Cedric Chatterly to Speak at Center for Documentary Studies

Artist Cedric Chatterley will be presenting tonight at Durham's Center for Documentary Studies.  I met Cedric last year and had a delightful time talking with him about the beautiful cameras that he makes and the images he makes with them.  Cedric makes his large format cameras in conjunction with the artists he photographs.  A very meta piece of art.

Reciprocity
Cedric Chatterley makes photographs using film and he still prints in the darkroom. A few years ago, he started making cameras. The first cameras Chatterley built were made for him alone, an exercise in the imaginative and practical use of found objects and cast-off materials. He then became inspired to collaborate with friends and fellow artists—not only in creating images but also in constructing the instruments used to make them.

There is a reception and artist's talk tonight (1/28/2010) from 6pm-9pm.  Talk is at 7:00.

CNC Fooderator Concept Will Not Make you Twinkies Yet

This machine, said to be, a "currently starting" project, is a (much nicer looking) Rep-Rap / MakerBot but for food creation.  The brainchild of MIT visionaries Marcelo Coelho and Amit Zoran, the tool appears to use the same fused layer deposition model that many of the various 3D prototypers out there use but it has a material changer which, other than in the multicolor Z-Corp printers, I believe is unique.

Using CNC tools to affect the food arts is nothing new and has been tried with often entertaining results. Set your Googles or Bings on cupcake cnc, and candyfab, for instance.

"Cornucopia's cooking process starts with an array of food canisters, which refrigerate and store a user's favorite ingredients. These are piped into a mixer and extruder head that can accurately deposit elaborate combinations of food."

I've been waiting for robots to make my food for a long time.  Hopefully it will taste better than anything we could possibly imagine and not like extruded food paste leftover from the Mercury project.  As William Gibson said, "the future is already here. It's just not very evenly distributed."

Durham's Golden Belt Earns Gold LEED Certification

The U.S. Green Building Council awarded Durham's incredible Golden Belt campus the Gold LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification in recognition of its exemplary sustainable practices.

Congratulations on a job well done!

Full press release here.

Store your Make and Craft Issues in Style

I designed these Make magazine holders a week ago and I've finally finished them.  I just posted the files over on thingiverse so you can make your own.  Enjoy!

I like the look of Make magazine on my bookshelves but I wanted something to store them in that was similar to the holders I use for other magazines. Make's (and Craft's) unique form factor require a custom solution.

The images show the Make Magazine logo and cover art for each year. I'm assuming that I can't include the cover images in the files on thingiverse but I downloaded them from Make's own website if you want to make them exactly like mine.

Each file is designed for a loose fit for gluing and has been sized to contain four issues (one year).

I whipped these up in Corel Draw X4 and then cut them on the Epilog Helix 45w lazzzzor at TechShop RDU. I used 1/4" Baltic Birch plywood and then sanded the whole shebang to 400 grit. I finished the pieces with General Finishes Seal-a-Cell.

The raster and vector settings are in the files.

Reminder: Sparkfun is giving you $100 worth of free kit TOMORROW!

I told you way back in 2009 that hobby electronics retailer Sparkfun is giving away $100 worth of free goodies and you forgot, didn't you? Well the day has come! 1/7/2010 is your day for free stuff!