J.D. Sassaman is a hands-on maker, architectural designer, and craftsman. Her work ranges from building traditional hand planes to producing digitally routed furniture, from interactive exhibits to adaptive housing proposals. At Autodesk, J.D. runs the Pier 9 Workshop and has helped build this world-class lab for experimentation and exploration which opened in 2013. Pier 9 Workshop brings together artists, designers, engineers, and thinkers to push the limits of what both our hardware and software can do. The workshop facilitates projects from many teams within Autodesk, teaching more than 25 unique machine training courses and welcome almost 1000 visitors a month. With the Artists in Residence Program, the creative community is developing into an anomalous and inspiring movement that embraces failure in the creative process, shares skills, and inspires others to discover the joys of experiential making.