Tinkering School

Intrinsically motivated learning is more durable and more memorable than extrinsically motivated learning. The boxbots are difficult to control, and yet we see these visitors lose themselves as forget everything around them and figure out how to navigate the maze - on their own terms, with their own goals.

Made it to Tokyo/Ebisu. Visiting a place you only know from movies and anime is in itself a meta-experience. I’ve only been at the Narita airport, the N’EX train, and now a little hotel, and so far, it’s everything I hoped for.

Hey Nancy, we remember you when you were being silly and being delighted by your boys, and we remember how strong you were when you needed to be. We’ve missed you the past few years. Love, Gever.

Is there anything so pleasing as having the model come to fruition? My troubled mind is soothed by building boats, and I am looking forward to putting this peculiar idea into the water soon. What you cannot see is that there is a skin that goes over the wooden shell to the problem of being water tight from the problem of engineering the structure. I have a notion about a keel assembly that is compression-strapped to the hull after the skin is stretched on, but I’m also considering a bow-mounted dagger-style keel that flips down when I need it…

Very excited that our Brightworks Summer Institute is being offered this year! Head over to sfbrightworks.org/institute for all the details. Early bird before March 31st, group discounts for three or more!

Just taking a moment to recognize the work of this team that just delivered a big batch of Boxbots to the museum, that constantly surprises me with their tenacity and commitment to quality. And I'm not even mentioning how they showed up on the rainiest day of the year and helped save our road, digging ditches and pouring concrete!

The 3d printer is on a shelf that can easily be reached by our youngest students, or hit by the stray pillow during rambunctious play. It is tempting to move it to some closet or less trafficked space, but then it couldn't inspire those same young minds to wonder how they can get their ideas to come out of the machine. The purpose of a curated space is to inspire the people in it to try new (and sometimes daunting) things. Instead of hiding the 3d printer, we are talking with the students about ways that we could keep it where it is and protect it. So far the suggestions include a clear box, a signup sheet where people take turns protecting it when it is printing, a dog that barks at you when you get to close, making a movie about how important it is to let the printer finish it's work, a moat that is filled with snapping turtles when there is a print happening, a chicken wire fence "like we use to keep foxes and coyotes out of the chicken coop", and "just print at night when there are only ghosts in the building." (these are wheel adapters for the robots we are delivering to the Chabot Space and Science Center for a new exhibit later this week).

Somewhere, in the darkest corner of every robotics project, there is fudge.

Spotted a squadron of UFO's offshore on my drive home tonight. I, for one, welcome our alien overlords (I mean protectors).

Our local bees always check the work when I have to use PVC pipe glue. This is a bit of a throwback to the tankhouse build (still in progress) because I'm on mandatory bed-rest for a back injury/strain and scrolling through my photos, looking at all the projects of the past couple of years, is reminding me that taking a break is ok.

NASA calls it ISRU, In-Situ Resource Utilization. At and we never throw wood away, we just keep using it until the pieces are too small to screw together. Re-using and re-contextualizing (to use a term from my friends with the art and design degrees) creates unique assemblages with beautiful serendipitous intersections and forms. calls it "bricolage", but I see it as something brutally purposeful and efficient - an opportunity not to have to build a new custom solution, to save time and use previously assembled parts to create something that is fundamentally "good enough." This iteration of the charging station has elements of previous generations of charging stations mixed with wooden brackets made to hold tubular metal stock at the previous site.