Meet the team
Our friendly team love helping people with their projects.
Cesar Vargas-Tuerlings
Sessions Coordinator
Cesar (pronounced say-za) has been a passionate maker all his life. He likes to think of himself as a jack of all trades; he has over eleven years of experience making (and breaking) things, and is always more than happy to help out.
Cesar (pronounced say-za) has been a passionate maker all his life. He likes to think of himself as a jack of all trades; he has over eleven years of experience making (and breaking) things, and is always more than happy to help out.
Since long before he could remember, he’s been curious about how things work. This, of course, evolved into discovering for himself how things work, usually with the help of a screwdriver, a hammer, and a good set of pliers. This love of taking things apart and putting them back together has taken many forms over the last few years: winning the national EPro8 competition, making it to the finals in Vex Robotics, building replica props and costumes from movies and games, or spending far too long over-engineering solutions to very easy problems.
He’s been volunteering at Tinkd for almost as long as it’s been open. He can usually be found lurking near the 3D printers or the laser cutter, and always more than happy to talk about the space, the machines in it, and any of the (many) projects that he has going on.
He’s currently working on building a life-sized R2-D2 replica, so keep an eye out for that.
Rachael Pratt
Project Coordinator
Rachael works on several projects for STEM Wana and looks after the booking and membership system for Tinkd. She can also be found at our maker events helping to deliver hands-on taster sessions for the community as well as supporting the monthly Repair Café.
Andrew Parker
Volunteer Sessions Coordinator
Andrew is a born maker and father of 3 boys.
He has a wide variety of skills and tries to be as helpful as possible. If you have a project you would like to discuss, pop in and see us. Remember. Ideas become things.
Jim Breault
Volunteer Sessions Coordinator
Jim has grown up with making and breaking things all his life. From a very early age he was taught to use tools to fix and build anything that the family owned.
He’s been building homes for the past seven years in New Zealand and about 15 years back in the states in some sort of capacity. He also owned a landscape company for a few years when he was 17.
Jim always has a project on the go, big or small and has worn many hats over many careers, cars (repairing and restoring), woodworking, sewing, electrics, metal working, welding, composites (i.e fibreglass and Carbon Fibre) , painting cars and fixing heavy machinery.
He really enjoys assisting others with their projects and likes to teach people skills they may be curious about. His thirst for learning new technology will never end and he’s looking forward to learning all he can as the world changes.
Tia Lush
Resident Maker
Tia loves working on multiple projects simultaneously. Her (current) favourite piece of equipment is the laser cutter. She’s holding out for a wet area so that she can experiment with screen-printing and ceramics and messy making.
Steven Vincent
Founder – Tinkd
Steven is a Master Tinker and holds a black belt in bulk buying. He’s never too far away from Tinkd and is responsible for all the plants, tech, and small 3D printed tubs that scatter the space.