makers market

Built a clever gizmo?  Wanna sell it online?  Got a contest for ya

Built a clever gizmo? Wanna sell it online? Got a contest for ya

Have you built, or have you got a wicked scheme to build, an electronic gizmo you might want to sell? Well, as of today–together with Design News–we’re launching our first “Gadget Freak” contest seeking the cleverest, best-documented, and most marketable homemade gadget build. There’s a bunch of fine print, of course, but here’s the basics: The first place winner gets a thousand bucks plus a chance to sell their winning gadget through Makers Market Second- and third-place winners get $500 and $100, respectively. “Gadget,” for contest purposes, means an electronic device with sensing, motion, timing and/or networking elements. Entry form is here. Runs through July 13, California time.

Fold-up “robotagami” figures

Fold-up “robotagami” figures

Lubbock, Texas artist Dustin Wallace, whose larger one-off/limited edition transforming robot sculptures I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, also makes these wicked little “robotagami” dudes that are CNC-cut from sheet metal (stainless steel or copper), ship flat, and get slotted together and folded up to make a dimensional figure by the buyer.

Featured Maker: Shannon Conrad

Featured Maker: Shannon Conrad

If you follow CRAFT, as well, you may have seen Rachel’s post back in January about Oregon jeweler Shannon Conrad’s interlocking Lego rings. Shown above is the result of Shannon’s very first experiment with casting from Lego elements, a one-off solid silver Imperial Stormtrooper minifig she made for her 11-year-old son. It weighs 1.5 oz (44g). I know Lego fanboys who happily would trade their own teeth for one of those.

DIY word clock kits

DIY word clock kits

Back in September, Matt blogged about the QLOCKTWO text-display clock from high-end German design firm Biegert & Funk. If you like their version, one can be yours right now for the low, low price of €885, which is about $1200US as of this writing. Matt mentioned, in his original post, that the design “could be […]

Featured Maker: eBoy

Featured Maker: eBoy

Iconic pixel-art collective eBoy probably needs no introduction. Around here, they’re best known for the splendiferously intricate poster they made to promote Maker Faire Bay Area 2007, shown above. TBH, their catalog kind of puts me in an almost-panicky state of it’s-all-so-awesome overload. Their posters–which include a “cities” series featuring LA, NYC, Toyko, London, Berlin, Cologne, Venice, and the Baltimore docks, as well as “event” posters including a promotional for Amnesty International, the giant-robots-themed SuperBronco print created for their first solo gallery show, and FooBar, which is a mash-up of iconic Web 2.0 brands in a kind of “virtual city”–all induce the same jaw-dropping wonderland-of-details type effect. It feels like I could spend hours exploring any one of them, and there are so many. So many! Besides the posters, they also offera book which includes eight of their most popular designs reproduced on a smaller scale in case, like me, you just don’t have enough space on your walls for all the awesome they want to put there.

Petri dish monsters!

Petri dish monsters!

Los Angeles artist Shing Yin Khor was our Featured Maker about two weeks ago. She’s just added a few more of her trademark Petri dish monsters, which are selling fast. Shown at top is Maurice. Below that, in clockwise order, are Agatha, Lucy, Ed, and Buford. Oh, and Shing herself. She’s the one not in a Petri dish.