Mecha

Moritz Waldemeyer a Master of Mechatronics who has worked with the likes of Zaha Hadid, Ron Arad and Philippe Starck will present for the first time three extraordinary designs that will surpass your expectations of what furniture can be - two of which conceal a game within the material. Each of the three table designs, "Pong Table", "The LED Table" and "The Bar" is constructed out of Dupont Corian; all cleverly unique, the inventiveness is reflected by the touch sensitive areas allowing user interaction where you can play Pong and Roulette.

http://www.waldemeyer.com/

http://waldemeyer.blogspot.com/

http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/23/moritz-waldemeyer-crafts-led-based-pong-roulette-tables/

http://www.digitalwellbeinglabs.com

http://www.londondesignfestival.com/?id=989

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/pgp06/programme/239

we would need a mechatronics teacher next...

Shaping Things

I put this in back-dated..

I spent much of the last working weeks of December 2006 travelling on a beliguered public transport system and reading 'Shaping Things' by Bruce Sterling.
Though its a mere 'pamphlet' in an MIT press series. It holds many keys, and gems.
So, when I got round to finally reading it, after seeing and hearing Mr.Sterling on the media arts lecture circuit few times in 2004, was just in time. And its still 'in time' in Mr Sterling's prescient fashion.

so note to myself and to my readers - read it and read it again.


http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=10603&ttype=2

Found and Lost

Some notes from last years conference 'Interrogating Fashion' found
and a lost thread pulled back.

http://www.interrogatingfashion.org/web/serv/if/web/pages/home/

index.html

2 stand out speakers for me from the event:
Sarah Kettley, PhD Researcher, Napier University, Edinburgh,
PhD Research in electronically mediated socially interactive
networked jewellery; craft as a design methodology
http://www.dcs.napier.ac.uk/~cs179/sarah_kettley/

- I found now further links to this project and 'Speckled Computing'
or SpeckNet - a Ubicomp / mesh type system for sensors or actuators
http://www.specknet.org/
(relates to "An Internet of Things'')http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

An_internet_of_things

Janne Kyttanen (NL) Freedom of Creation;
Rapid prototype machine crafted products - in this case 3D laser
sintered printing technology used to create a chain mail like
'fabric' in the form of a bag.
- In fact further research shows that they are manufactured by
Materialise that's also producing a range of similar products.
http://www.materialise.com/MADE/main_ENG.html

It looks like there will be some news of phase 2 project as part of
the Design for the 21st Century initiative.
http://www.design21.dundee.ac.uk

Explorations or innovations for rapid prototyping

3D Model > 2D Net > Paper Model
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/11/make_video_podc.html
http://downloads.oreilly.com/make/wp_foldable_turkey_instructions.pdf
Uses:
http://www.blender.org/cms/Blender.31.0.html
http://www.tamasoft.co.jp/pepakura-en/

3D scene > 3Dxml > 3D software > STL file > 3D Printer.
http://www.michaelang.com/3d-printing-from-processing/
('3D screen Capture')
Uses:
GLintercept
http://glintercept.nutty.org/download.html
OGLE
http://ogle.eyebeamresearch.org/download

Supervisory Meeting

w/ Mike Waller, Yanna Vogiazou

Talked about:

1) Nets, foldouts, geometic polyhedra as primitve forms.

MW: What has this got to do with Toolkits? Another PhD?

- Well no its not just Toolkits - its more like 'Tools, Toolkits and their makers'. -- and exactly what they make with it; Art, Design, Craft, Music, Textiles, Engineering... etc.

- Also my  practice would be what I  end up making.

 I mentioned Fab Labs - its a studio/process/concept/tools/ethos combine - that would be the end or start of the big project - the '**** LAB' (dont like the word lab tho.)

So how to...

2D Software - Vellum, Techsoft2D

Exporting in .dxf or ??? for CAD/CAM

(check with Richard

2) Protoyping 

- Generators

Cargo Cult Designs paper mentioned by Yanna, thanks

- its an interesting read. It does point up lot of question for me.

I think in the end that personally I had previously never just protoypes as part of process, just try and make the thing through experimentation and iteration.

Largely I guess that is cos they are oneoff artefacts rather than models to be replicated in small or mass production.

3) WIKIs

Yes I want to use a wiki software -

this is a wiki.

so it this a

I will make a prototype :P 

Next meeting: 29 Nov 14:00

PROCESS BRIEF

Still building up momentum for my 'making' brief.....slowly.

will I make any presents before christmas?

I've become attached to the idea of cutting card and making shapes or forms.

I had first imagined a simple box shape, but looking into 2D Nets and cut-outs I thought about other shapes.

Yes, you can get books and CDs of these shapes, open Abobeshop and print out, or convert to DXF and send to cutter....but how about

Thinking programming wise I want to see how about setting up a generative library that calculates the shapes and exports them.

I'm reminded by Mr Fuller that these shapes are geometric, as used in Dymaxion Maps c.1930

A recent version transcribed to a net

http://www.progonos.com/furuti/MapProj/Normal/ProjPoly/Foldout/

After looking around I find some examples from the wonderful world of Mathematica.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/TruncatedOctahedron.html

Well, I don't want to look too much into geometric formulas but it is there.

Reminder to myself - I want to create the forms in software and then output directly. I've been interested in cutting machines, as they are the next step above printing or drawing machines.

Printers and plotters have been around for a long time. 

Although this is an experiment, and start from a naiive exploratory stand-point, it could lead into something that relates to my main topic - tools and toolkits -

in that sense being a demonstration of it.

Managing the toolkits and the ways to use them - and identifying the tools and how they can be used.

It comes from the development of the toolkit : basically ver. 0.001 is the process for the inards or engine of an object/artefact/craft

   ver.0.002 could be the process for making the engine/boards and the surface - as proposed in how to fold

 a lot later ver 0.010 a whole toolshop set-up including machines, their use, software, hardware and the glue in between - e.g FabLab - the whole process

   

November Seminar Presentation

Meeting Mike Waller Wk.2

Where to fit in?

Q: Peer to peer production? > open source design? eg think cycle http://www.thinkcycle.org/

- Innovation - production closer to consummer

TASKS

0) SURVEY - ON GOING - books, reading - keep summaries (look into database, software for citation, thinking about wiki next step

1) REVIEW - Toolkits, R+D processes, Q: What audience? Mode of Delivery?(prduct/service) Knowledge Barriers? Peadagogy? Prototyping process? = Presentation as table and links, Paper files kept to folder.

2) SKILLS MAP - what interests are and where YOU sit - where to position.

3) EXPERIMENTS - Proces brief - B.1 - looking at folding, cards and instructions for such (see below) = paper and microelectronics practice

DISCUSSION
Reflective / Reflexive - in terms of research and practice - what is the difference?
* Connection to product - industrial design.
* Critical Design - objects or products or prototypes create discourse.
* Patents - innovation of car industry

NEXT MEETING WEDNESDAY 25th 3 PM

Practice and Process B.1

EXERCISE ONE : Folding Card

- how to fold card into shapes. This is explained in the book 'How to fold' etc.

- Design the shapes - for the purpose - or by experimentation what the outcome will be.

- Based on these experiments make the plan and description of how to make.

 

EXERCISE TWO : Folding Electrons

- working with breadboard components and micro-controller.

- Looking into example in PhysComp - basic breadboards patching

- Develop schematics, circuit diagrams

            - How to store data?

 

EXERCISE THREE : Fold in Time

 - To make a container that holds both physical objects and digital data.

- Combination of one and two

            - How to construct that ? Both materially and electronically.

            - How to instruct that? How easy to make it from a kit of parts or bill of materials.

Notes

c.f <XR>Box and US/uk Box. I had thought also about this idea of posting box to alumni/contacts and asking them to 'fill it' for the next version

 References

 Origatronica: http://www.origatronica.org/

 Pepin Press ('How to..."  books and CDs)http://www.pepinpress.com/downloads/Catalogue2006.pdf

assembly instructions

https://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/assembly_instructions/assembly.pdf

US-UK box 2004

..the last box project, around April 2004 sent to NYC then lost somewhere.????

Making stencils

I decided to make some stencils to label some equipment for the
studio at work
After trying to cut them by hand on a piece of cardboard and then ink
them in with a marker pen I realised the error of my ways.
Yes, a bad craftsman (I) blames their tools, but really I blame myself

I thought about what it would be like to have the proper machine tools.
Why dont Epson make a desktop stencil cutter. Ok so a quick look at
Prof Gershenfelds article on the tech for FAB show the base model
laser cutter starting at $10,000 + Even the RolandDGA hobby pro/am
ones at $3000+

Oh well. Theres a challenge. Reflecting on the drawbot, the paintbot- how about the cutbot? (cuthbot)

1st Meeting with supervisor - Mike Waller.

Introductions and Histories
Thinking about how to develop practice based research, or in my current status -practice
(look into practice based research guidance)

Questions - "Who are the participants of the project" "Who is the user, what group, what kind of group"

To do:
* Look at Dunne "Hertzian Tales"

* Look at MA brief 'Domestic Thresholds' possibly start in January

* Think about process and practice = write my own brief, project until Nov.3/10

* Next meeting Wednesday 11th 11am