The 2010 Open Hardware Summit

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We are helping to sponsor the 2010 Open Hardware Summit, which is happening next month, Thursday September 23, at the New York Hall of Science. That’s two days before, and at the same location as, Maker Faire NY.

The summit agenda has just been posted: it’s a full day of talks and discussions about open source hardware, its meaning and its implications. I’ll be part of the panel discussing open hardware licenses and norms which will also be taking questions online– so you can participate even if you can’t make it to the event.

Tickets for the event are on sale now and include a 1-day pass to Maker Faire. We’ll hope to see you there!

Interactive Game of Life Exhibit

Interaction

Recently we put together this interactive Game of Life display as an educational adjunct for a new exhibit by the San Jose Museum of Art on the works of Leo Villareal. Leo primarily works with light sculptures, and we’re very excited to see (and participate in) the exhibit, which opens this Friday.


We put together a video showing off the project, embedded here:

(If you can’t see the video here, click here to visit the youtube page.)

Continue reading Interactive Game of Life Exhibit

Linkdump: August 2010

Electronics Flea Market, 8/2010

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We’ve just posted a few pictures from last weekend’s fantastic Electronics Flea Market at De Anza College in Cupertino.

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One interesting thing that we came across: a set of leadframes not so different from those that might be made from that photomask that we wrote about a couple of weeks ago.

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Only one two more flea markets left this year, September 11 is the next one; mark your calendars and we’ll hope to see you there!

(For a few more, check out photos from another electronics flea market a couple of years ago here.)

Corrected 8/16/10: two more flea markets left for 2010– Sept. 11 and Oct. 9.

Cooking for Geeks

Cooking for Geeks cover


Woo-hoo! We just got Cooking for Geeks in the mail. You can view it as a cookbook that takes time to delve into the science of the recipes or a food science book with demonstrative recipes. Or maybe an introduction to everything that food geeks know about, but everyone else wishes they did. It also has a series of interviews with geeks, chefs and scientists– including us, but I’m not sure which of those categories we fit into. Regardless, we enjoyed talking with Jeff about the book and are happy to see it out in print!

The cover design with splatter marks and stains means less worry when it gets spilled on in the process of cooking (not that I’ve ever worried about that with any of my other cookbooks).

Cooking for Geeks inside


Most pages have ample room for margin notes, which is something I’m fond of for recipe alterations. It flops open on the counter well, too.

We got a nice shoutout from Jeff on NPR’s Science Friday last week for the laser cut pie crust from our Apple pie, which is featured in the book along with our electrocuted hot dogs. Thanks, Jeff, and congrats on getting the book out there!

On the design of the Bulbdial Clock

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One of our favorite projects of the last year is our Bulbdial Clock, an LED shadow clock based on an idea from Ironic Sans. And, while we have written a fair bit about it, we haven’t yet taken the time to describe some of the interesting technical details.
So in what follows here, we discuss some of those details, with an emphasis on a few in particular that we’ve been asked about. First, the process of designing and prototyping “funny shaped” circuit boards, but also charlieplexing LEDs in a mixed array, and (finally) getting that rear-projection scheme to work.
Continue reading On the design of the Bulbdial Clock

Maker Faire Detroit Pictures and Highlights

Maker Faire Detroit

Maker Faire Detroit was a blast! It was held at The Henry Ford, which is a museum worth visiting in its own right. It is an amazing place we didn’t get to see nearly enough of and would love to go back and visit again.


Maker Faire Detroit


In addition to providing a history of American manufacturing and a showcase of amazing vehicles, they have Mold-A-Rama machines!

Maker Faire Detroit


As usual, one of the most exciting things about Maker Faire for us was meeting and talking with other makers. We got to talk to the participants in an aluminum casting demonstration, who were using foam that was carved onsite with a CNC router.

We also really enjoyed our neighbors at the faire with the Note Grinder, a machine that read player piano rolls optically and used door lock actuators to press the keys on a synth keyboard. We were impressed with how pleasant it was to listen to (even for two days straight!) especially with the rhythm accompaniment provided by the actuator motors.


Maker Faire Detroit


The fine folks at Context Furniture were passionate about the renaissance of craftsmanship in Detroit and had great stories of reclaimed buildings.


Maker Faire Detroit


We were tickled to see several Evil Mad Science kits integrated into Maker Faire projects: a Peggy 2 being used as a readerboard, Wes and Don‘s 3D POV display with a Peggy 2LE, and Matt Mets’ Meggy Jr Sr.


Maker Faire Detroit


Our Eggbots performed like champs, and we even tried out engraving on glass holiday ornaments during the faire. The engraver scratched away the paint on the surface, and as you can see in the top picture, they were beautiful when lit from within by an LED.

We didn’t come close to seeing everything, but we’ve put pictures of some of what we saw in a set on flickr.

We hope to see you at Maker Faire New York!

Packing our bags (of bots) for Detroit

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This week we’re getting ready for our big trip to Maker Faire Detroit 2010, where we’ll be demonstrating the Egg-Bot, our forthcoming spherical-coordinate drawing robot, which we’re gearing up to release later this summer.

Our last Egg-Bot outing was to the California state fair a couple of weeks ago, where we had a blast showing off our machine, drawing on light bulbs and (yes) eggs:

Eggbot @ Cal Expo - 04   Eggbot @ Cal Expo - 07Crate   plaid

What else is going on at Maker Faire? Well, lots— it’s hard to know where to begin –but for one thing Wes and Don told us about their cool project– a low-resolution 3D volumetric display based on a Peggy 2LE, rotated on a big box fan.

Embedded youtube video follows:

For those of you who can make it to the Henry Ford this weekend, we’ll certainly hope to see you there. (And further off and further away, we’re planning to be at Maker Faire NY in September.)

 

Manufacturing art: Photomask

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After seeing our photomask coasters, a friend gave us this giant photomask as an art piece. While we’re not certain what this was for, our best guess is that it is a mask for the lead frame for some device in an SO-20 package. The overall size is about 18″ x 24″ and about 1/8″ thick.


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Shown with an SO-24 device on the edge of the plate for comparison. (Didn’t happen to have a correctly sized 20 pin device handy.)

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The transparent lines show where the metal will be after processing and the black portions are where the metal will be removed. When you line up the 24 pin device on the plate it is a bit misleading, as it obscures the fact that those two outer transparent lines aren’t actually for device leads. It does confirm that it is sized correctly for a 1:1 mask for a device with a 0.050″ pin spacing, and the central square looks like the right width for a device in an SO-20 package as well.


Tangentially related: CCD wafer