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  • Paper Switches

    Series of paper switches I designed for the second part of the e-luminated paper circuits workshop at SFCB. I used the Silhouette to pre-cut paper samples that students could use in the workshop to learn about some of the possibilities.The sampler as constructed by one of the class participants Spin switch Tab switch Push Switch…

  • Bananas of the World Unite

    The Banana sticker give away has now been declared officially over. Participation was fruitful, and prizes have been shipped smoothie. Congrapeulations to the prize winners! Sophie, queen of vegetable puns, was quick off the mark with her enthusiasm: Natalie points out the truth of the matter. But my all time favorite has to go to…

  • Interactive Accessories

    A few weeks ago I worked on a project with NuVu, a design school in Boston that is geared around multidisciplinary and collaborative projects. I was working with students in the “Interactive Fashion Studio”at ASB Mumbai, NuVu’s partner school in India. We started the week questioning what interactive means, and looking at how fashion can…

  • e-luminated books part 2

    This weekend we ran part 2 of the e-luminated books workshop at San Francisco Center for the book. This part was focused on interactivity -embedding sensors and switches into books, as wells as designing programs for the Attiny85. It was a lot of fun and will be happening again in June! If you haven’t taken…

  • Back from Bhutan

    So I’ll have to admit it is actually going on 2 whole months since I arrived back from Bhutan, but I had such an inspiring time that I had to share the experience. I went to Bhutan to work on the first ever Bhutan International Festival (BhIF) to help install an interactive simulation of the…

  • Knitting Program: bitKNIT

    Almost 10 months ago to the day I started a blog called “Processing Processing”. I started it to document the process of learning the visual programming language, Processing. My first post, published on February 16th 2014, lists 10 reasons why I wanted to start to learn to program. Reasons like “because I like making stuff”,…

  • Circus-y disco e-luminated book

    Quite a long title for a tiny weeny book. This one was rather wonderful to make, and was programmed using a simple Arduino blinky pattern and the teeny-weeny-ATtiny. (so teeeeeeny) Here is the process: All the layers putting the pages together The lighting The control -including wonderful paper battery holder curtsy of Natalie Freed and…

  • San Francisco Center for the Book

    We held our second e-luminated book workshop at the SFCB this weekend. It was a really lovely and creative group -they experimented with light and switches and made some really beautiful tunnel books in a very short time. We’ll be teaching the same class again in the new year, and will also be teaching a…

  • Calm before the storm at the Lighthouse

    As I mentioned earlier I am teaching on the Summer Maker Camp at Lighthouse Community Charter School, in Oakland CA. The first 2 weeks of my teaching job at Lighthouse are dedicated to planning, preparing and developing the curriculum for the 5 week program, and we’ve just finished! The most challenging part of the preparation…

  • Maker Ed Maker Corps

    Maker Ed is a non-profit based in the Bay Area. They are a sister company of Maker Media (Make Magazine, Maker Faire) and work to support making in schools. I recently applied for Maker Ed’s spring teacher training and teaching position called “Maker Corps”, and got selected! We, the “Maker Corps Members”, spend 6 weeks…

  • Roller up, roller up!

    Another snippet of the awesome print-sans-press project I am working on with Marsh Shaw. Marsha is an extremely knowledgeable print-maker, and it is very inspiring to be working with her!

  • 5x3s’s (or 12.7×7.62’s)

    5×3″ / 127×76.2mm (delete as appropriate) prints I am making for a “print without press” (printSANSpress) project I am working on in collaboration with screen printer Marsh Shaw at Mission Grafica. The idea is to make and document ways of printing without a huge (and expensive) press, especially techniques that educators can make with kids…

  • Glowing paper lanterns

    A lot of fun was had making these silhouette-paper-lanterns at Farnham Festival of Crafts. We made simple circuits using coper tape, and a bit of conductive ink to glue (I mean *cold solder*) the components.

  • Craft Connects Book

    Here is the final version of the Craft Connects book! Play the video link to see it in action. I am especially happy with how the knitted triangles came together. The cover looks fantastic, and when you link the letters C R A F T to the knitted triangle labelled “connect”, you trigger sound-bytes from…

  • Knitted book cover

    To make the knitted book cover I had the the help of the Farnborough knit and natter group, and the Nepalese craft group. Both groups worked together to make loads of triangles, which I then stitched together. English and Nepalese casting on techniques are quite different, and the two groups learned from each other. I…

  • Stitching Circuits

    Another tricky part of the process was connecting to the pins -i.e. making a breakout board for conductive thread. After a skype “consultation” with Seb and Hannah, who both work on a really exciting glove project and are experts in e-textiles, I decided to solder wires to the live pins, and then padded them with…

  • Book binding with circuits

    Binding the book was no easy task. Originally, I had planned to bind using coptic technique which I had learned from one of the studio technicians when studying at Leeds College of Art. This would have worked by binding the book as usual, whilst also working the circuits into the back of each page with…

  • Paper Switches

    So we have lots of creative work by members of Farnborough library, we have some stories and sound bites, and we have a small device to play these back. Now to put them all together and make the book! We made 18 sound recordings in total, and I saved these recordings with the file name…

  • Hacking Speakers

    For the speakers in the Farnborough community book, I used some travel speakers -they are cheaper, but much better quality than the speakers you can buy for projects like this. the only draw back is you need to hack them apart. If you try this make sure you buy speakers with screws! I bought some…

  • Putting the MP3 together

    I am *incredibly* excited about adding a mini MP3 trigger to the community book I am making. What this means is that whilst making the artwork for the pages of book, we can also record short sound bites and then play them back in the book through some mini speakers. The trigger has 18 tracks,…