Where is the Caltech Student Shop?
The student shop is on the Caltech campus in the Central Engineering Services building. See Map
Am I eligible to join the student shop?
Current Caltech undergraduates, graduate students, staff, faculty, and alumni as well as JPL staff can join the shop. Family members of these people, retired staff, and JPL contractors/subcontractors are not eligible.
What are the current membership fees and how can I pay them?All fees are on a per-term basis. They are:
- Current Caltech students: 20$/term.
- Everyone else: $80/YEAR if you sign up for a full year at the beginning of the school year; otherwise, $30/term.
No. The student shop is meant for people to work on personal projects that they otherwise wouldn't have the resources for. If you need to do shop work, consider using a departmental shop. Examples of acceptable uses of the shop are:
- A personal wood/metal project
- A senior thesis
- Ditch Day construction
We can't allow non-members to use equipment in the shop. We are a community-based shop and we encourage people who are interested in being part of the shop to join. Allowing people to come in and use the shop one time has often encouraged carelessness in the past.
I don't know how to use certain equipment. Can the student shop train me?For the metal shop, every member must have prior experience in a machine shop. This includes the ME 71 course or an equivalent at another school. Also, the Caltech ME shop offers a mill/lathe safety course every spring - talk to John Van Deusen in the subbasement of Spalding. Unfortunately, the Student Shop has limited resources, and we cannot teach people basic operation of the machines. Also, we cannot risk having unexperienced people using our machines.
Do the card readers read JPL badges?No, the card readers only work with CIT ID cards. This means that in order to join the shop you will have to get a CIT ID Card. This is described in the Join Section.
I need to use a tool that is not in the student shop. Is there a way to get this tool?Yes, we have to spend your membership dues on something! Just
email a request to 
. If it is not
too expensive or obscure we will probably
say yes.
The Student Shop website was designed primarily with the Mozilla Firefox browser. While compatibility with various browsers is a concern, there is limited ability to check less common browsers, and both Internet Explorer and Firefox should work. There have been reports that the site does not render in Safari.
Can we borrow/check out tools from the student shop?To borrow a tool you must obtain explicit permission from a
committee member. Send requests to .
This policy is
being imposed due to many tools that have not been returned in the past.