Lady Ada Lovelace Day 2016

MFNY 2016

This year for Lady Ada Lovelace Day, I want to celebrate the many women who shared their projects at Maker Faire New York.

I was thrilled to see the Touch Creature sculpture above by Talya Stein, especially after having seen an earlier version. She and I talked about the approachability of organic materials like wood. It was wonderful to see kids interacting with it.

I had a great conversation with Blythe Serrano, who I had met at a previous Maker Faire, about the material properties she has learned this year from experimenting with silicone casting. She makes light up pet collars, and generously shares her learning processes.

MFNY 2016

I loved this spatial magnetic field visualization by Inhye Lee. The three tubes in the center contain individually controllable electromagnets. The  compasses spin in their spheres in response to the changing magnetic fields.

There are so many more I had the pleasure of connecting with and catching up with, including Becky Stern, Sophi Kravitz, Star Simpson, and Sally Byers. I love Maker Faire for the opportunity to bask in the glow (LED glow in some cases) of so many incredible women.

Linkdump: September 2016

Drawing with light and AxiDraw

The folks at myDesignLab made long exposure RGB LED drawings using AxiDraw, even going so far as to make multi layer three dimensional drawings.

Lindsay Wilson used a laser in a similar manner, first with long exposure photos, then with a UV laser and phosphorescent vinyl and then with a UV laser and cyanotype paper. The cyano print shown above is an example of his experiments drawing Lorentz attractor patterns.

Linkdump: August 2016

WaterColorBot & fabric markers

Quilted bag with geometric patterns drawn by WaterColorBot

Laurel Pollard posted a quilted book bag she made using WaterColorBot with fabric markers to draw designs made using Beetleblocks. Her technique:

iron freezer paper to back of fabric to stablize, tape down. Use Sharpie ‘Stained’ fabric markers.

Vintage Computer Festival West XI


The Vintage Computer Festival is happening at the Computer History Museum in Mountain view this weekend, August 6-7.

Hands-on exhibits are presented Saturday and Sunday. You’ll find demos of 1960s minicomputers, 1970s homebrew systems, 1980s eight-bitters, and a few oddities. Some exhibits contain pristine original machines, while others focus on unique modern hacks, and everything in between.

The MOnSter 6502 will be there, too!