Mechnics Alive!

I went to see the Mechanics Alive! exhibition, by the Cabaret mechanical Theatre, at the Scotland Street School in Glagsow yesterday. More info here.

It's a great show, plenty of automata to have a go at, although presumably for the safety of the exhibits they are all housed in perspex and operated by push button and motor, which for me takes away some of the enjoyment. So the operator cannot enjoy that direct connection between their movement and the movement of the automaton, however needless to say, one can still enjoy the dynamics of the mechanism and the beautiful finishes. I thoroughly recommend checking it out, and there's a long video featuring the likes of Tim Hunkin as well as the 6 or so featured artists in teh exhibition (inc. my fave Paul Spooner). There are also some great books out and some posters explaining different mechanisms for the novices.

A statement

via Superflux

Open Craft

I have won Scottish Arts Council Funding for a residency at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art. The residency begins in September and is part of the Past, Present and Future Craft Practice project.

Cardboard circuitry

Just came across this article on making circuits on cardboard, posted by Ricardo Webbens, a member of a hacker group called Altlab in Lisbon, Portugal.

This would be of great use as a bit of source - you can directly print out your schematic to make the circuit..

via open materials via Superflux

Fablabs Glasgow

I have set up a google group for those in Glasgow interested in setting up a Fablab. All are welcome to join here:
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/glasgowfablabs

I have been getting in touch with anyone I think might be interested, most useful has been finally getting more to grips with the Electron Club who have a new site here and have given the Fablabs project a page here.

We will be having a presentation/discussion about Fablabs at the Electron Club open day on 13th June, hopefully we can devise a plan of action as a group and get the ball rolling.

Makerbot and Thingiverse Musing on Open Design

This post is proud to have been syndicated to the Ponoko blog.



This post is proud to have been syndicated to the Ponoko blog.



Both Alan at Thingiverse and the team at Makerbot have been blogging most prolifically and interestingly on all things open design, including:

1. What the implications are for standards - will we be able to update mechanical standards like snapfits and screwcaps with simply a software update or patch?

2. Re-using CNC or laser cut offcuts - Get your screenprinter pal round for a drink and subtly direct him towards those annoyingly surplus squares of technoply.

[caption id="attachment_4030" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Makerbot's offcut screenprints. Image via Makerbot's Flickrstream"][/caption]

Now, I know what you're saying: "I'm not cool enough to be friends with a screenprinter, or indeed someone who does screenprinting!". Well, maybe you could work some patterns or artwork into the waste areas of your lasercutting file as a starter, using a Creative Commons image search as a starter, or perhaps using Context Free you could make variable design for each batch..

3. The natural link between personal fabrication and Long Tail economics:

"The argument that personal fabrication cannot compete with big production hinges on the notion that most people don’t need low-volume objects ... But really, practically everyone does." blogs Allan Ecker

I don't think the significance of this idea can be under emphasised: Design is both a personal and subjective thing, and an objective thing. Personal fabrication serves our desire for the perfect products for us as individuals, and I don't mean simply that it allows us to design our own objects: It opens up markets for designers to design for the small, niche areas, the long tails. And together with open design, we can share the objective elements of a design, such as the standard snap fits for example. We can have our (cup)cake and eat it!

Alan at Thingiverse is particularly adept at this kind of divergent thinking, categorising such posts under the title Future Watch, including musings on the potential of 3D printed Poly-lactic Acid for implantable devices. Loving it.

Niftymitter

OK, so I thought it was time to kick off a new Zero-waste project:
FM transmission.

I went to a great workshop by Tetsuo Kogawa which brought the idea of building my own FM transmitter back into my head - I tried this one a couple of years ago with very poor results. However Kogawa really got me excited and he had a wonderful way with the 15 or so people who came to his workshop at the CCA. He was demonstrating his Simplest FM Transmitter which is a really simple design and an easy make for the most novice of novices - with his copper-clad board method you don't even have to be any good at soldering to do it!

Right, so we know that everyone likes short range FM radio transmitters for tuning into their iPod in the car. Kogawa uses them for sound art. With a mic, they make good wee walky talkies or perhaps baby monitors. And lastly as my uncle has shown, they're good for replacing a PA in a concert situation as a more gentle, distributed, way of transferring sound.

So I'd like to make a small unit that could serve all these purposes one way or another. And its going to be open, electronics, mechanics and all.

Here's a picture of the first one I soldered up from Kogawa's plans - it works! As you can see the thing is the size of a 9V battery. Nifty.

Dr. Neil Gershenfeld speaks in Manchester on Fablabs

This post is proud to have been syndicated to the Ponoko blog.

Also while in Manchester last week I had the pleasure of attending a forum discussion on Fablabs, the MIT instigated open workshop platform. The morning was hosted by the well kept secret that is the Manufacturing Institute, the UK's national charity for promoting and educating about manufacturing - also a player in bringing about the UK's first fablab, to be sited in East Manchester.

The MI brought together Dr. Neil Gershenfeld of MIT's Centre for Bits and Atoms, representatives of the MI and of industrial sponsors, the regeneration director for New East Manchester, as well as, via video conference, 3 different Fablabs across Europe and Dr. Adrian Bowyer of the Reprap project (and the University of Bath). It was a very interesting morning, mostly to hear Gershenfeld and Bowyer speak, and to see just how many and how varied the existing Fablabs are.

[caption id="attachment_3955" align="aligncenter" width="215" caption="Dr. Neil Gershenfeld, photographed at Etech by James Duncan Davidson"][/caption]

Dr. Gershenfeld started by introducing the Centre for Bits and Atoms, and launched straight into a rather mind boggling animation depicting a protein-like string of particles, which, when programmed with a code, would gradually wriggle into the form of a wrench. Then, disassembled and re-programmed, into a hammer! This had the effect, I realised later, of both exciting and subsequently disappointing those in the audience less familiar with digital fabrication as they realised that this technology would not be available in their debut fablab in the very near future. But man it was cool.

What came across really strongly through both Gershenfeld and Bowyer were the links between digital fabrication and not only biology (Reprap is a reproducing machine after all), but economics and sociology. Both academics are engaged in biomimetics, and see digital fabrication, a) as an evolutionary thing and, b) as one that is approaching and should be inspired by natural models.

The Fablab is a workshop that provides open access to digital fabrication tools to all for free, and this model appears to work more efficiently than schools and universities for learning these topics - indeed the first one arose out of MIT's How to Make Anything course, basically a workshop course that took on a life of its own. Gershenfeld points out that as technology develops so quickly , we really should know how to use these tools before even getting to university, but that links between Fablabs and schools have historically floundered: they function much better as a community resource - like a library for making. Gershenfeld also kept coming back to five inter-related effects of Fablabs that can not be separated:

Empowerment - Education - Problem Solving - Job Creation - Invention

It made me think that these are all areas that can really help people in a variety of situations, for all sorts of reasons. At the end of the day, Fablabs are about making stuff, and making stuff, informally, on their own terms is good for people.

Finally, both academics emphasised that digital fabrication really redefines the divisions of labour - whether it be by removing designers and manufacturers, or erasing the lines between design, production and use. "Digital fabrication is good for personal fabrication - for making products for a market of one person ... mass production is for the least interesting things."

Incidentally, I'd really like to link up with others in Glasgow who would be interested in setting up a Fablab, do respond below if you have any comments. The Fab Foundation is a better source of info, and there is a site for Fablabs user in Fabfolk.com.

Update: Imran Ali also has a good post up about the Manchester forum discussion.

A Visit to Lazerian, Manchester's CNC Wizards - Part 2

This post is proud to have been syndicated to the Ponoko blog.



continued from yesterday..

An atmosphere of relaxed experimentation, and play, is apparent in Lazerian's workshop - although Liam's collaborators Richard and Jason are silently engrossed in their making, the place is festooned with prototypes and work in progress, and there is a sense of productivity not being a chore, more of a happy coincidence.

[caption id="attachment_3880" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The guys at Lazerian: Richard, Jason and Liam"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3881" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Making up some of Lazerian's handmade jewellery range"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3882" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Some Lazerian jewellery in progress"][/caption]

Jason is busy cutting polypropylene rings for bangles by hand. A seemingly laborious process, but apparently yielding much better results than the same process tried with the CNC - down to the rough edges from milling, as compared to the smoothness of a clean scalpel cut.

Lazerian sell a great deal online, through their custom designed website. About 70% of business comes from direct sales online and through selected outlets, and the rest from commissions. The day that I am there the team are busy preparing for 100% Design in London, featuring some of Richard's paper constructions on a grand scale. Curiously enough, I first encountered Richard years ago by happening across his Flickr site, showcasing his quite unbelievable aptitude with paper. Hopkins tells me that there is a good community of artists and designers in Manchester (he used to work in much closer proximity with such others but felt it more productive to be a bit more isolated!). He has no desire for the pull to London, and is very keen to keep production local in Britain, hence the studio's commitment to making as much in house as possible. It is admirable, and not an easy thing to achieve in isolation but something they clearly thrive on.

I was surprised by Lazerian - I think I expected them to be a bunch of tech-headed furniture makers, but what I found was an amicable bunch of makers concerned above all with physical experimentation. For Lazerian, the tools are a means to an end, their creative use of CNC coming out of completely separate, quite traditional design aims. Refreshing.