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by Matt in Blog, Featured, Thoughts Tags: addendum, advice, audio, chat, craft, further reading, history, interview, magazine, make, makezine, more info, podcast, projects, skype, talk, tutorials, webcast on April 19, 2012
Recently I was interviewed by Make Magazine for their series Meet the Makers. You can listen to the podcast here. What follows is some extra links, photos, and resources that help illustrate the projects I mentioned in the interview.
I was incredibly flattered when Mark Frauenfelder asked me if I wanted to be one of the makers interviewed for the MAKE Podcast. I jumped at the chance. Now, having concluded the interview just a few minutes ago I wanted to share some links to the projects I mentioned, offer up a little further reading, and provide downloads for the open source designs I alluded to during my chat with Mark.
- This is the tensegrity structure I built as a class project ever so long ago. It’s made of cotton string and 3/16″ dowels and supports a 1/2″ steel ball bearing exactly 24″ off the ground.
Here is a picture of the metal rod tensegrity structure I mentioned. Here’s a photo of the load bearing one that was a class project way back in college.
I talked for a bit about Smooth-On, the company that makes a whole bunch of mold making and casting projects, and how they had a tutorial on getting a metal look using cast plastic and metalized powder. I’ve found the relevant section inside one of their Youtube videos here. You might also want to look into the SFX powder pigment Pearl-Ex for playing with adding cool colors and effects into your casting/sculpting projects.
If you’d like to find out more about my huge mobile pipe organ project, The Anywhere Organ, you can find pictures up on Flickr, a running record of the progress I’m making up on its Tumblr, video of it in action here, and downloads for the design on Thingiverse. More »
by Matt in Blog, Featured, Thoughts Tags: blog club, blogging, development, goal check, management, motivation, organization, planning, purpose, taste on April 12, 2012
So, guilt is a powerful motivating force in my life. I’m pretty adept at performing complex mental ninjutsu on myself to weasel my way out of things I should be doing, that are good for me, but I’ve got no burning desire to do. Take flossing, for example. It’s a trivial task that has a pretty substantial benefit in terms of reducing the guilt I feel about generally boycotting my teeth after losing my retainer some time towards the end of high school, and reducing the number of days per week brushing a bit too hard yields slasher fiction levels of upsetting sink imagery. Yet, there’s a routine I’ve developed to work myself around and out of the desire to floss. It’s like taking a mental detour around my sense of duty and pragmatism which usually arrives at the junction of dorking around on the internet and checking my email.
This is why I create structures outside of myself for enforcing the things I want to nail down, and shunning the stuff I want to get rid of. The way I see it, the distance between an action you want to perform and the final result is a kind of switchboard. Some of the terminals are in your brain, some are in the outside world. Your own willpower is one of many factors influencing what can actually get done, and it’s a fragile, fallible, and prone to fatigue, as one famously counter intuitive study proved. Relying on it alone is a mug’s game. More »
by Matt in Blog, Featured, Thoughts Tags: abandoned crap, adventure, building hacking, danger, discovery, intrusion, mystery, photo, social engineering, urban exploration, urban spelunking on April 5, 2012
A ferris wheel with dinosaur shown for scale in Spreepark, Berlin.
Urban spelunking, urban exploration, or building hacking (whatever you prefer) is absurdly fun, intensely rewarding, and just a shade dangerous. It’s simply finding isolated, unexplored, or abandoned places, and taking a look. I don’t think the adventure is complete without taking photos to share what you’ve discovered, but it isn’t essential to the process. I’d like to take a moment to try and convince you of the incredible potential of actually stepping inside that abandoned insane asylum you pass on the highway every day going to work. I’m also going to give you a primer on how to get in to these spots, what to do once you’re there, how to keep yourself safe, and the kind of tech you’ll want to bring along if you’re intent on gathering some fantastic photos.
I got my start in urban spelunking as a kid, exploring a plot of abandoned lots that were once going to become suburban homes. I can recall making up stories about the strange stuff the gaggle of kids I rode bikes with and I found while poking around trailers and peeking into the dark houses that skirted the railroad tracks. There was a bare patch of ground in a glade that had charred and melted bits of tracksuit welded to the dirt in places. We all thought it clearly outlined the shape of a body, that of a kid our age. We spun that one up into wild tales of suburban pranks gone wrong, bottle rockets up butts, and spontaneous combustion. It was intensely fun. More »
by Matt in Blog, Thoughts Tags: advice, building, diy, documentation, maker, making, photography, tutorial, tutorialization, video on March 29, 2012
Early on in my days as a maker, I really struggled with documenting and publishing projects. Almost everything I make starts life as something I wanted to build, something I wanted the experience of playing with. Most often I build because building things is gratifying in and of itself, and the other aspects (recognition, money, internet fame) are ancillary. However, only ever being beholden to myself made for some pretty shoddy documentation. I have few if any photographs of my projects from college and my record of things before that is more or less nonexistent. Over time I’ve discovered that a huge motivating factor for me getting things well documented, taking time out to photograph a project in progress, and updating my records, is having other eyes on me. Having other people witness my work validates it, gives it context, and creates a network of fascinating relationships and interactions that help fuel the next piece.
I don’t think I need to emphasize how important documentation is. Objects have a nasty habit of being pretty solid and aren’t often seen hurtling through cables at the speed of information. I know, Thingiverse is neat, but if you truly want to convey the awesomeness of something to another human, it’s infinitely more likely that they’ll extrapolate the fact from a picture than take the time to print and assemble your design. So, if you want the world to feel the impact of your handmade steam powered arduino based self balancing stainless steel unicycle junkbot, you’re going to have to show them… by force if necessary. More »
by Matt in Blog, Featured, Thoughts Tags: brass, bronze, design, knuckles, laser, model, sintered, sls, solidworks, steel, three dee on March 27, 2012
Ceramic 3d printing exists. Every so often I’m reminded that I live in the future and that it is AWESOME. It needs some work, but egads is it great. As an experiment I printed a recent design, the foundation for some organ themed knuckle dusters, in Shapeways’ ceramic. It was remarkably light and very pretty but a bit on the flimsy side. My dad took a shine to them when I was showing them off around the workshop and he, meaning to look like a fifties gangser, donned them and then brought his knuckles into his palm. Cue crunchy noises and falling bits. Alas.
After some loving care and a bit of epoxy they were as good as nearly new. All in all they’re not the super durable porcelain I’d like them to be, but I’d definitely use the material again. I’ve been considering making some parts for a drink pouring robot in ceramic and this has not deterred me, though it has informed how I’ll pursue the design. More »
by Matt in Blog, Featured, Thoughts Tags: art, better, critique, design, documentation, faster, gilding primal instinct, harder, photography, show, stronger on March 23, 2012
I sit here, one of three folks all crammed on a futon, laptops steadily warming our laps, headphones plugged in, all persistently writing. To my right is designer, business owner, and furiously talented metal fabricator Danielle Hills. To my left is arch art director and wig stylist supreme Numidas Prasarn. The three of us collaborated to bring you these photos from Danielle’s most recent show, in which she exposed her brand new fashion line (The Executioner) to the world for the very first time.
You may recognize Danielle’s work from her previous collection, The Surgeon. She brings a unique, organic texture to her objects, while maintaining fairly simple geometries. The closest comparison I can think of offhand is Nervous System, but seen from a handcrafting perspective. You can view the whole series of shots I took of the event over on Flickr. There’s also some more coverage of the night here and here. More »
by Matt in Blog, How They do That, Thoughts Tags: beer, can, creation, design, drink, manufacture, mystery, process, steel, tutorial on March 16, 2012
Many of you will be familiar with the tall, elegant Sapporo steel Sapporo can pictured all over this post. It’s a lovely tapered pint glass shape, with subtle creases every half inch along its surface. You might be curious as to why cans are almost never this shape, how the standard beer can is made, and what sets this one apart from a manufacturing perspective. In this post, I’m going to hunt through the clues left on the can itself to diagnose how this thing was made, and how the manufacturing process elegantly dictates the product’s final form.
The story of the standard aluminum can is fascinating. It goes from a simple disc of aluminum metal to a fully formed can in a scant few steps. How It’s Made has done a very complete diagnosis of the process, and The Engineer Guy has a brilliant video describing the function of the pull tab. However, the process for making one of them has almost nothing to do with the construction of one of these steel cans. More »
by Matt in Blog, Thoughts Tags: chemistry, depression, lifestyle, memes, neurobiology, neurochemistry, statistics on March 9, 2012
Continuing on from last week’s post, I’m here to bum you out, go on about how strange brains are, and hopefully offer some insight on how to start solving the divisive disease that is depression. The same caveats apply as before.
So, I find the pattern of punctuated equilibrium cropping up again and again. In brief, it is a way of thinking about the speed at which things change. Specifically, some things will spend a long time in a stable state, not changing much at all, and then suddenly leap forward in a giant generational shift. It can be a little bit of deviation creating a huge watershed, or a little energy added into the system bumping things out of their stable rut. You can observe the phenomena in everything from evolutionary biology to organic pathfinding.
It might help to think of this in terms of a game. In game theory, systems can stay stable for long periods of time before taking a wild shift to a different stable mode. In the classic game Hawks vs Doves [mildly technical video] you have two groups: the hawks will never back down from a fight even if it costs them a lot, and the doves will always back down but will split winnings evenly. If you start with two even populations of doves and hawks, you have random fights between everybody, and you kick out the biggest losers, you will eventually have a fairly stable ratio between the two groups. More »
by Matt in Blog, Thoughts Tags: chemistry, depression, lifestyle, memes, neurobiology, neurochemistry, statistics on March 1, 2012
What follows is a piece I started during BreakFast over at CCC. It’s my attempt to reconcile what I know about neurobiology, neurochemistry, and depression with some ideas on how to treat what is an incredibly complex and devious disease. Being a person who every so often gets trapped in a downward spiral, and having experienced so many brilliant, capable, utterly valuable people go hurtling down into a deep dark hole I want to share my thoughts and see if I can shed any light on the situation.
I’m an active reader of neurobiology. I’ve had an intense interest in it for nearly ten years, now, but am in no way a neurobiologist or practicing scientist. I’m an armchair reader trying to piece this together, share what I know, and spread my love of science. If you’re an expert in the field and find fault in my logic or terminology, please let me know. I’m always eager to hone my understanding of the meat that makes us think.
You can find part 2 of this article here.
So, here are two entirely unfortunate facts. Depression, serious clinical depression, is the most common disability in the United States [1, 2] and stress related disease (heart attack, chronic high blood pressure, hypertension, anxiety disorder) accounts for much of the remainder.
Stress, depression, and disease have a pervasive and infuriatingly close relationship. They are horsemen of the apocalypse, if the apocalypse included spending several weeks in your bathrobe, sitting on top of a pile of unfolded laundry, watching the Princess Bride for the twelfth time. More »
by Matt in Blog, Featured Tags: anonymous, bandanas, diy, download, guy fawkes, mask, occupy wall st, open source, ows, pack, resource on January 26, 2012
Photo by, of, and starring Numidas Prasarn
The good folks at Coilhouse were kind enough to release something I’ve been working on for a bit: The DIY Guy Fawkes Bandana Remix Fun Pack Genuine Revolutionary Occupy Experience Machine!
The general idea is that I’d like people to be anonymous, wearing protection, projecting a captivating image, employing creative disruption, and in possession of crucial data whether protesting or no. I also believe in opening up the source as much as humanly possible/ethical/feasible on all of my projects.
However, I was worried that releasing a full source would diminish the value of the initial product to the people who have been buying them to support both protesters in the street and myself as a business. I’ve also been afraid (based on some laughably earnest emails) of people looking to copy my design for profit.
I felt like giving people a Creative Commons pack full of resources, info, and stencils might be the right tack to getting anyone an OWS bandana regardless of finances without pissing off the folks who have so graciously bought bandanas and haven’t yet come to burn my house due to late shipments.
Hopefully I’ll have a chance sometime soon to cut out some stencils and provide a tutorial on how to make your very own bleach printed OWS bandana. I designed the stencil to minimize the cutting without sacrificing the design or readability. Since there’s a PDF version, converting things for laser cutting is a snap, and I’m fairly convinced this wouldn’t do poorly as a spray painted symbol as well.
