The Story of SiegeWorkStudio

SiegeWorkStudio.com was founded in March 2005 by Bryan T. Jones, a seasoned engineer with a lifelong love of programming and a deep curiosity for robotics, automation, and design. The business began as a side hustle—strategically planned and passionately pursued—intended to generate extra income for a growing family while expanding hands-on capabilities in CNC manufacturing and technical design.

With years of experience in mechanical engineering and product development, Bryan had long used programming as both a personal passion and a professional superpower. From his teenage years forward, coding was a constant companion—powering hobby projects and driving new levels of efficiency, automation, and problem-solving throughout his engineering career.

In 2005, he saved the capital needed for his venture by doing after-hours CAD work, eventually purchasing a full-scale 4x8-ft Shop-Bot CNC Router along with CAM software and a dedicated shop computer. The goal was simple but ambitious: to blend mechanical engineering, hands-on fabrication, and algorithmic thinking into a platform for both experimentation and practical value.

An Unexpected Hit!

The name “SiegeWorkStudio” was inspired by an unexpected success story. Early on, Bryan designed a small-scale trebuchet kit—a medieval siege engine—as a fun project. After listing it on eBay, it quickly became a surprise hit with educators, hobbyists, and STEM enthusiasts. That playful yet technically robust product symbolized exactly what the studio aimed to do: combine creativity, mechanics, and craftsmanship in a way that sparks curiosity and delivers value. The name stuck—and SiegeWorkStudio was born.

The Quiet Evolution (2005–2020)

Over this 15-year span, SiegeWorkStudio evolved into a quietly prolific innovation lab—serving as both a technical playground and a commercial launchpad. Key activities and accomplishments during this phase included:

  • Trebuchet Kit with Six Sigma Training: The studio’s signature trebuchet kit, originally a playful success on eBay, was later bundled with a Six Sigma: Design of Experiments (DOE) training module. It became a popular educational tool—used by instructors to teach statistical methods through physical experimentation, bridging mechanical design with process optimization.

  • Puzzle Furniture Product Line: Developed and sold a line of tool-free “puzzle furniture” targeting startups and college dorms. The pieces featured a unique interlocking design that allowed for tool-less assembly and disassembly, with each part locking the previous in place. The result was furniture that was professional in appearance, highly versatile, and could flat-pack for easy transport and storage.

  • 3D Carved Sign Production: Designed and produced custom 3D carved signs for businesses, events, and individuals, combining precise CNC routing with aesthetic craftsmanship to deliver visually striking, durable signage.

  • Industrial Wall Panel System: Engineered and fabricated a modular industrial wall panel system sold to contractors for installation in garages of new residential developments. The system featured CNC-milled panels mounted to structural walls using standoff brackets, along with a full range of modular accessories—hooks, shelves, bag holders, and cabinets—enabling pegboard-like functionality at an industrial scale.

  • Prototyping and Small-Batch Manufacturing: Provided design, fabrication, and short-run production services using the in-house Shop-Bot CNC router. Projects ranged from fixtures and models to niche mechanical components.

  • Custom Engineering Tools and Automation: Leveraged software development expertise to build internal tools that automated CAM processes, generated parametric geometries, and optimized design iterations—enhancing productivity and enabling engineering complexity beyond typical small-shop capabilities.

  • Foundation of Computational Engineering Practice: Many projects during this time blended traditional engineering with custom-coded simulations, scriptable geometry, and early forms of algorithmic design—prefiguring the studio’s later evolution into a computational engineering consultancy.

Even while holding demanding roles in the automotive and consumer product sectors, Bryan continued to use SiegeWorkStudio as a sandbox for invention, integrating custom code with real-world fabrication and modeling to stay on the cutting edge.

A Full-Time Pivot (2020 and Beyond)

In November 2020, following a career shift, Bryan turned SiegeWorkStudio into a full-time engineering and consulting business. Today, the studio provides services in:

  • Engineering design and consulting

  • CNC-based prototyping and fabrication

  • Computational design and simulation

  • Algorithmic modeling and AI-enhanced problem-solving

At the heart of the studio is a commitment to Computational Engineering—an interdisciplinary approach that fuses classical mechanical engineering with software development and intelligent systems to solve today’s most complex challenges.

SiegeWorkStudio is the product of vision, curiosity, and a career built at the intersection of code and craft. It stands as both a workshop and a think tank—serving clients who need more than parts or plans, but innovative, system-level solutions born from real engineering experience and computational thinking.