design

Los Angeles Printers Fair

Remember this “lost dog” clip from Sesame Street, where the brother and sister visit the letterpress printer to run off a bunch of “lost dog” flyers? Sesame Street finds the magic! Well, if you have an appreciation for letterpress printing and you’re in the L.A. area this Saturday, you might consider stopping by the Los […]

Zero to Maker: Gateway to Making… Drawing

Zero to Maker: Gateway to Making… Drawing

Regardless whether it’s an email exchange, Skype call, or an in-person meeting, I always make sure to ask them for one piece of advice they would give a wannabe maker. More often than not, the response is some derivative of: just get started. Make that first mistake, pick up that tool, or go out and get your hands dirty. I agree with all of that, but I want to offer another piece of advice: start drawing.

Browser-Based 3D Modeling with Tinkercad

Back a few years ago, if you wanted to design a 3D object, there were only a few options. Not many of those options were free or easy. TinkerCAD appears to be one of the many new modeling options that promises both free and easy. At World Maker Faire, I had a chance to see the browser-based TinkerCAD in action. It does appear that it is easy to operate, and free, if you can get it to run in the browser on your computer. TinkerCAD requires Windows Vista or OS X 10.6, so that will work on one computer at my house and one in my classroom.