DC Collasius
I started here at WHOI 18 years ago now. I went to a vocational high school for machining technology. After I graduated, I went to a semester in college, and realized it wasn't for me at the time. And so I applied at WHOI to be a shop service assistant, which is a position that goes through each shop and you can kind of figure out what you’re best suited for.
Since I already had a machining background, I kind of just followed suit there and worked my way up through the ladder of the Machine Shop. And then, about seven years ago, I was asked to run the new innovation area, called Dunkworks, because I already had 3D printing experience from working in the Machine Shop.
Now I'm in this wonderful new building, the George & Wendy David Center for Ocean Innovation, with a whole shop of my own and a fabrication lab connected. It’s probably the best playground ever.
Dunkworks is a rapid prototyping space that WHOI opened up to help further new innovations. Engineers come to us with new designs they want to prototype. They want to do that fast, cheap, and easy– and not spend a ton of money on something that's going to go wrong in the long run. So they'll prototype it on our 3D printers here, and then we can go produce the final products in our FabLab, a fabrication lab with lathes and milling machines and CNC equipment.
The best part is, we can make their ideas come to fruition just by using our machining skills. You just start with a block of material, and then you pretty much uncover the part that you're making. It's completely custom. If it needs a quick modification, we can quickly make it happen and get that idea to its final output.