Paper Circuitry

I have been trying to create paper circuit boards. These means the circuit can be built into simple origami object using small surface mount components. Here is a little programmable stobe light I made.

Wood Cut Prints

I have been trying to create wooden stamps for CD covers. I need to experiment about with other materials for the stamp. Here is my MDF block...

Studio Re-Vamp

Our studio has finally had a bit of a make over, We now don't work with our backs to each other! Hopefully we are going to get further enhancements such as storage.

Big LED Screen

I have been soldering building a large LED screen. The screen will read rss feeds from the internet. Hopefully it will be finished soon.....

Bespoke Design Workshops

The Bespoke team were all down in Preston last month running workshops to try and start to think about design ideas. There were various areas being explored; green spaces, social club communication, music, security, family and technology and fundraising. Jon and I were running the music, social club communication and green spaces workshops. We made up some activities to try and get people talking about these particular areas.



The social club communication workshop saw us map out what clubs talk to each, it also looked at the method and tone of communication between people.



The green spaces workshop mapped out where people take part in certain activities from hanging out in groups to talking on the phone.

For the music workshop we planned to have local musicians look at their brand identity, but unfortunately only one person turned up for the workshop, Dub P. Dub P is a local grime producer that was full of enthusiasm and will probably be a useful contact throughout the project.

I will post up our design ideas soon....

Niftymitter update

I have been hard at work on Niftymitter, which has its own website and blog at openthing.org. The transmitter has a completely new housing design in laser cut cardboard and I have been fully documenting the development in an open source manner using primarily Google Code, but also Thingiverse and Instructables. The transmitter is now in version 0.24, shown above.

Sadly I'm only here til the end of the week, so the aim for then is to have 6 kits which I shall be sending out to testers'hackers who registered and interest through the website. The kit will contain a Niftymitter and various add ons to allow users to experiment with different possible behaviours and funcionalities - it is part probe, part 'assisted hacking' exercise. I'm looking forward to seeing what others make of the deign and assisting in developing those ideas into further prototypes leading up to an exhibition in June as part of the PPFCP project.

Pranav Mistry on SixthSense

I came across an interesting TEDtalk from TEDIndia, which I'd like to share below: A chap called Pranav Mistry from the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT's Media Lab, showing his work, which he calls Sixth Sense: basically a portable, wearable augmentative display, which he has used to explore some interesting applications. Audience hyperbole aside, it's a pleasantly succinct presentation, and an apparently soon-to-be open source project, which always floats my boats..

Introducing Roy

Hi, I'm Roy and shall be posting here occasionally for the next 3 months. I am a designer maker, here on a bursary awarded through the Past, Present and Future Craft Practice project.

I am interested in open sourcing as a method for collaboratively crafting technical products, and hope to try out some ideas on this topic while here in Dundee. I am going to use a design for a short range FM radio transmitter design that I have started to develop, as a subject for this - Here are a couple at this stage:



The product at this stage is called Niftymitter, and there is a bit more info here on my website.

I have also been experimenting with the laser cutter, and tried engraving a landscape into the pages of a book to get some contour outlines:



I look forward to posting more - I normally post fairly regularly to the Zero-waste Design blog, and occasionally to the Ponoko blog, but will save the extra special ones for the Product Design Research Studio blog, so as not to bore you!

Printed Circuit Boards using the Laser Cutter

I have finally uploaded my very first instructable. It shows you how to make precision cut circuit boards using the laser cutter. Before finding this process I was using the standard process of ironing on toner from an acetate, but when using chips with many legs this can sometimes be in accurate and unpredictable. This new process guarantees much better results.



This will be the first of many instructables I hope, the next one should be up shortly, how to build and program your very own MP3 player.........

Laser Cutter!

Our laser cutter has finally arrived and it has been very busy cutting and etching anything we find lying around.........

Insights Fete

Last month Jon and I were down in Preston for our Insights Fete, this essentially is a cross between a village fete and cultural probes. We used traditional fete attractions to ask our research questions for us. The attraction included a strength meter, photography comp, bead making and laser cut badges. We will post more info about the results of this Fete at a later date, but for now here re some images.....

Dean exhibits at TEI 09 in Cambridge

The Table with a View and Audio Can were very well recieved at TEI 09 Conference in Cambridge (February 2009). A supporting paper 'Embedded Electronics in Playful Products' is published in the conference proceedings. We particularily enjoyed talks by Durrel Bishop, Ayah Bdeir, Bart Hengeveld and demo's by Richard Banks and Alice Wang.

The Jean-Baptiste Labrune fron MIT Media Lab was so taken by our camera that he attached it to his face.

This Happened

Jon presented the This Happened talks on Thursday. He talked about how to design for communities, in particular his work with with Steve Birnie and there techniques for working with the Dance Base community in Edinburgh. To watch Jons talk go to http://www.thishappened.org/talks/jonrogers-edinburgh-1/

This Happened

What happened? Jon is presenting his manifesto on Thur 5th March as part of the This Happened talks. It will take place at the GRV in Edinburgh.

Deyan Loves Dean

Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum, visited Dundee last month to promote his new book, 'The Language of Things'. Whilst visiting he found the time to look at some of the work coming out of the design studios, Deyan picked out a couple of objects he really liked, Deans' Audio Can and Table with a View as well as Christopher McNicholls' Radio.