The eclectic courses at Artisan’s Asylum are part of a wave of new education initiatives locally that compete with traditional adult ed centers or continuing education programs on college campuses. These initiatives try to be quicker in developing courses around new technologies, and they often recruit working professionals, instead of lifelong educators, as teachers. One of the robotics instructors at Artisan’s Asylum, for instance, works by day at Boston Dynamics, which designs sophisticated walking robots for the military