tinkering

Experimenting with Turning an Ultrasonic Cleaner into an Ultrasonic Knife

Experimenting with Turning an Ultrasonic Cleaner into an Ultrasonic Knife

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. And he has a new best-of writing collection and “lazy man’s memoir,” called Borg Like Me.

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Follow along as a curious maker tries to turn an ultrasonic cleaner into an ultrasonic cutting knife.

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Weekend Watch: Tinkering and Stop Motion with Dina Amin

Weekend Watch: Tinkering and Stop Motion with Dina Amin

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. And he has a new best-of writing collection and “lazy man’s memoir,” called Borg Like Me.

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A young Egyptian product designer deconstructs and stop-motion animates her tinkering for entertainment, inspiration, and education.

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What I Learned Building a Mechanized Spinning Musical Instrument

What I Learned Building a Mechanized Spinning Musical Instrument

By Barb Noren

Barb Noren

Barb is a maker, maker educator, and Lead Tinkering Instructor at the reDiscover Center in LA. She makes weekly high-speed project videos on her YouTube channel, Barb Makes Things. On any given day, she may be doing woodworking, 3d modeling and printing, electronics, Arduino, wearables, and papercraft.

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The hexachord is a mechanized, spinning musical instrument that creates the music of a small string ensemble.

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Talkin’ Tinkering with the Masters of Automata

Talkin’ Tinkering with the Masters of Automata

By Michelle "Binka" Hlubinka

Michelle "Binka" Hlubinka

Michelle, or Binka, makes . While at Maker Media, she oversaw publications, outreach, and programming for kids, families, and schools. Before joining Maker Media in 2007, she worked at the Exploratorium, in Mitchel Resnick’s Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab, and as a curriculum designer for various publishers and educational researchers. When she’s not supporting future makers, including her two young sons, Binka does some making of her own, most often as a visual artist.

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The Exploratorium Tinkering Studio invites all of you to join a Google Hangout this Friday, November 21st from 9am to 10:30am (Pacific time) to talk about one of their true specialties—Automata!—with some of their favorite masters of this art/technology. Joining the Tinkering Studio team will be a star-studded group: Artist Keith Newstead (whose pieces are at the top […]

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I [heart] The Art of Tinkering

I [heart] The Art of Tinkering

By Michelle "Binka" Hlubinka

Michelle "Binka" Hlubinka

Michelle, or Binka, makes . While at Maker Media, she oversaw publications, outreach, and programming for kids, families, and schools. Before joining Maker Media in 2007, she worked at the Exploratorium, in Mitchel Resnick’s Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab, and as a curriculum designer for various publishers and educational researchers. When she’s not supporting future makers, including her two young sons, Binka does some making of her own, most often as a visual artist.

View more articles by Michelle "Binka" Hlubinka
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We at MAKE love The Tinkering Studio at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, so when we heard that its directors, Karen Wilkinson and Mike Petrich, were going to capture their community of artists and engineers (“Tinkerers”) into the pages of a book called The Art of Tinkering, we couldn’t wait to get our hands on it. And you know what? They have exceeded my very high hopes for what they’d create.

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