Our friends at the New York Hall of Science are going to be launching pumpkins this weekend with their in-house trebuchet “Chuck”: See NYSCI’s 20-foot-tall outdoor catapult in action! Learn about the history and science of catapults, and then watch it hurl pumpkins across the field. The demonstration will show how adjustments on the catapult […]
More hackerspace goodness from “Take on the Machine” — this time, LA’s Crash Space (the top two videos) and Boston’s Artisan’s Asylum step up to the plate. More: Take on the Machine: A hackerspace challenge Take on the Machine, Part 2 Take on the Machine continues with NYCR, part 2 Take on the Machine visits […]
Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of doing a guest residency at the University of Illinois — Urbana-Champaign. Several of the people who came to my talks were from Makerspace Urbana, a local maker/hacker group. One day, I gave a luncheon talk at the School for Designing a New Society, on the maker movement, […]
Our roundup of ten clever and useful projects for making blackboards and whiteboards.
Prolific MAKE contributor, Andrew Lewis, has a piece up on Upcraft showing off his workshop. It’s a really sweet looking setup: There is an oscilloscope fixed under the bench, and an easel above. I like to think that I’m working between two different ends of the creative spectrum, with art above me and science below. […]
The World Maker Faire episode of The Martha Stewart Show is now online! TV-less or just Hallmark Channel-less? Watch the video clips on Martha’s site (sadly not embeddable here). We’re ecstatic to see some of our favorite makers featured on the show yesterday. I was lucky enough to attend with Maker Faire director Sherry Huss, […]
Whatever else may be said of me, I am fundamentally a dreamer: I have ideas. Lots of them. Most are terrible (ask me sometime about my scheme to potty-train cattle), but every so often one will work out. And, like many creative people, when others see my work I often get asked “How did you ever think of that?” When I was younger, the process was as mysterious to me as to anybody else. But over the years I’ve learned a lot about where my ideas come from and what to do with them when they pop up, and the more I read about and talk to other creative people, the more I come to believe that there are, in fact, some more-or-less universal principles of creativity. And while there will always be something mysterious in the workings of the muse, I do not subscribe to the common belief that creativity is a magical gift bestowed on some and not on others. Like drawing, doing algebra, or speaking a second language, having original ideas is a mental skill that can be developed and, with practice, can become second nature. What follows is a brief list of the stations on my own personal “assembly line” of ideas. If you need an idea and can’t seem to have one, give it a read, give it a try, and see what shakes loose. If it works for you, remember it; if it doesn’t, throw it away. Experiment, as always, and develop your own process.
