In 1969, human beings first set foot on the moon. The mission was Apollo 11. Here are eleven tools that helped us do it. These are not rockets, spaceships, or robots–though those are certainly “tools,” in their own way–but humbler implements, having more in common with the bone club (to use the 2001 metaphor) than the satellite. But that is precisely why they are remarkable.
Running and maintaining a workshop with over 200 users from varied backgrounds certainly has its challenges. Eric Hagan, Resident Researcher at NYU’s ITP, shows you how to do just that.
Born out of a collaboration at famed Chicago hackerspace Pumping Station One, Board Forge is a six-person startup developing a prosumer-grade, open-source circuit board assembly robot. This weekend at SXSW Create, I got a chance to snap a few photos of their prototype version 1.0 while chatting with founder Jeff McAlvay about the democratization of industrial electronics assembly equipment.
Ben Light may love his lathe just a little too much, and in this video he shows us how to use it to turn a piece of firewood into the handle for a mallet, and a block of scrap wood into the head.
Inspired by the Sandables concept that recently made the rounds, we’ve been experimenting with adding abrasive grit to polycaprolactone (aka ShapeLock) thermoplastic to make rigid sanding blocks that can be reformed, with mild heating, to fit into hard-to-reach nooks and crannies on your work.
Minneapolis maker Greg Flanagan made an organizer for his tools using a slab of CNCed wood. First he arranged the tools how he wanted them. Next, he took a photo of the arrangement and pulled it into his vector art program where he traced the tools. Finally, he imported his drawing into CAM software and […]
Take a photo tour through the 35-year-old hand-built workshop of general building contractor Craig Cochrane, and check some of his projects: a redwood cone carved newel post and a rampant lion stained glass window.
