Maker Spotlight: Tony Sherwood

where are you located: Springfield, MO.

what is your day job: Web Developer for Adafruit. Before that I worked at WindowFarms and MakerBot.

what makerspace do you attend: Several years ago I started SquidFoo, the first makerspace in Springfield, MO., and have been a friend of Hammerspace Workshop in Kansas City, MO. since 2010.

What kinds of stuff do you make?

I am a life-long generalist. I like to know how to do as many things as possible, so I have been collecting skills as often as I can afford to devote time to them. I have dabbled in woodworking, electronics, sewing, photography, gardening, cooking, metalworking, resin casting, 3D printing, EVA foam, CNC routing, knitting, and a whole bunch of other random skills.

How did you get started making stuff?

My family has always been into making. I spent my childhood helping my dad with projects and taking apart anything I could get my hands on to find out how it worked.

What is something you’ve made that really stands out, that you’re proud of?

It would probably be my wooden D&D table which contains a 4K television for displaying maps.

I am also pretty proud of the half-scale arcade cabinet that I built for my son back when I lived in Queens.

Any advice for people reading this?

Publish or perish. I don’t publish my projects often because I don’t feel that they are up to the level that I’d like them to be, especially given that for the past decade I’ve been fortunate enough to hang around some of the biggest names in the maker community and see all the projects that they’ve been making. Don’t do that. It’ll cause you to complete projects less often, and then your growth as a maker will be much slower because you aren’t practicing as much. Make a hundred crappy projects as fast as you can, and publish them the minute you’re done with them. They will get better faster if you make more of them.