MakerPlace provides the tools, software and space…you bring creativity and innovation. See what three local woodworkers make using Cali Bamboo DIY Plywood.

Laura >> It comes as no surprise that Cali Bamboo’s plywood is ideal for creating basically any product that is traditionally made out of wood. Now recently, we’ve learned that several of our bamboo plywood customers make their creations at somewhere called MakerPlace. Which lead us to wonder — what is MakerPlace?

Michael >> Maker Place operates pretty much like a 24 Hour Fitness or your typical gym model where it’s a membership — a monthly membership. We also have yearly memberships. We started this back in December of last year just as a place where people have a workshop and have access to big tools that they normally wouldn’t have access to. Otherwise, the overhead cost to get these things developed would be too much and people would never be able to see it through.

Alex >> Hi, I’m Alex, the creator of the bamboo lunch box. It’s a project me and my friend came up because of our love of sustainability and lunch. Everybody has great memories of lunch and recess in school and they always remember their lunch box. And everybody had cool characters and good memories of it, so we kinda took the Japanese-style Bento box and American-style lunch box. Mashed it together and we’re hopefully coming out with awesome different creations with limited edition art series at bamboolunchbox.com.

Mike >> My name’s Mike Lucero. I developed the Backsedator about twelve years ago, thirteen years ago. And what it is is an acupressure board, that’s basically a natural pain reliever, muscle relaxer and muscle balancer all in one. This is the AccuHook, and what it really is is the back board hits up to a certain point. The AccuHook works from that point on, so it’s really designed to work from your cervical region, ok up your spine, up to the base of your skull. And then back out from your trapezius, back on up through the cervical region of the neck. So it goes off the same thing – Meridian Line therapy and pressure point application.

Ryan >> This is what we call The Cash Box. It’s a bamboo i-powered point of sale built with all natural materials and earth-friendly bamboo, earth-friendly leather. It uses the iPad. It’s got a thermal printer built into it. It’s got a cash drawer built into it. And it’s got this really nifty mechanism where the cashier can ring up the order, swipe the customer’s credit card, send the iPad over to the customer, the screen rotates around, they use their finger to sign. We discovered Cali Bamboo and it kind of opened our eyes to a whole other world. And with these bamboo plywoods we can treat this bamboo as if it was regular old plywood, and cut it and stain it and oil it, and do whatever we were going to do to wood to this bamboo. And you get these really amazing lustrous finishes. It’s unique, it’s different, and it allows you to market the product on the whole eco side of the world.

Alex >> At Maker Place I have access to all kinds of equipment that I wouldn’t normally have, and allows me to do really cool creative stuff that I would only be able to dream of without Maker Place.