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Archives: Dale Dougherty

Meeting makers in Detroit this Saturday

I'm in the Detroit area this week, exploring plans for a Maker Faire here next summer. I've been spending most of the time at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, a treasure-trove of American making.

On Saturday, I'll be stopping by the new hacker/maker space called I3 Detroit in Royal Oaks, MI. I'll be there from around 11 am to 1pm (give or take a half-hour). If you are a maker in the area, and don't mind giving up some time that you might otherwise spend on your favorite project, please drop by I3 Detroit and share your thoughts on doing a Maker Faire in the Detroit area. I am always looking to discover new makers and learn more about cool projects -- at home, in schools, or even at work. I am also proud to talk about our new "kids of all ages" issue.

I3 Detroit is located at 322 East Fourth Street, Royal Oaks, MI.

Posted by Dale Dougherty | Nov 5, 2009 02:52 PM
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Ann Arbor Aluminum Casting Demo

Last week, I spoke at the GO-Tech meeting, which was held at the A2 Mechshop in Ann Arbor, MI. I was there for a terrific demo of aluminum casting by Rick Chownyk. He was not only well-informed but very entertaining.

Rick began with a styrofoam mold he had created already.

He had built his own burner for melting scrap aluminum. (He said that you can't do this using aluminum cans.)

He buried the mold in a bucket of sand. When the aluminum was red-hot, the exciting time for the pour arrived. In the video below, listen to the enthusiastic audience and their questions -- this is why these demos are so cool.

Minutes later, after the mold had cooled, he removed it, dunked it water, and raised it high to the delight of the crowd -- a metal Make sign!

Rick recommends the site, Backyard Metalcasting, for instructions on how to do this yourself. He also credits the Dave Gingery books available from Lindsay's Technical Books.

Thanks to Dale Grover and A2 Mechshop for inviting me to speak and to the hundred or so who came out.
A2 Mech Shop, a "co-engineering" space, is a positive sign that good things are happening in Michigan.

Posted by Dale Dougherty | Jun 18, 2009 06:00 AM
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Calling on makers in Ann Arbor and Detroit

I will be in Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan next week talking about MAKE and meeting makers. If you're in the area, and you'd like to talk about MAKE and Maker Faire, or tell me about projects that you're doing, come by GO Tech June 9 at 7pm or the Ann Arbor District Library June 11th at 7pm. Both of which are open to everyone.

On Tuesday, June 9, I'll be at the June GO Tech (Ann Arbor, MI) meeting at 7 pm. The meeting will be held at A2 MechShop is at 240 Parkland Plaza, Suite B (in the back), Ann Arbor, MI 48103.

This will be an informal, interactive discussion. I hope to learn more about local makers and their interests. I will share some of the experiences from our recent Maker Faire. I expect the question to come up: how can we have a Maker Faire in the Detroit area?

GO Tech (formerly NotBAGO) is a meeting for Ann Arbor area readers of Make Magazine, Circuit Cellar, Home Shop Machinist, Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools, Slashdot, etc. That is, people who are interested in and make things using technology, whether that's a metal cutting lathe or a Python script. A kind of generalized mixture of CerealBar, Dorkbot, Oxford Geek night, and Portland Machinist Guild. We have machinists, electrical engineers, software folks, industrial control types, and so on. We share projects, information about tools and ideas, and connect with like-minded people.

Link to GO Tech Group.

On Thursday, June 11 at 7 pm, I'll be giving a talk on Make's current issue "ReMake America" and the value of DIY culture at the Ann Arbor District Library. I'll show a video from this year's Maker Faire. The address is 343 South Fifth Ave., Ann Arbor, MI.

In between, I'll be going to the Henry Ford Museum. At this difficult time for the American auto industry, I expect to learn a lot by looking back at its origins. I am dismayed by the factory closings and the number of workers who no longer have jobs there.

If you have any MAKE-related recommendations for the Detroit or Ann Arbor area, please let me know.

Posted by Dale Dougherty | Jun 4, 2009 05:50 PM
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Exciting lineup of talks and demos at Maker Faire

Check out the full schedule of presentations and demos for this weekend's Maker Faire. I'm happy to have such a wide range of speakers on a variety of topics.

There are three stages: Stage A is in Fiesta Hall used for short talks; Stage B is a smaller stage in Fiesta for workshops; Stage C in Expo Hall has a mix of panels and talks. (In addition, a full slate of Craft Demos will take place in Expo Hall and Make Demos will happen in Fiesta in the Maker Shed area.)

Here are some of the highlights:

Adam Savage returns to Maker Faire again where he had a standing-room only audience last year. This year, he will talk about "Colossal Failures" on Saturday from 2 pm to 3pm in Stage A.

Remaking American Manufacturing is one of themes to be addressed by speakers this Saturday at Maker Faire. Liam Casey who works in Zhenzhen, China helps American companies utiltize the Chinese manufacturing system. Liam believes that this unique system of manufacturing will increasingly become available for individual makers. His talk, "Getting Out of the Garage" will be Saturday at noon on Stage A.

Rod Brooks of MIT and founder of iRobot will discuss how the future of American manufacturing might depend on a new generation of industrial robotics, which is the focus of his new company, Heartland Robotics. Rod's talk, "Remaking American Manufacturing with Robotics", is Saturday at 3:00 pm on Stage A.

Mitch Free, founder and CEO of MFG.com, will be talking about new ways of manufacturing products and how to take advantage of this new world of American manufacturing. His talk is at 3:30 pm Saturday on Stage A.

Esther Dyson, daughter of Freeman Dyson and a technology analyst and investor, will talk about her fascination with space. Esther recently completed a five-month training as a cosmonaut in Star City, Russia, just outside of Moscow. She'll talk about her own experience training as well as her interests in the private space industry. Her talk, "What's a nice lady like you doing in (a) space like this?", will be Saturday at 1pm on Stage A.

The host of Make:TV's Maker Workshop, John Park, will talk about the show and demonstrate the Personal Flight Recorder project that was demonstrated on a rollercoaster ride in the show's first season. John will be speaking Saturday and Sunday at 3pm on Stage C.

Jeri Ellsworth will talk about how she created her own path in life and channeled her creative energy as an engineer, designing the highly acclaimed Commodore C64 30-in-1 Joystic. Her talk, "From Juvenile Delinquent to Self-Taught Electrical Engineer", is Saturday at 4pm on Stage A.

Learn about stereoscopic 3D animation techniques from Special Awesome, makers of 3D stop-motion film Coraline. They will be talking about their equipment and their techniques at 1pm Saturday on Stage C. Alex Andon will talk about raising jellyfish and making jellyfish aquariums in his talk Sunday 12:30 pm on Stage A.

Jerry Glasser, an experienced pilot and flight instructor, will talk flying the SR-71 and other aircraft in his talk, "Flying the World's Fastest Aircraft" on Sunday at 2pm on Stage A. Earlier on Sunday at 11 am on Stage A, McKinley Siegfried and her father, Rand, will talk about how she built her own airplane.

Phil Torrone is organizing a discussion on the business of Open Source Hardware. The panel, "Making Open Source Hardware into a Kit Business", will happen Sunday at 1pm on Stage C.

Tito Jankowski will talk about "DIY Biology" on Saturday 1pm to 2pm on Stage B. Tom Igoe, author of "Making Things Talk" and a member of the Arduino team, will give a hands-on talk "LED Mania" on Sunday from 1pm to 2pm on Stage C. Nathan Seidle of Sparkfun Electronics will give two hour-long workshops on electronic prototyping, Saturday at noon and Sunday at 4pm on Stage B.

There are many, many more presentations and demos scheduled so please check out the full schedule. You can find schedules for each day with full listings, plus one-page at-a-glance schedules (PDF) for each day. In addition to all these great presentations and demos, Maker Faire will have over 500+ fascinating maker exhibits.

Posted by Dale Dougherty | May 28, 2009 06:00 AM
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They used to make spaceships here

As the current Space Shuttle mission (STS-125) comes to a close, the Shuttle is nearing the end of its functional life, its final mission slated for 2010. On a recent visit to Downey, CA, near Los Angeles, I had the chance to visit a series of buildings, now empty, that were the birthplace of the Shuttle, and before it, the Apollo spacecraft. In fact, it's the birthplace of the American aerospace industry. Today, these buildings bear the name Downey Studios because some of them are in use by moviemakers. Yet these still-standing hulks suggest the size and significance of what was once built there, and the echoes of engineers who lived out their careers there can still be heard. I met with members of Aerospace Legacy Foundation, headed by Gerry Blackburn, which exists in a few cluttered rooms on site. It's a home away from home for some of these retired engineers like Gerry, who worked here from the time he graduated high school until the plant, then owned by Boeing, closed in 1999. The foundation hopes to preserve the history of this site for future generations to learn how we made spaceships here.

Read full story

Posted by Dale Dougherty | May 22, 2009 06:00 AM
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Opening the Mailbag

Cory's recent column, titled "If you can't open government, you don't own it", didn't agree with a reader. So he ripped out the page from the magazine, wrote his farewell message below and sent it to us in a nice, old-fashioned letter. Well, we opened it and now we own it.

View offended/offending letter

UPDATE:
First off, we at MAKE want to sincerely apologize for offending and/or angering anybody and for creating the impression that we are insensitive to our readership. We do listen to what you have to say, and we take it to heart. I can't speak for Dale (he does that himself below), but this was probably an impulsive, flabbergasted reaction to an aggressive act of frustrated self-expression, and as you can read below, Dale's thought better of his part of it. We've decided to remove the scan of the letter from this post but it's still available as a pop-up, for those coming late who are curious as to what all the fireworks were about.

In true maker fashion, it was one of the participants on this site who showed us a better way we could have played this. Commenter JC3 wrote:

Better Blog Entry
How the blog entry should have read to avoid all this:

"Although we're always sorry to lose a subscriber, we appreciate the creative method this reader used to express his disapproval of Cory's article. Here at MAKE we try to avoid politics as much as possible, but wanted to include some commentary on this recent historical election and what it might mean for makers everywhere. As always, we appreciate your criticisms both constructive and otherwise to make this magazine the best that it can be. We will frame this letter and hang it our office as a reminder to that end. Sincerely, the MAKE Staff."

And, in response, Dale posted this apology:

Yes, I wish now that I had used your words instead of mine, which I will gladly eat. I wasn't commenting on whether I agreed with the reader, but his decision to write us in a somewhat clever way about his displeasure with the article.

I apologize to those who are so offended. None of us wish to divide our audience along political lines. Whether you like President Obama or not, he was identifying the importance of the maker mindset, and in this issue, we tried to celebrate that mindset as part of the American can-do spirit and its importance to our future.

So thanks to JC3 and to everyone who participated in this discussion. We'll definitely be mindful of the concerns and criticisms raised here and try to do better in the future.

And after we're done eating the crow and cellulose, we hope to get back to the business of making cool stuff, something I think we can ALL agree on is why we're here.

All the best,

Gareth Branwyn
For MAKE

Posted by Dale Dougherty | May 13, 2009 05:10 PM
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DIY & Maker Community Survey

Ben Shultz, a PhD student in Geography at the University of Tennessee, is conducting research on innovation and creativity in DIY and makers communities for his dissertation. The survey is completely anonymous and takes less than 10 minutes to complete.

Ben says:

In academics we have traditionally viewed innovation and creativity from the perspective of a large corporation. But we have overlooked the incredibly innovative and creative ideas that come out of the DiY community.
With its substantial web presence and an ethos based on sharing and repurposing knowledge, the DiY movement changes how and where innovations come about. Rather than protecting innovations or charging for access, the DiY community freely reveals designs from start to finish on the Internet. The non-hierarchical, open manner in which creative media are produced in this setting democratizes the innovation process and opens creative pursuits to a geographically distributed public.
As part of my research, I'm conducting a simple web-based survey to get an idea of where makers are (I'm in geography after all!), how they share knowledge, and what influences their creative endeavors.
With my dissertation, I plan to reciprocate the DiY ethos and keep my research as open as possible. I am keeping a blog of all my research progress, including write-ups and aggregated results, and inviting anyone interested to use the information. You can check out my blog, DiY Dissertation. I hope to offer you back useful and interesting information on both the research process and the DiY community.

You can access the survey here or use the following URL:
http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/131093/a9nnw

Posted by Dale Dougherty | May 5, 2009 03:38 PM
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College programs for young makers?

I had an email today from a reader, Kent Weakley, asking about maker-friendly colleges for his son.

My thirteen year old is crazy about Make magazine and all the great podcasts. He loves inventing and creating. Quick question - what are some good colleges that can help nurture the creative, innovative spirit of an inventor??? And what are some of the schools staff members, etc. of Make have attended? Thank you for your help!

What recommendations would you give this dad for his child? If you're in a college program today, let us know what you think. If you're a recent graduate, would you recommend the program to another young maker?

I wonder how much of a role college (or school in general) has played in the development of makers. Without prejudicing the answer, my own sense is that the formative development of makers has happened outside of school. But I'd like to hear whether college programs helped you improve your skills and stimulated your own development as a maker.

Posted by Dale Dougherty | Apr 13, 2009 08:36 PM
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Making It in California's Community Colleges

I wanted to share this email from Eleanor M. Rust who wrote to say that community colleges in California are a great resource for makers who want to learn new skills.

I just bought my first copy of MAKE after being a CRAFT reader for a while, and I'm really enjoying it! But a remark made by a columnist prompted me to email you now:

My partner has been involved in two outstanding woodworking programs at community colleges in Southern California, first as a student and now as a teacher. For anyone in California wanting to pick up shop skills without spending a lot of money, community colleges are a great resource! MAKE seems to be especially friendly to auto-didacts and communal tip-sharing, but these classes are ideal for perfecting techniques without re-inventing the wheel, accessing large or expensive equipment and space, and connecting with other makers. The teachers tend to be true makers themselves with backgrounds in many different fields, and so lots of kinds of projects are possible.

As a new reader, I don't know if these resources have been discussed before or if they fit with your interests. But just in case you'd like to get the word out, here are a few details about the two programs I'm familiar with. They are many others, I'm sure, and in other fields as well as woodworking.

Cerritos College

Norwalk CA (LA County)

Many of the teachers are professional woodworkers, and there is a strong interest in turn-of-the-century techniques and Arts and Crafts style furniture. They teach classes from basic woodworking skills to sophisticated furniture designing and building, as well as professional training on modern CNC production cabinet machinery, but also in using hand-tools, lathe-turning, and making Windsor chairs. One teacher, Tony Fortner, teaches a summer class in architectural and furniture history that involves touring important 19th and early 20th c. buildings around LA, many of which are not usually open to the public. The student body is a good mix of college-age students aspiring to the woodworking trades, and amateurs from college age to the long-retired, many just beginning to work with wood, and some serious hobbyists. Link: www.cerritos.edu/wood

Palomar College

San Marcos, CA (San Diego County)

This school has a similar range of classes as Cerritos, but it also includes guitar-making. There is a saw-mill on site that processes trees from San Diego's urban forestry program, which means that students can cheaply buy local wood that has been culled responsibly. Every year, students visit woodworkers in Japan, and in return the school has been the site of one of very few Kezuru-kai competitions outside Japan, which draws champion woodworkers striving to make the longest, thinnest shavings (I swear!) Link: www.palomar.edu/woodworking.

Finally, the cost of taking classes in California's community college system remains very reasonable, and considering the quality of equipment, instruction and general expertise available at both of these woodworking programs, they are an incredible bargain in these times.

Thanks, Eleanor. This year, for Maker Faire, we are working with Community Colleges in California (all 10 districts) through the Center for Applied Competitive Technologies. CACT's tagline is Making It in California, which is the name of their website as well, MakingItInCalifornia.com. The Center is bringing over 100 high school teachers to Maker Faire.

Posted by Dale Dougherty | Apr 3, 2009 05:00 AM
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Boston-Area Meetup for Makers

Since I will be in Boston/Cambridge for meetings this week, I've organized a Maker meetup for Wednesday night, starting at 6:30pm at the Publick House in Brookline. This is a completely informal drop-in and chat event, made all the easier by some hand-crafted Belgian-style beers. Jake Von Slatt, who is on the cover of the current issue of MAKE, said he'd stop by along with other Boston-area makers.

March 18th @ 6:30-8:30pm

Publick House
1648 Beacon St
Brookline, MA 02445
(617) 277-2880

Link to Google Maps.

I look forward to meeting Make subscribers as well as Boston-area makers. I'll bring some of our new T-shirts (President Obama's quote: "The risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things"). If you have any questions, contact me, dale at oreilly dot com.

Posted by Dale Dougherty | Mar 16, 2009 10:59 AM
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