Noah Feehan came up with POINTY.CAM by combining of his love of cooking with his love of hardware hacking. It’s a thermal imager for chefs that allows anyone to see a pixelated heat map of whatever they’re pointing at.
Thermal Camera Ring
Projects
Ai Hockey Table Showdown at Two Sigma
A couple of years back, Trammell Hudson brought me in to Two Sigma to consult on a project they were putting together. To keep their quants sharp, they undertake regular challenges that require them to tackle an emerging technology.
Automatic Origami
I’ve been playing with origami, lately. Specifically, I’ve been exploring how to simulate, model, and fold origami shapes in ways that could be automated to create useful mechanisms. The system I’ve come up with is designed to fold rip-stop nylon, a material I’ve worked with at both Makani Power and Super-Releaser.
After some experiments with programs designed specifically for generating origami patterns, I found I wasn’t able replicate the patterns I’d prototyped in paper. Since I wanted to start out with a paper prototype, do some bench tests, and move to CAD from there, I needed to consider other options. I also wasn’t able to convert the output into a format that would play with CAD for printing and prototyping the resulting forms. So, I fell back on my old standard: SolidWorks. If you’ve worked with me before or you’re a regular reader, you don’t get any bonus points for guessing I’d find a way to turn this into a SolidWorks project. This video was very helpful for understanding how to think about origami in a SW context.
Continue readingMetal Parts from 3D Prints
After testing the Flat-Pack Camera Arm, I was pretty happy with the results. Happy, except for one detail: the joint at the base of the arm would creep down over time. This wasn’t a problem while taking shots of projects at the bench, given how often I’d have to reposition it. The big pain was trying to capture time lapses. The creep was just too noticeable, and it would never stay in place long enough to keep the action of a day’s work in frame.
ShopBot Camera Arm – Handsfree Project Documentation
UPDATE: This project now includes a metal locking plate that makes adjusting the arm and keeping it locked down for time-lapses easier. You can find a tutorial and description on that part of the build here.
I’ve been wanting an extra set of hands to hold a camera while I document projects for a long time. Kari and I are writing a book for MAKE all about soft robotics, and I figure there’s probably not going to be a better time to have a serious documentation setup than when someone’s paying me to do a good job at it. Since NYC Resistor just got a ShopBot and I’ve been meaning to get back into plywood fab for years, it seemed like a pretty auspicious syzygy. If you’d like to replicate this design for yourself, you can find the source files and project notes here. You can also see my photos from the cutting and assembly of the project here.
Tardis Ring
Years ago, I designed a series of Tardis and Dalek rings as an experiment in SolidWorks modeling. I wanted to have a ring design that would support a sculptural element with a shank that would change proportionally to feel natural in a wide variety of ring sizes. I was also way into Dr. Who at the time.
Requiem for Rhinos at the MIT Media Lab
A few months back I reprised my role as robotics mercenary and general fixer, spending a week working on David Nunez’s Requiem for Rhinos installation at Illuminus Boston. David is a researcher with Todd Machover’s Opera of the Future group at the MIT Media Lab. The idea at the core of the sculpture is the passing of Nabire, one of the last northern white rhinos in existence. Only four remain and they are so closely related that rekindling the species is impossible. The sculpture was conceived as a grand send-off, with Nabire’s kin descending from the ceiling to wish her on her way.
Continue readingThe Neucuff – A Soft Robotic Exoskeleton
Over the past six months Kari Love and I have been developing a soft robotic elbow orthotic for Cerebral Palsy therapy. It’s still in the early stages of prototyping and testing, but it’s making rapid progress. If all goes as planned, it should be in the hands of a team of CP doctors specializing in robotic orthotics in the near future.
Continue readingThe Glaucus
The Glaucus is a soft robotic quadruped composed of a single seamless silicone part. It has a complex network of interior channels, created via a lost wax process, that turn into actuators when pressurized with air. It’s able to walk with a diagonal gait, similar to a gecko or Glaucus Atlanticus sea slug, using only two input channels.
