dan’s blog

maker faire

this weekend the whole squid gang went to Maker Faire. The event was put together by our friends at Make magazine, and they really had an absolutely outstanding event. the fair far exceeded the expectations of every exhibitor i talked to. i think what made it such a great event was the huge variety and quality of exhibitors, performances, presentations, workshops and just random stuff that was happening and lying around - stuff that appealed to far more demographics than a more typical event might have - it wasn’t just for super-nerds and suburban parents with kids - there was a lot of stuff that was trendy, edgy, artsy, etc.  eg: live performance by Broker/Dealer, which as usual i had not heard of (partly an intentional effort to outsource my music knowledge as at least half my friends seem to have the kind of massively detailed mental musical records (cd’s?) that are only possible from mit nerds).  limor tipped me off to them and as predicted they were excellent.  sadly, limor had one of her workshops scheduled at the same time!

we had a large exhibit, where i showed off my led wheels (see last post). i don’t have the foggiest idea what the rest of the squids were showing as i was completely distracted by the mob surrounding me (i might say - “to the point where i forgot to eat”, but far too many things distract me that much. maybe it was ‘almost to where i forgot to pee’?). i also hung daphna’s firefly above our exhibit, quite a few people seemed to like that too:

during my few short breaks, i ran around like a maniac trying to soak up everything else at the show - i took quite a few videos since photos didn’t capture a lot of the things going on.

there was a really entertaining fashion show complete with catwalk, music, models and multiple designers. above - one of the models wearing a rather unique outfit. see what i mean about not what anyone expected? the most fun lineup i think was from CraftyBitch, which makes unique dresses out of recycled clothing (no, i don’t actually care for dresses much, they just had the funniest concepts which appealed to my not taking fashion seriously). They also ran a clothing swap at the faire, except they went well beyond your typical clothing swap by providing a multitude of sewing and embroidery machines where you could instantly hack your recycled garments into something better.
video: craftybitch spring fashions

a really well done LED-integrated hat, it has fully programmable patterns: led hat

here’s a really neat “harry potter bike” - notice there’s no handlebar, you steer it by moving the broomstick left or right.

also: lawnmower bike

our good friends at Graffiti Research Labs dragged an old bus from some junkyard, painted it black, then had participatory multimodal graffiti! LED Throwie building - and throwing them onto the bus - fun! they also built a nice Electrograph on the side of the bus - this is their nifty paint-on electrical wiring method which allows program-controlled lighted displays as graffiti. plus some old fashioned “for gosh sakes just take some paint and scribble on our bus with it!” graffiti. here’s their LED-throwie covered bus:

night: GRL Bus
here’s a steam-engine powered millipede/train:

also: 6-legged walker robot

and below a 5-legged walker robot:

fully functional fire-harp mounted on a vehicle (see video!):

fire harp night photo

video: fire harp car

also: alpha fox fire buggy

super-light radio control airplane. this thing has unbelievably responsive handling - from front to back its got: propellor, motor, battery, speed control/receiver, steering servo.

some really nice 3d-printed *metal* sculptures from Bathsheba:

an operational babbage difference engine (!):

with video: babbage difference engine

i’m not sure what part of this was not out-of-the-box, but what event would be complete without segway polo? segway polo (yes, thar be some rather notorious folks on those segways)

i am an amusement park ride

this weekend at the o’reilly Maker Faire, this was a really great event.  i spent most of the time showing my led wheels, which left me mobbed for the entire weekend.  every kid got a turn spinning the wheel.  i got pretty tired holding the bike up all day, but i just couldn’t say no to the hordes of wide-eyed little kids.  i was interviewed by several different news crews, so those of you who have a tv perhaps let me know if you spot me anywhere interesting.

here’s me in the orange jumpsuit at the squid labs booth.  with cute kid turning the wheel - photo by cute kid’s owner.

and some videos:

led wheel kid 2

led wheel kid 1

hoverbed from space takes us to an unexpected reunion

somehow we’ve gotten on a list that results in every podunk TV producer that wants a science nerd on their show calling us. the types of requests we get are all over the map in terms of reasonableness - ‘we’re trying to run a business here!’ means we can’t just volunteer a week of our time to build you a cool robot for your TV segment (oh, and you want us to pay for the robot parts too?). last week we got a call inviting us to try out for a ’science nerd reality-tv challenge’ or something like that. perhaps they’d drop us off on a deserted island with a truckload of transistors and we’d have to develop our own space program? sounds like fun. oh, and you’ll fly us to new york for the interview? ok! thus me and colin decided yesterday to go to new york. they kindly put us up in a swanky hotel in mid-town. above is a photo of the floating bed in my room (from the hotel website), complete with ground-effects lights. the rest of the room was styled to match, and this kind of gave me a weird feeling of detachment - being alone in a small over-styled room in a tall building in a huge unfamiliar city. something like that.

anyway, upon arriving at the appointed spot we were pleased to discover that 9 of the 10 other people getting interviewed were good friends of ours. evidently this particular producer had gotten all their science nerd references from a single person, and then each of the 10 references had referred only the others. a closed form solution to their casting call! thus we had an unexpected reunion with several good friends from MIT and Eyebeam. The interview was quite a bit of fun! I was sat in an interrogation room with a table in front of me and camera upon me. the only others were the camera operator and the interrogator, appropriately distanced. on the table was a small assortment of scattered odds and ends - cardboard, string, a knife, screwdriver, wire, motor, lights, milk, a cup, etc. the clock was started! i’ve got 15 minutes. what am i building? oh, a windmill/electric-generator. how did i get interested in science? how the hell should i know, i’m trying to build you a windmill.  oh wait - umm.  umm.  umm.  umm.  that is such a big camera you have!  what’s my plan for building this windmill? hmm, maybe i’ll start messing with this here piece of cardboard.  ooh, that is a nice sharp knife, that will come in handy with this cardboard.  i’ll just start carefully cutting right here next to my finger and…  tell me about what you do?  hmm?  ohh!  that was close.  better put that knife away till he’s done with the questions.  i’m an electrical engineer.  how are you going to build a windmill then?  umm, yes i too wonder about that, i was absent when god handed out the 7th grade arts-n-crafts skills so i’m going to have to build this windmill out of resistors and capacitors, except you’ve only given me three of them.   what would i bring with me to a tropical island if i wanted to build some kind of robot? umm, can i fit a machine shop in my backpack? how about an electronics lab? oh, maybe this is going to be a lego robot?  what do you do if you’re working in a group and the other people don’t agree with your idea?  sure, i discuss my idea with them in a rational way, an open and ego-free exchange of ideas, followed by a consensus building around the idea with the most merit whether it is mine or not.  surely that makes for some great reality-tv.  what kind of people would you want on your team? i think i want one person to take care of all your soul-searching questions, one person to distract that pesky camera, and that leaves me in peace and quiet to build a nice windmill. why should we select you for this show? well, going to a tropical island sounds great, and building robots sounds great, so going to a tropical island and building robots sounds super mega great? 5 minutes left, how are you doing? hmm, it was so nice chatting but i’m going to have to ignore you and actually build this windmill now…

DRM learning?

i recently checked out the von Hagens Bodyworlds exhibit in philadelphia (looks like it will be in boston next year) -  this is a really outstanding exhibit of dozens of real, preserved human bodies with exceptionally intricate and unique dissections.  i highly recommend seeing the exhibit if you have the chance.  i got about half way through the exhibit before being escorted out by museum security, at which point i had a bit of time to consider their inhospitable photography policies while i waited for daphna to find me.

• The exhibit website claims that their primary goals are education and learning
• As a scientist and engineer I will learn much more from this exhibit if i can take photos of elements which are important to me and refer to them later.
• People are allowed to sketch the exhibit, but not take photos
• I am a ’sketching disabled’ person
• Purchasing photos is not very helpful to me, as the elements I am interested in capturing in photos are often particular to my interest and my way of seeing the world (just like if i was sketching).
• In perhaps 5 years i will have cybernetic implants that will allow me to permanently record anything interesting that i see for later reference.  will the security guard ask me to delete my brain or please leave?
• I suspect that there is a hidden motive here: money.  It is not reasonable to prevent all photography because you are worried that a couple of people will try to disrupt your profit model.  People who want to disrupt your profit model are motivated enough to do it anyway, and it is your job to take care of that if and when it happens.  Consider a Creative Commons license for your exhibit (this allows non-commercial photographs, for example).

On the opposite side of things, I can see the following points:

• Given the option to photograph, i suspect that far too many people would lose any interest in quiet learning and would instead become gibbering idiots posing with their new friend Ted, the humorously staid corpse.
• These same gibbering idiots would use their camera flashes incessantly

(preserved vascular system from a hand)

sailing pretty

did they just photoshop that in there?  (north side of golden gate)

(south side of golden gate, SF in background)

my friend lorraine is a very experienced sailor, so when i heard she had an open spot to go sailing i happily volunteered - i haven’t sailed sf bay except with kites, and we don’t go more than half a mile offshore with them as they are not especially reliable.  it turned out that the local sailing club was having a photo-op day for their new brochures, so i was to be a ‘happy smiling sailor’ on cue whenever the photo boat passed us by - didn’t sound too bad since in exchange they put us up on the nicest boats in the fleet for a day.  we sailed straight across the bay past treasure island, alcatraz, downtown SF, and under the golden gate.  then we tacked back and forth under the bridge for hours while the sun tried to cooperate with the photographers…  smile!  there was a cornucopia of marine life bobbing about under the bridge as well - a whale, a dolphin, a big log, a sea lion and a bird (and a bird and a bird and a bird….)

an endless sea of AT-AT’s

sunset at the port of oakland