Candyfab goes live proper

http://www.candyfab.org/

Current CHT work

Turf stool with carpet 18/07/07
Originally uploaded by Zero-waste Design

Have uploaded some pictures of latest stuff (such as this build of an open source design) with Coach House Trust - should be doing more of this in the near future.

Reprap

WebHome < Main < Reprap

"RepRap is short for Replicating Rapid-prototyper. ... RepRap will make plastic, ceramic, or metal parts, and is itself made from plastic parts, so it will be able to make copies of itself. It is a three-axis robot that moves several material extruders. These extruders produce fine filaments of their working material with a paste-like consistency.... The RepRap build cost will be less than $400 US for the bought-in materials, all of which have been selected to be as widely available everywhere in the world as possible. Also, the RepRap software will work on all computer platforms for free. Complete open-source instructions and plans are published on this website for zero cost and available to everyone so, if you want to make one yourself, you can."

Ponoko - Make it Real

Ponoko - Make it Real

"Make things You upload your designs to the Ponoko website and select the materials. Ponoko then makes and delivers the product or product parts. You can use our making process to prototype and perfect your design. Sell things You can post your designs in the Ponoko showroom for people to view and buy. Ponoko can make the product and deliver it direct to the customer. Or it can deliver the product or product parts to you for assembly, finishing and delivery to the customer. And Ponoko makes sure everyone gets paid. So when's it happening? Ponoko is in development and we will launch version 1.0 later this year. In the meantime, we're building a community of beta users and asking them to try Ponoko in its early stages and help test our thinking. It's an exciting project and we'd love to have you take the journey with us."

Tangible mathematical devices/calculators

"Leibniz even suggested that the catenary could be used as a device for calculating logarithms, and "analog" logarithmic table of sorts. "This may help," he said, "since on long trips one may lose his table of logarithms." Was he suggesting that one should carry a chain in his pocket as a backup logarithmic table?"

from e: The Story of a Number by Eli Maor

Leibniz was writing in 1690, and was talking of the relationship between the curve described by a hanging chain (a catenary) and the natural logarithmic base e - a useful but irrational number that presumably can be derived from a catenary curve (the book does not go into detail).

I love this idea of a tangible device that connects person with abstract mathematics, without the distance and encoding/decoding of pen and paper, or a computer, or even a calculator, although these are similarly portable as well. The beaty of these examples, the abacus, a hanging chain, vernier calipers, sextants, slide rules, is that simply through their mechnics, they can help the user understand a mathematical concept, or see first hand how a mathematical concept is relevant to a tangible, physical system. There must be more examples... I mourn the increasing use of the electronic computer at the cost of purely mechanical computers.