Pass It On: Connecting Contemporary Do-It-Yourself Culture.

I recently stumbled across the online remnants of what looks like a really interesting exhibition Curated by Anne Dorothee Boehme, Lindsay Bosch and Kevin Henry at the The Averill and Bernard Leviton A + D Gallery in mid 2007.

Pass It On! Connecting Contemporary DIY Culture ; examines the do-it-yourself ethos that encourages artists, designers and cultural thinkers to produce and create work outside mainstream and commercial systems. The show is similar in spirit to the international exhibition Massive Change that explored ethical and social issues through the display of designed objects . With participants bearing names like Hacking Couture, Graffiti Research Laboratories, Sewing Rebellion and Microrevolt there is no question that the DIY movement was/is delving into diverse political and social territory.
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Posted in Duann Scott, Interviews, Thoughts + Opinions, Maker Movement, Tools + Apps by Duann | Comments are off for this post

Make your own stuff using: App Gateway

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20 Dizzying Designs

It’s New Year’s Eve and heads will soon be spinning! So start the New Year with spirals, swirls, laser-cut loops and concentric circles. Twenty designs from fashion and jewelry to toys and tools after the jump.

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Posted in Fashion + Textiles, Functional Art + Objects, Furniture + Lighting, Jewellery, Kristen Turner, Laser Cutting, Maker Stories, Toys + Games by Kristen Turner | Comments are off for this post

Make your own stuff using: Laser Cutting

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make your own game

Spikenzie Labs is sharing the design files of a sleek take on the classic game Connect Four over at Thingiverse. The stand and two sets of checkers can be made from 5 sheets of acrylic. Maker Mark Demers shows off his version in blue, black, white, and translucent. Totally museum store worthy!

via Make

Posted in Downloadable, Kristen Turner, Laser Cutting, Toys + Games by Kristen Turner | Comments are off for this post

Make your own stuff using: Laser Cutting

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UC Berkeley student creates DASH

The cockroach is a notorious survivor, and the latest robot from the Biomimetic Millisystems Lab at University of California Berkeley is following in the insect’s six footsteps. Built by graduate student Paul Birkmeyer, the Dynamic Autonomous Sprawled Hexpod aka DASH is laser-cut from a single sheet of polymer sandwiched between two pieces of cardboard. It can be made for less than fifty dollars and put together in under sixty minutes. The completed robot can scurry across the surfaces, climb objects, and survive plummets of 28 meters.

Professor Ron Fearing, head of the lab, believes that further work on DASH will result in even more durable and capable robots that can act as first responders in situations of disaster and crisis considered too dangerous for people.

This 3 minute video shows DASH in action.

via robots.net via SF Gate

Posted in Electronics + Robotics, Kristen Turner, Laser Cutting, Technology, Toys + Games by Kristen Turner | Comments are off for this post

Make your own stuff using: Laser Cutting

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Sculptor Jon Barlow Hudson has received a commission to design the Miami Valley Firefighters Memorial. Tens of thousands of dollars have been raised by the local community to start construction on the public work entitled ‘Fire Wall’.

The memorial will not be the typical heroic bronze. The design of ‘Fire Wall’ features the silhouette of a fireman laser-cut from the aluminum tread plate from a firetruck and the names of deceased firefighters engraved on triangular walls.

via Dayton Daily News

Jump ahead for photos of Hudson’s previous accomplishments.

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Posted in Architecture, Art, Design, Kristen Turner, Laser Cutting by Kristen Turner | Comments are off for this post

Make your own stuff using: Laser Cutting

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Discussing Bruce Sterling on Authenticity with CNC Enabled Design

In a recent article in Make Magazine Volume 11 entitled Router Aesthetics, Bruce Sterling discusses the current wave of designs that are emerging that come straight from the CNC router, without any pretense to represent traditional carpentry methods of construction. The honesty of construction being essential to realizing the design with its layered, slots and tabs being compared favorably to 8-bit game graphics. The 90’s fascination with the ‘blobject’ giving way to an edgier, planar design aesthetic.

Using the CNC in a pure way means thinking of it as a completely different tool to a panel saw, tenon saw, drill, spindle molder whatever and using it for what it is. We previously mentioned on the Ponoko blog the project by Flexible Stream, where they are sharing 50 digital wood joints including the actual files needed, along with a PDF of instructions, and examples of use, all under a Creative Commons, Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence.

The fact Prof. Jochen Gros and Designer Friedrich Sulzer are sharing these techniques is another movement away from the pre-industrial concepts of keeping a trade secret, to stop outsiders/amateurs from making their own. Now as the CNC process becomes more accessible via 100k Garages and similar initiatives, sharing this information with ‘amateurs’ becomes all the more empowering. The aesthetic that is generated should quickly become more fractured and diverse, along with the complexity of construction techniques (and software) used.

I think this is one of the most exciting products of the democratization of the tools of design, diversity. If we want the same product aesthetic all around the western world we can go to Ikea.

If we want originality, diversity and innovation, let’s unleash the tools of manufacture.

oh yeah, is Bruce’s (C)lamp influenced by, or an influencer of Router Aesthetics??

Posted in CNC Routing, Duann Scott, Furniture + Lighting, Interviews, Thoughts + Opinions, Technology by Duann | Comments are off for this post

Make your own stuff using: CNC Routing

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Bridging atoms and bits into cohesive interactive systems……

TEI, the conference on tangible, embedded, and embodied interaction, is about HCI, design, interactive art, user experience, tools and technologies, with a strong focus on how computing can bridge atoms and bits into cohesive interactive systems.

The work presented at TEI addresses HCI issues, design, interactive art, user experience, tools and technologies, with a strong focus on how computing can finally bridge atoms and bits into cohesive interactive systems. The intimate size of this single-track conference provides a unique forum for exchanging ideas and presenting innovative work through talks, interactive exhibits, demos, hands-on studios, posters, art installations and performances.

Check out the amazing program here….

Paper Session 1: Bridging the Physical and Digital Worlds
Monday January 25th, 8:30 – 10:00 am

Paper Session 2: Toolkits and Enabling Technologies
Monday January 25th, 2:00 – 4:00 pm

Paper Session 3: Physical Interaction, Perspectives, and Design Techniques
Tuesday January 26th, 9:30 am – 12:00 pm

Paper Session 4: Materials, Garments, and Light
Wednesday January 27th, 9:30 – 11:00 am

Paper Session 5: Learning through Physical Interaction
Wednesday January 27th, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm

Demos
Monday January 25th, 4:00 – 7:00 pm

Apparently Shopbot will be presenting Introduction to Subtractive Digital Fabrication… Check out the program for more

Posted in Duann Scott, Events by Duann | Comments are off for this post

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laser-cut golf apparel

Nike has incorporated strategic laser-cut designs to enhance player performance in their Sphere Macro React line of men and women’s golf apparel. The techy shirts feature laser-cut vents that open when the player sweats and close when dry. This kind of uber-functionality strikes me as particularly biomimetic.

For more on the evolution of textiles, check out my earlier post “Textiles and Biomimicry.”

via fibre2fashion

Posted in Design, Fashion + Textiles, Kristen Turner, Laser Cutting by Kristen Turner | Comments are off for this post

Make your own stuff using: Laser Cutting

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The news is a couple weeks old, but I thought I would let the Ponoko world know that I.D. Magazine, the oldest product design magazine in the US, is calling it quits after 55 years. The final issue will be out in January.

The official release listed the dwindling print ad revenue, the specialized needs of I.D.’s readers, and the wealth of information available for free as reasons for closing publication. I can understand the disappointment; I was a little let down when Domino folded. But the only time I ever buy a magazine is when my flight is unexpectedly delayed.

I’m always tempted — at the grocery store, wandering Barnes&Noble. And every time I think “I could get that online for free.” I even have a basket full of fashion, design, and interior images I took off the web and printed in good quality on my Epson. The funny thing is, I would actually prefer to flip the pages of a magazine than scroll those of a website. If magazines were free, I would support them! : )

Any thoughts? Does the demise of the print industry bother you? Do you think we are losing more than just a physical medium of information? Or do you welcome the shift to digital and (mostly) free sources?

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by RandomWalkDesignLab

This happy creature maybe shouldn’t be. He’s a broken branch on the evolutionary tree. Sea monster, dinosaur, walrus? What is he exactly? One things for sure, he makes a damn good lamp. Available in black and white.

Interestingly this is a self-assembly item and directions will be included but they also recommend a couple of easy to get products to use in conjunction with the laser cut part, along with a video of assembly.

You will need to purchase a simple fixture to use inside the monster. The Ikea Hemma cord set is recommended, You will also need to purchase a low wattage, low heat bulb that will fit inside the monster. An LED bulb from LEDtronics is recommended

Oh, and check out it’s brother the Hopeful Monster, a table lamp.

RandomWalkDesignLab aka Chris Niederer is a designer located in Brooklyn, NY. Check out his blog that includes an interesting recent project for the Decompression event in NYC. The Dinoball is a cross between a teacup fairground ride and a teeter totter, The Instability of Form (aka Dinoball) is an interactive sculpture. It has three dinosaur heads mounted on it, and the riders’ collective motion can lean it back and forth encouraging one dinosaur over another. (The piece can also be spun on wheels) The three heads express the continuity and instability of forms in nature as they evolve. Each one is slightly different, and the circular nature of the piece asks the question: “which came first, the chicken or the dinosaur egg?”

Weird and cool.

Posted in Duann Scott, Furniture + Lighting, Laser Cutting, Maker Stories, Toys + Games by Duann | Comments are off for this post

Make your own stuff using: Laser Cutting

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