Small and independent producers can benefit from the Internet’s Long Tail and on-demand manufacturing to find supply and demand for their products. Now, they can also count on radical traceability in the form of Myfab.com, a website that combines user-contributed design with the ability to follow each step in the manufacturing process once a product […]
Category Archives: open objects
Radical Traceability
Also posted in customization, fabrication, furniture, futurecraft, product design, retail, traceability
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Pocket Wikipedia
UPDATE: This is the wiki reader, a device available for $99 and that runs for one year off a pair of AAA’s. Last night Wikimedia board member Mako Hill showed me his prototype of a new mobile device for searching Wikipedia, using a simple reflective display and touch screen and an SD card to contain […]
Also posted in conviviality, product design
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Lego Papercraft
Goro Motai pointed me to this collaboration between Muji and Lego to augment plastic building blocks with papercraft figures. Using a custom paper puncher, sheets of construction paper can be made to clip onto the plastic nubs on regular lego blocks. Although the construction paper is treated as a flat medium, this merging of 2D […]
Also posted in 2d, 3d, children, customization, fabrication
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Electronic Pop-up Book
One of my favorite pieces at this year’s Ars Electronica / MIT Media Lab exhibit is an electronic pop-up book made by Leah Buechley’s student Jie Qi of the High-Low Tech research group. She has layered the traditional materials with copper films, conductive ink and lights and speakers to add a digital dimension to the […]
Also posted in 2d, 3d, fabrication, interaction, materials, soft/glowing, tangible
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techniques for soft electronics
How to get what you want is a rich resource for anyone working in wearable technology – whether you’re looking to to knit your own stretch sensor,
Also posted in fabrication, fashion, free & open, futurecraft, materials, soft/glowing
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steampunk servo
Fabricator extraordinaire Peter Schmitt designed this plywood servo from laser-cut plywood. The elaborate mechanism includes the circuitry to drive a motor to precise angles so it does double-duty as an object that teaches about physical fabrication and electronics. Instructions for the plywood servo can be found at the website of the Medialab class ‘Techniques for […]
Also posted in 2d, 3d, fabrication
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bristle branch
At the London Design Museum a number of ‘sustainable’ projects were shown, seeking to highlight the design opportunities afforded by the use of renewable materials and traditional craft. The CLEAN series by CinqCinq uses bent branches to secure synthetic bristles in a series of cleaning brushes. The use of bright red to indicate the mass-produced […]
Also posted in fabrication, futurecraft, materials
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fish map
The world’s fisheries are being depleted at an alarming rate, but they don’t have to be. Unregulated and unsustainable fishing practices pollute waters, decimate fish populations and co-dependent species. Recently a number of leading Ocean groups have released guides to help consumers select sustainable fish – notably the environmental defense fund’s pocket sushi selector (pdf), […]
Also posted in food, maps, possessed products, traceability
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