Make: Online: Makers Archives

Makers Archive: Makers

October 29, 2009

Minimalist nativity set

Halloween is so two days from now. Which might as well be last week on the internet. I'm moving on to Xmas. From Berlin artist Oliver Fabel. [via Neatorama]

October 27, 2009

Fake TV camera trend takes over elementary school

This fascinating piece, from This American Life (animated by Chris Ware), tells the story of an elementary school where a couple of kids made a TV camera out of cardboard and tempera paint. Soon, the cardboard camera craze went viral and it seemed like every kid was either a camera operator, an anchor, or some other faux TV production person. Then things went positively post-modern.

Chris Ware animation of This American Life story

The gravity-powered xylophones of Charles and Ray Eames

eames musical tower ball falling (Custom).jpg

eames musical tower ball loading (Custom).jpg

eames musical tower piston loading (Custom).jpg

eames musical tower ball return (Custom).jpg

These "musical towers" are featured in the short film 901: After 45 Years of Working by Eames Demetrios. 901 documents the dismantling of the office of famous U.S. designers Charles and Ray Eames in 1988 following Ray's death. The Eames office was a kind of maker fantasy-land, with finished and unfinished projects scattered about, meticulously organized tools and supplies, and wonderful little gewgaws in every nook and cranny.

The first few minutes of the film feature a delightful bubbling xylophone soundtrack that is eventually revealed to be coming from these prototype toys designed by the Eameses themselves, and installed in their office for their own amusement.

The towers are wooden boxes six inches square and about 15' tall, fronted with acrylic, and having sides slotted to accept metal xylophone keys which fit loosely enough to allow free vibration and easy rearrangement. The slots for the keys are angled toward one another, slightly, so that the surfaces of the keys present a series of alternately-sloped platforms for a small hard plastic ball which, when dropped from the top of the tower, will plunk its way slowly down to the bottom, playing a little tune as it goes. The balls are injected using a manual pneumatic piston which shoots them up a pipe to the top of the tower.

There does not seem to be any video of the towers in operation available online, but 901: After 45 Years of Working is available on the first disc of The Films of Charles and Ray Eames, which also includes final and rough draft versions of the classic Powers of Ten. Highly recommended.

October 25, 2009

Giant cobweb made of coffee stirrers

Jonathan Brilliant Coffee Stirrer Cobweb Installation.JPG

Jonathan Brilliant Coffee Stirrer Cobweb Installation Close Up.JPG

I'm going to invent a time machine so I can go back and persuade my parents to name me Jonathan Brilliant, which for now am this guy what made this impressive installation simply called "The Berlin Piece." [via Dude Craft]

Help publish a book on living well for less

"Spike" is a cartoonist (caution: "F-word" on the link) who says she's mastered the art of living well on an artist's income and wants to share what she's learned by writing a book, called Poorcraft: A Comic Book Guide to Frugal Urban and Suburban Living. She's using an innovative website, called Kickstarter, to try and raise money to fund the production of the book. Kickstarter allows you to post your project and solicit backers for it. Spike has a whole bunch of different pledge levels. She's looking to get $6,000 pledged. She already has $3,894 (and counting). A $5 pledge will get you a PDF of the book when it comes out, $10 gets you a signed hard copy.

October 23, 2009

Awesome collection of DIY video-glitch hardware

The "tools" section of media artist Karl Klomp's website documents an impressive amount of bent, hacked and homebrew hardware for video manipulation. Devices such as the Failter (seen above)series go through a number of incarnations while Karl experiments with different hardware and uncovers its glitch-ability. The retro-simple feel of the enclosures give give it all a nicely 'scientific' almost medical feel. Be sure to check out his device gallery/ project list for more examples. Thanks to Becky for pointing this one out!

October 21, 2009

"The joy of sex don't last like the fun of shootin' anvils"

To "shoot," an anvil, for the record, is to blast it several hundred feet into the air using a charge of black powder. This delightful man, Gay Wilkinson, is apparently the world's champion anvil-shooter. The fireworks start at 1:30. [via Boing Boing]

Put MAKE badges on your site!

Did you know that we have little MAKE badges you can put on your website? If we write about your project or site, you can use this badge to link back to your piece here on Make: Online:

If you just like us a lot (we love you too!) and want to send us some links o' love, you can post this badge on your site:

We have the HTML code, some other badge sizes, and links to other assets, such as our magazine covers, all on the link below.

We really appreciate all of the support we get from you all. It means a lot to us. Group hug!

Maker Badges

October 20, 2009

Man builds machine to treat his own leukemia

Jim Stogdill sent this to the O'Reilly Radar mailing list:

I caught this on 60 Minutes the other night and it struck me as the ultimate MAKE challenge. Guy designs his own RF therapy and machine to try to battle his leukemia. He didn't win, but looks like the tech holds real promise and is being pursued as a real and viable cancer treatment using RF to stimulate tumor-seeking gold nano particles.

[Thanks, Jim!]

The Kanzius Machine

Musical inventions of the Sonic Manipulator

The UK-based electronic instrument maker known simply as the Sonic Manipulator demonstrates some of his unusual audio devices for the fine people of Earth -

The Claude-a-tron - sort of a throttle-synth that seems surprisingly playable, with "pitch & volume, with oscillator modulation, bass & percussion control"

… and the Rap Rod, a push/pull controlled audio scratching device, which appears to use a handheld cassette playhead with tape samples (though more likely an advance alien technology?)

Check out the Sonic Manipulator's site for his (its?) full collection of instrument demos. [via Create Digital Music]

A visit to Ben Heck's lab

The Engadget Show takes a trip out to Madison, WI to visit the workbench of console-modder extraordinaire (and Make contributor) Mr. Ben Heck. Can't wait to see the finished Paxton pinball!

October 17, 2009

Alternative Press Expo

Josh Ellingson shows off his vivid homage to Carl Sagan (and the similarity to the color palette of Laughing Squid stickers), inspired by the killer viral video 'A Glorious Dawn' ft Stephen Hawking (Cosmos Remixed)

Artist and publisher Attaboy with his bible of lowbrow art and culture, Hi-Fructose Magazine

MAKE pal and "Lady Cartoonist" Meredith Scheff and her DIY wares

Punk/small-publishing icon V Vale of RE/SEARCH Publications

Our favorite photojournalist of alt.culture, Scott Beale, was at the Alternative Press Expo in SF today and took these awesome pictures. More on the link below. The event continues tomorrow. If you're into self/indie/small press publishing, and are in the Bay Area, you'll definitely want to stop by.

Photos: APE 2009 (Alternative Press Expo)

October 15, 2009

Train an army of crows to gather treasure for you

Josh Klein developed a machine that trains crows to trade coins for peanuts. Literally, for peanuts. So you fill this thing with peanuts and set it out, say, in a public park, and the crows will scour the ground for loose change, carry it to the machine, and drop it in a slot in exchange for food. The project, dubbed "CrowBox," made a big splash when he unveiled it back in 2007. Now he's made the complete plans for the CrowBox freely available online so you can roll your own. And there's no reason you couldn't train your fly-monkeys-fly to gather other crow-portable objects. Twenty-dollar bills? Keys? iPods? Human eyes? The possibilities are endless. Set one up at the beach! Train seagulls to trade whole wallets for pre-shucked oysters!

October 14, 2009

Keef's teef

UT Austin student/librarian/artist Keef calls this project "Professor Teeth." It incorporates a dental mannequin with the jaws fixed up to chatter like that thing from Hellraiser that chatters? I think it's called "The Chatterer?" Also it tells fortunes and stuff. There's video here. [Thanks, Keef!]

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

October 13, 2009

100 years of technophobia

Ars Technica has an awesome piece detailing 100 years worth of "Big Content's" reaction to emerging media technologies (in its own words). Here's John Philip Sousa, writing in Appleton's Magazine, on "The Menace of Mechanical Music" (aka the gramophone):

"From the days when the mathematical and mechanical were paramount in music, the struggle has been bitter and incessant for the sway of the emotional and the soulful," he wrote. "And now in this the twentieth century come these talking and playing machines and offer again to reduce the expression of music to a mathematical system of megaphones, wheels, cogs, disks, cylinders, and all manner of revolving things which are as like real art as the marble statue of Eve is like her beautiful living breathing daughters."

Also beware the copy machine, the VCR, cassette recorders, MP3, the DVR... for that way lies the ruin of the marketplace. Or not.

100 years of Big Content fearing technology--in its own words [via Tim O'Reilly's Twitter feed]

Help me write my next Toolbox column

The theme for my next Make: Online Toolbox column is "Maker Sartorial," looking at clothing and accessories as tools for makers. In other words, what shirts, pants, shoes, belt pouches/holsters, pocket-contents, etc. do you carry, either when you're at work, engaged in your hobbies, or otherwise doing makery type stuff, whether for work or pleasure. For some of us, the deeper geeks in the house, this might be what we wear and carry all the time.

I've already sent out an email to my local maker community, via the HacDC and Dorkbot DC e-lists, and to the internal Maker Media list. But I thought it'd be fun to ask you all the question, have you email me your answers (and links to pictures!). I'll assemble it all into a column to run next week. I'll choose my favorite submission and send them a Maker's Notebook.

So, send me an email and tell me what you wear and carry that you'd consider part of your "tool set"? Send me links to pictures of your gear or links to products you use.

October 12, 2009

New hacker hang out in Seattle

This Thursday, Oct 15, Metrix Create: Space will open its doors in Seattle (at 623A Broadway East). It's hackerspace meets an indie coffee house. They'll have tools and equipment for building projects, 3D fabbing machines, classes on various types of high-tech makery, coffee and snacks. They even have a vending machine that'll dispense Sun Chips, M&Ms, Clif Bars, and Arduinos, breadboards, jumper wires, etc. How cool.

More:
All of our hackerspace coverage on Make: Online

Paul Elkins' bikes, trikes, and mobile homes for birds

I love discovering a blog like Paul Elkins'. He's an obsessive designer and tinkerer who's made all sorts of bikes, trikes, boats, trailers, tree houses, stoves out of mail boxes, and even mobile homes for birds (see above). He writes of his life-long passion for designing and building:

I've been doing this idea hatching thing since I was a kid. I received my first serious sketch pad on Christmas morning when I was 8 years old. Each day I'd think of something weird and sketch it out, and every year, another book would appear under the tree. I have at least 26 of these sketch books now, filled with hours and hours of figuring and redrawing, making lists of pros and cons on an idea. Many hours were spent drawing cartoons and the human figure. These sketches led to paintings and other forms of art, but that's for another future blog. My real passion was and is design, with subject matter varying from bicycles, trikes, cars, boats helicopters, submarines, home design or whatever happens to cross my mind. Each idea has to be original, or an elaboration of something I've seen or read about. At 16 I built my first recumbent bicycle which was never photographed or completed. Several other recumbents were made as time went by. It wasn't until I was divorced and started to enter my 40's that most of what you'll see here really started to materialize. Some of these ideas have miraculously worked out great and I've spent many hours enjoying them, while others have not. For the ones that did, I have pride in knowing that my mind and hands had a part in their creation and existence. For the ones that didn't, I chalk them up as a lesson.

High mileage trikes and more

October 11, 2009

It's construction paper

Tom Friedman Untitled 2000 construction paper.jpg

Tom Friedman Untitled 2000 construction paper 2.jpg

"Self portrait in a state of fragmentation," is not, in fact, the title of this amazing work by American everyday-object sculptor Tom Friedman. Formally, it's "Untitled." Anyone care to guess what it recently sold for?

October 9, 2009

Construction equipment ballet

Anne Troake is a choreographer and filmmaker from Newfoundland. Her film Pretty Big Dig is the best of the many "dancing heavy machinery" videos I've seen on YouTube.