Epic fail while trying out the new KKmulticoper 2.0 Flightcontrol board. It seems like sloppy calibration and speed reading the manual rewarded me with six broken Hexacopter arms. It was also my first attempt at controlling the multicopter with my smartphone and the Kickstarter funded iPhly device. Definitely a steeper learning curve to fly by touch screen and gyroscope than traditional joysticks. Amazingly all six birch propellers survived, perhaps saved by the Continue Reading →
Here are some snapshots from fab nomad life in Japan. Project posts coming soon Continue Reading →
I showed the ongoing Layer Chair project here in Sevilla and it turned into a very interesting open design collaboration. Three groups of students at FabLab Sevilla downloaded and customized their own versions of the Layer Chair. One group was inspired by the classic Eames lounge chair, one group made the perfect chair for architecture students and the final group experimented with weaving a seat from thin rope.
The chairs are currently exposed and for sale at gallery Lugadero in Sevilla. For the opening night I created an interactive chair design system where visitors could design a chair with their own body. With the Kinect component for Firefly I could read out the position of the visitors head and hips. The height of you head determined the height of your chair, and the angle of your back determined the backrest. Tracking two people at the time making their own designs was very entertaining.
It was an interesting experience to exhibit a design system and an open process instead of showing a finished product. More open collaboration communication coming soon. Continue Reading →
HONF organized a workshop on spen source design and digital fabrication. I presented my views, approach and findings so far in my research. In the coming year, HONF will organize an open design competition in the style of the Unlimited Design Contest. HONF has a very high level of sharing and openness in their work, at the same time many other artists in Yogyakarta are very protective. It will be very interesting to see how javeneese culture will merge with open design practises. Continue Reading →
I am teaching open source design and digital manufacturing to a group of students at Sint Lucas Boxtel. It is an educational experiment looking into the possibilities of teaching over long distance. Thanks to the machines of the HONFablab, I am able to create physical copies of the work created by my students at the other side of the world. We use Dropbox to share design files and Skype video conferencing for tutoring.
The students are developing an open source tile system for student living. Tiles with different functions can be clicked together to form a wall of personal accessories. Both the the library of 3D printable tiles and the connection system are Open Source. Continue Reading →
The Ass Stool features four different seats for any sized ass. The perfect tool for lighting up the atmosphere with an inappropriate joke. It is even extra comfortable thanks to the seat following the contours of your behind.
The stool is open source and published under a Creative Commons non-commercial share-a-like license. It is a collaboration between Jens Dyvik and Alex Schaub (manager of FabLab Amsterdam).
I gave an introduction to Grasshopper here in the HONFablab. The participants learned to use basic tools and workflows for parametric design. As an example we created an attractor field that creates a landscape of cylinders and a column of spiralling wires. Continue Reading →
Here is an update on some of the projects we are working on at HONFablab Yogyakarta:
CNC Marker drawing:
We tested marker drawing on the ShopBot with great success. This can become an interesting way of customizing CNC furniture. It also a good way to add something more exciting to the regular CNC flat-pack designs.
I am back in Jogja to continue working with the HONF crew. The ShopBot, Stickercutter and Modela has arrived, so now we will finally get to make some real projects. The laser is also closer than ever.
There are lots of interesting projects going on here at the HONFabLab, including interior and identity design for local independent skate labels, museum exhibitions design and workshops for a group of DIY rocket scientists trying to fire cow dung powered rockets into space. More project updates coming soon. Continue Reading →
For the 4th and 5th workshop at FabLab Lima we focused on interactivity. I gave an introduction to working with Arduino, Grasshopper and most important Firefly, which enables you to combine the two former tools. We created a digital flower growing in the direction of the ambient lighting (measured by 3 LDR’s), and an organic surface growing in real-time according to sensor data. We also got firefly to function with the “Parurino”, a local Lima DIY version of the Arduino.