CandyFab managed to infiltrate a couple of the other 3D printing projects at Maker Faire this past weekend. That’s me above, at the MakerBot booth, in my brand-new MakerBot shirt, explaining MakerBot to some Maker Faire visitors. Below, Kenji’s Fab at Home sports a brand new CandyFab vinyl racing sticker. CandyFab itself performed like a champ, printing candy and raising blood sugar levels all weekend while we talked shop with all the other fabbers.
The proliferation of spoof, nerd, science, and electronics merit badges has demonstrated that geeks like to show off their skills and accomplishments. One skill is particularly appropriate for the format: soft circuitry. By building your own soft circuit onto an actual badge you can demonstrate your mastery.
The size of the badge is just right for a simple circuit with a battery, a switch and an LED. The crowning touch is that the stitched circuitry can form the circuit diagram as well.
We’re thrilled to see Peggy 2 on the cover of Make Magazine vol. 18 which is showing up in mailboxes now and will be on shelves soon. We were especially excited to get our copy so we could see Windell’s article on making a one-ton servo motor out of an electric automotive jack.
Speaking of our friends at Make, Maker Faire is coming right up! We’ll be there again and hope to see lots of you in San Mateo on May 30 and 31. Discounted tickets are only available through May 20, so if you’re planning to attend, get your tickets soon!
This week’s project is a collaboration with Rob from the always-entertaining-but-hard-to-describe science/prank/DIY/investigative journalism site Cockeyed.com. He had the brilliant idea of making an Amazon Kindling— a wireless wooden e-book (which uses no electricity….), and we were pleased to help out. You can read his writeup here. It came out well, and you can even use it as firewood when you’re done reading.
Amongst his other projects, Rob has a long and remarkable history of putting unusual objects on eBay– and apparently the Kindling qualifies– his auction is here.
Update 5/14, 11:55 PM: eBay has pulled the auction. That’s surprising– it was accurately described, listed in the “sculpture” category, and very clearly a parody. (No sense of humor, some people.)
Update 5/15, 12:15 AM: The auction appears to have been reinstated. (Have to keep an eye on this.)
The influence of the Slow Food movement is increasing, and gardening is getting ever more popular. Even the tech bloggers are posting about local pollinators and getting beehives. In this environment, it is fitting that a new use has been found for our Now Slower and with More Bugs stickers, which were first seen in the wild back in December 2007. If you find a good use for them, we’d love to see pictures in the flickr auxiliary!
(Thanks, Lorien!)
Photos by Lorien Tersey
Here’s a simple fabric sleeve you can make to protect your phone from keys, coins, cables, and whatever else gets thrown in the bag with it. Even simpler, you can make it without sewing at all through the magic of iron-on adhesives. Best of all, you can still see who’s calling and answer calls through the fabric.
Forget poodles–defend your cities!!!
Here’s how to make your own post-modern 8-bit retro poodleless circle skirt.
Continue reading Missile Command Circle Skirt
The inspiration for this week’s project comes from the Japanese stacking octagonal box kit shown above. We previously used a similar technique to demonstrate a business card box with traditional elegance. We now present a surreal modern makeover for Japanese papercraft boxes by using (recycling) paperboard packaging.
We follow the same basic construction techniques, but simplify it by eliminating the paper coverings and decorations. In their place, we use paperboard from cereal, cracker and cookie packaging. These cheerful boxes are easier and less expensive to make and have a surreal quality to them.
They are great for storage, gift giving, and decorative use. We’re currently storing safety pins, jewel beads and googly eyes (not edible ones) in them.
The abstraction created from taking the package out of its context can be wonderfully fun. Multiple packages can be used together to create a wild collage of modern advertising with different shapes, colors and fonts. The pfeffernusse box on its own looked like it belonged in December, but combined with the box of pita chips it took on a completely different character.
Photo by Bill Bumgarner (some rights reserved)
Taking pictures of LEDs can be difficult. Digital camera sensors just don’t respond the same way that human eyes do, so it is nearly impossible to take a picture that reflects what you are seeing. But manipulating a few settings like white balance and shutter speed can improve things immensely, as can simple physical things like using a tripod.
In the lovely photo above, two LED displays are propped up on a reflective stone countertop. The vivid colors we want to see show up in the reflection, and the LEDs facing us head-on illustrate how washed-out they can look as the camera sensor gets saturated.
