disaster

Hackerfarm Builds and Donates Lights to Hurricane Victims

Hackerfarm Builds and Donates Lights to Hurricane Victims

By Akiba

Akiba

Akiba runs FreakLabs and specializes in wireless sensor networks for environmental monitoring. He's currently running HackerFarm, a countryside hackerspace in Japan focused on agriculture, and trying to balance his time between designing new products and making sure things are planted on time.

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Jacinta Plucinski

By Jacinta Plucinski

Jacinta Plucinski

Jacinta Plucinski runsZoot Publishing and publishes experimental board games and interactive fiction. She's also the author of Who Ate the Cake, a choose-your-own-adventure book for children. She's the head of the FarmLab experimental farming project at Hackerfarm and also teaches workshops on how to print and publish books and board games.

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After hearing that Puerto Rico would be without power for at least six months, Freaklabs worked to send the country some light.

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California Wildfires: How Makers Can Respond When Disaster Strikes

California Wildfires: How Makers Can Respond When Disaster Strikes

By Dale Dougherty

Dale Dougherty

DALE DOUGHERTY is the leading advocate of the Maker Movement. He founded Make: Magazine 2005, which first used the term “makers” to describe people who enjoyed “hands-on” work and play. He started Maker Faire in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2006, and this event has spread to nearly 200 locations in 40 countries, with over 1.5M attendees annually. He is President of Make:Community, which produces Make: and Maker Faire.

In 2011 Dougherty was honored at the White House as a “Champion of Change” through an initiative that honors Americans who are “doing extraordinary things in their communities to out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world.” At the 2014 White House Maker Faire he was introduced by President Obama as an American innovator making significant contributions to the fields of education and business. He believes that the Maker Movement has the potential to transform the educational experience of students and introduce them to the practice of innovation through play and tinkering.

Dougherty is the author of “Free to Make: How the Maker Movement Is Changing our Jobs, Schools and Minds” with Adriane Conrad. He is co-author of "Maker City: A Practical Guide for Reinventing American Cities" with Peter Hirshberg and Marcia Kadanoff.

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Wildfires have ravaged Northern California all week, and makers are beginning to organize.

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Hurricane Irene: What Worked, What Didn’t?

Hurricane Irene: What Worked, What Didn’t?

By Chris Connors

Chris Connors

Making things is the best way to learn about our world.

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A little while ago, the utility gods smiled upon my house, renewing the electricity, telephone and internet. Hurricane Irene provided many people an opportunity to examine our cultural commitment to the systems of technology. We were without these modern amenities for about 48 hours, long enough to regain a healthy appreciation.

Thinking back upon my family’s recent technology vacation, it occurs to me that more things fell into the ‘Works Fine’ category than the ‘Doesn’t Work’ category. There’s also the ‘Works, but…’ column, which may be the most interesting to us makers. Having things stop working gives a great view into the systems that we depend on, how they work, how they fail, and what we can do to either prevent failure or deal with it when it comes our way.

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DIY Geiger Counters in Japan

DIY Geiger Counters in Japan

By Gareth Branwyn

Gareth Branwyn

Gareth Branwyn is a freelance writer and the former Editorial Director of Maker Media. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books on technology, DIY, and geek culture. He is currently a contributor to Boing Boing, Wink Books, and Wink Fun. His free weekly-ish maker tips newsletter can be found at garstipsandtools.com.

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In the wake of the Japanese disaster trifecta, I contacted our pal Francesco Fondi, of Wired Italy’s Otaku News and Hobby Media, to make sure he was OK (in Tokyo). He’s fine. He also sent us a link to a piece he’d done on Wired.it about DIY Geiger counters. It looked interesting, so I asked […]

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Where Have All the Robots Gone?

Where Have All the Robots Gone?

By Gareth Branwyn

Gareth Branwyn

Gareth Branwyn is a freelance writer and the former Editorial Director of Maker Media. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books on technology, DIY, and geek culture. He is currently a contributor to Boing Boing, Wink Books, and Wink Fun. His free weekly-ish maker tips newsletter can be found at garstipsandtools.com.

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Right after the Japanese earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster, I began jokingly mentioning to friends: “At least Japan has lots of robots that can help.” Then, as the days have worn on, and the tragedies mount, I started seeing comments on Facebook and blogs, asking: “Where are the robots!?” Where are the robots? Japan is […]

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Post-disaster shelters

Post-disaster shelters

By Chris Connors

Chris Connors

Making things is the best way to learn about our world.

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10

Around the world, people are preparing systems to deploy in emergencies like the earthquake in Haiti, the Asian Tsunami of a few years ago and other situations such as hurricanes, floods, fires and the aftermath of war. Medical personnel are crucial, but their stuff needs to be with them, and they need a place to work. Below are a number of shelters that can be delivered and set up in places of need around the world. The people developing these systems are working hard, often with little funding and driven by their passion to create better designs. The projects below are all in some phase of the Design Process, and each could have its place in a variety of challenging situations. Each community has its’ own traditions of architecture, and the materials available vary by region. The designers of long term structures need to remain sensitive to these local realities.

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