- Maker-first. The test for every item: does this matter to someone with sawdust on their boots?