The post Photographer Whimsically Augments Reality with Papercuts | Make: appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post Add a Simple Circuit Breathing LED Effect to Your Pumpkin appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The weather is windy and chilly. The end of Daylight Savings Time looms. So, it’s the perfect time to curl up with a book and cider or hot chocolate, or to knit a scarf in the makerspace.
Are you ready to bookmark? We’ve got some great links.
New features:
Dancers Romel Frometa & Abigail Morwood. Photography by Jennifer Denham.
Ballet and books seem like a very good combination to me. Ballet at the Barre is what you get when of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County and Cincinnati Ballet do a pas de deux. (See what I did there?)
Fun stuff:
And that’s all folks! Have a great spooky weekend!
The post Exclusive Interview: Meet Dr. Dava Newman, Deputy Administrator of NASA appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post Artist Creates Outrageously Detailed, Beautiful Papercraft Microbes appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post 12 More 3D Print Projects for Halloween appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
This coming Tuesday (Nov 3) at 7:00 PM, we have some amazing people from YourDuino.com coming by Makers Local 256 to give a presentation/demo/Q&A on Arduino microcontrollers and embedded electronics in general. They’re touring around the Southeast and ML256 is one of the many places they chose to stop by!
Their main objective is to talk to people about Arduino and what you can do with it. They’ll have some kits and parts available during and after the presentation, so if you don’t have an Arduino (or two) already, you can pick one up then. They’ll be showing off a neat display of a few different Arduino projects and circuits, so it should be interesting and fun!
They’ll be going through the entire process of designing, connecting, and coding up a simple Arduino project from start to finish. If you have any questions about your own project, they would love to discuss ideas and give help where they can.
There’s no cost to attend the presentation, but they will have parts available for sale if you need them. Anyone is welcome to attend!
![Tool organizer at think[box]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_szX91fbw9ns8_XXE3YKWL7TGHakwDd5Xr3XFaYy7aAXTggQPdznmGBECwkCxVIaUXNmNnEen0dGQ=s0-d)
The post Cleveland’s Thinkbox Is a Big Bet on University Makerspaces appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post Easy No-Carve Pumpkin Idea: Star Wars BB-8 appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post Make the Most Adorable Praying Mantis Costume Ever appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post Make a Transformers’ Soundwave Costume from Cardboard appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post Learn How to Make Gears by Building a Ghost-Go-Round appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post Paparazzi Bots to Follow You Like a Celeb at Maker Faire Ottawa appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post Microsoft Announces Windows IoT Support for Arduino and DragonBoard appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post Turning a Tape Gun Into a Prototyping Machine appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post Magic Wand Flashlight appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post Arduino Basics: Add Pulsing LED Eyes to Halloween Props appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post Bookmark This Now: The Best 3D Printing Troubleshooting Guide appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
With these basic mold making skills you can create wax copies of your handmade jewelry for lost wax casting.
The post Learn Mold Making Basics for Jewelry appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post Just a Skeleton Swinging by Itself on Your Lawn appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
Today’s feature comes to us from the Public Library of Cincinnati & Hamilton County in Ohio, with their fantastic partnership program, Ballet at the Barre, which is a collaboration between the library and the Cincinnati Ballet. Enjoy! ~Laura
by Angela Hursh
Marketing Department, Public Library of Cincinnati & Hamilton County
Ballet at the Barre is an adventurous new partnership of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County and Cincinnati Ballet. Merging our Library’s vision to connect people to the world of ideas and information with the Ballet’s belief that collaboration ignites new possibilities, we plan to explore Cincinnati Ballet’s rehearsal space in a historic building in Cincinnati’s urban Over-The-Rhine neighborhood.
Ballet at the Barre kicks off on Sept. 30, when guests view a rehearsal of the Ballet in preparation of their upcoming performance Lady of the Camellias. After viewing rehearsal, we discuss the book The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan while enjoying refreshments. We plan to continue our partnership with future events to include rehearsal viewings, book discussions—and especially alluring—we will feature speakers from the artistic staff of the Ballet to explore the artistry of the Ballet.
Below, photographs from the Cincinnati Ballet’s recent show, New Works.
Future speakers could be the Artistic Director, the Music Director, Costume Designer, Lighting Designer, and the performers themselves. This new partnership celebrates Cincinnati Ballet’s vision to inspire hope and joy in our community and beyond through the power and passion of dance.
The post Acrylic Cheat Sheet: How to Cut, Glue, Bend, and More appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post Reimagining the Carnival: Two Bit Circus Raises $6.5 Million appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post 10 Imaginative Bottle Openers Made from Old Tools appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post Element14 to Offer Raspberry Pi Customization for Bulk Orders appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post Power Paper Circuits with Static Electricity appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
A lot of you have been asking for more information on our new space. It seems like the address is not enough for you. Check out these awesome 360 views of the new space.
Main Room
Loading Bay
Kitchen
Front
The post Build an Elegant, Simple Side Table from 2×4s appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post $500,000 Challenge: Build Projects to Help ALS Communication appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post Hide an Arcade Machine in Your Coffee Table appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post Space Jam Will Give Your Toast a Galaxy of Flavor appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
RMIT University in Sydney, Australia gets serious bonus points from the LAIP on the name of their fabulous arts festival, which is deliciously library-nerdy: the 700s Arts Festival! This late night kickoff event and ongoing celebration of the arts in the library is an inspiration for academic and public libraries alike, and reveals how one can make the most of the “temporary spaces” generated during a library renovation. ~Laura
By Adam Browne and Doreen Sullivan
On 13 August this year, RMIT University Library wasn’t as quiet as you’d expect a library to be – and strangely, the librarians weren’t doing anything to keep the noise down. In fact, they were contributing to it.
It was the launch of the 700s Arts Festival.
The party was an extravagant night to open an extravagant event. It was a spectacle, a hoot. The Library almost didn’t recognise itself. A crowd of 300 filled the normally hushed spaces, sampling vegan canapés and cheerful tipples, enjoying performances and chuckling at the witty talk on “The Art of Browsing (and the Browsing of Art)’ from Professor Paul Gough–all of this presided over by a giant dewy-eyed mural of Melvil Dewey.
“Dewey” by Simon Mazzei.
The celebration was well-deserved. The Festival was characterised as a sort of pop-up event, and was the result of a short period of intensive organisation and labour, where talented and passionate people around the University had rolled up their sleeves to create something both beautiful and inspiring.
As the name suggests, the 700s Arts Festival was a celebration of the 700s of the Dewey Decimal System–the largest part of the collection at RMIT Swanston Library, a fascinating place to browse–and our way of embracing the temporary spaces made available through preparations for the current renovations, known as the Swanston Library Transformation.
There were art exhibitions, among them ‘Art against the Grain’, curated by RMIT Gallery–a rare opportunity to see some of the prestigious art the gallery owns. ‘Grazing the 700s’ had works from students and staff of RMIT School of Art, and ‘Referencing Artists’ featured art by students, alumni, and staff; this show surprised many with its first-class works by library staff, a demonstration of how talented librarians so often are.
“Library Artefacts” by Georgina Matherson. Described as ‘objects associated with the Library whose roles have become antiquated, get their portraits taken’ – this old sticky tape holder, this outdated date stamp, this electric fan and foot stool and their friends… How dutifully they sit for their portraits, not quite understanding that they’re obsolete.
There was a Screen Arts programme, digital media and a workshop in direct 16mm film animation. There was a practical class on collage, and another on ‘designing hypersounds for ultradirectional, parametric loudspeakers’; there was a session on cartooning from the respected graphic novelist Mandy Ord; and a workshop run by Simmone Howell, a novelist and feature article writer.
Mandy Ord (featured) continues to share her generosity with students after her workshop.
There was art everywhere, wherever you turned. In all, 150 people contributed to the Festival. In this alone, it was a triumph, bringing various schools and people together, and making the Library into a vibrant hub of the arts.
Officially, the Festival ended on 25 September, but continues to fizz and spark in the form of the 700s Arts Festival Zine, currently being edited by Simmone Howell.
And as generally happens when something is a big success, there’s talk of doing it all again.
The follow-up event will be a consultative workshop that draws upon what we achieved and asked what else might we like to consider, especially in our fancy new Library.
Is another Dewey number on our radar? The 020s? The AV section? The Folios or the databases?
We’ll have to wait and see.
So how did we go about it? Here’s some insight from Amanda Kerley, who directed the festivities and is from the Library’s communications team.
How and why did the idea for the Festival arise?
Well, it began with a problem: we were facing the possibility of big empty spaces in the Library, for two months between the relocation of parts of our collection and when renovations were to begin. The University Librarian, Craig Anderson, and I discussed ways to utilise this space in a meaningful way for students. The first priority was maximising seating – so the Library brought in as much disused furniture as we could locate. The second priority was making it a comfortable and attractive study environment. This is where the idea of a temporary exhibitions came from, which also sits nicely with one of the communications team’s objectives: to promote and engage users with our collections.
Our University has a strong arts, design, media and architecture focus and our collection analyses have shown these students are heavy browsers; it’s often a part of their arts practice and research methodology. So when we had to relocate low-use parts of our physical collections, we made sure browsing data was considered in assessing the use of our 700s, which our now our largest onsite section. And so, a quip in response to this fact: “let’s have a festival of the 700s!” very soon became a reality.
So what happened between the quip and the festival: how was it implemented?
With the generosity of a lot enthusiastic and talented people! As well as engaging people with the Library, we saw this as an opportunity to foster relationships across the University and to also experiment with ideas we might like to develop further in the future: for example creative workshops allowed us to consult with students about the concept of makerspaces, something we are considering for the new Library. We’ve also noted the Library provides significant – and unofficial – pastoral care to students; it’s a space in which many students feel guided and supported. Conversations at the workshops allowed us to further consider this phenomenon.
So to achieve this, we first needed to the secure the support of Library managers, by first demonstrating how the festival addressed the Library’s strategic objectives and then by also demonstrating how it would be achievable. A staffing plan was needed and while the communications team was driving the festival, we’re very small, so we created secondments of staff from other Library units to work on discrete parts of the Festival such as exhibitions coordination and opening night coordination.
Next we cast a wide net across the University, asking for participation in exhibitions and the presentation of talks and workshops that we would host, program and promote: we were amazed and overwhelmed by the response! A lecturer from the art school, Phil Edwards, curated an entire exhibition of student and staff works. We also benefitted by established relationships Library staff had across the University and within the arts. For example, Susan Wyers, who coordinated the exhibitions and also curated one of the art shows, shared her extensive professional network which ensured a strong representation of the artworks of alumni.
We were so overwhelmed by interest that we were then faced with an unexpected dilemma: how to facilitate this level of participation. It didn’t take long to fill the empty spaces of the Library with art, but it did take a lot of work to coordinate this amount of interest. Of course we eventually had to decline works and in some cases this was due to our technical limitations: we weren’t very well equipped to exhibit projection and sound based works, but because we didn’t want to lose the opportunity to engage with people who had approached us, we tried to find other ways for them to participate, by inviting them to give workshops or participate in our consultative events to learn what we’d need to do to be technically prepared in the future.
Detail from Nicola Hardy’s collage at Kim Handley’s Homage to John Baldessari workshop.
How did Library users respond to having that much art in the Library?
From our surveys and conversations, we discovered most students were very enthusiastic about artworks in the Library. A significant trend was the comment that studying amongst art was an inspiration and that it stimulated their thoughts. The only repeated concern was that some artworks obscured access to powerpoints desired for charging laptops. One person was a little exasperated because they had been distracted from their study by the allure of the artworks!
What are your five top tips for people interested in running something similar?
Further reading: http://ift.tt/1HameTm
If anyone has aluminum that you would be willing to donate to our aluminum pour please bring to maker space, drop off in foundry area and notify me!
The foundry Gods thank you.
Kayla Schroeder
414.429.1731
The post 3D Print a Motorized Star Wars AT-AT appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post Artist Turns Gallery into Repair Shop appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post Let This Helmet with a Robot Arm (Sorta) Brush Your Teeth appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The post Comment to Win: What Would You Make with a Swarovski Crystal Sampler? appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
The Corning Museum Of Glass is a special place where librarians, curators, artists, and educators all work together to share the history and craft of glass making. Rebecca Hopman’s series on her work at the CMOG’s Rakow Research Library is an excellent template for creating and sustaining the library-as-incubator. Enjoy! ~Erinn
by Rebecca Hopman
A team at the Rakow Research Library has taken on a project of, let us say, towering proportions. The Discovering the Whitefriars Collection project’s goal is to develop a cost-effective method to conserve, digitize, and offer public access to oversized artwork and documents. Our large-format collection of choice, the Whitefriars stained glass cartoon collection, contains an estimated 10,000 design drawings and stained glass cartoons (working drawings) created by James Powell & Sons (a.k.a. Whitefriars Glass). The cartoons were used to created stained glass windows, and most of them were drawn to full scale – up to 20 feet in length. 20-foot drawings are generally hard to miss, but this was a hidden collection. How could we bring these drawings to light?
20-foot drawings are generally hard to miss, but this was a hidden collection. How could we bring these drawings to light?
Whitefriars cartoons come in all sizes, but mostly XXL!
Our challenge began back in 2008, when the collection made its way through our doors. But first, a quick detour. Whitefriars, a London glass company whose origins date to the 17th century, was founded on the site of a former monastery south of Fleet Street. The monastery was occupied by a Carmelite order of monks popularly known as the White Friars, due to the snowy mantels they donned on formal occasions. Long after the monastery was dissolved by King Henry VIII, a small glasshouse opened for business. Years later, in 1834, James Powell purchased the company and expanded its operations. Whitefriars made many types of glass including tableware, ornamental glass, and scientific glass, but they were best known for their stained glass windows. Called “the most enduring and successful glasshouse in Britain” by the Museum of London, Whitefriars completed hundreds of stained glass installations in thirty-eight countries around the world.
So how did the cartoons from this notable British company end up in upstate New York? When the company closed in 1980, their archives were split between the Museum of London and the Victoria & Albert Museum. Several decades later, the Museum of London generously gifted part of its collection – 1,800 rolls of cartoons and drawings – to the Rakow Library. As an archivist, I’m generally a fan of collections sticking together, but it seems fitting that this company’s records live on in museums dedicated to London, the decorative arts, and glass. Each provides a home (and a different perspective) to the remarkable work done by Whitefriars.
As an archivist, I’m generally a fan of collections sticking together, but it seems fitting that this company’s records live on in museums dedicated to London, the decorative arts, and glass. Each provides a home (and a different perspective) to the remarkable work done by Whitefriars.
Back to our project. The collection came to us in thick, tight rolls, dirty from use on the factory floor and decades of storage. The cartoons, too brittle to unroll safely, were inaccessible to staff and researchers. To care for this collection, we needed a major plan of action. We couldn’t afford to have each of the 10,000 items conserved individually, so we needed to develop an economical solution that could be carried out onsite. The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) awarded our library a National Leadership planning grant to create and test such a method. We partnered with the Museum of London and West Lake Conservators, each of whom brought necessary expertise to the table. And so, in December 2014, we set out to discover our collection.
We selected 15 rolls representing local and international connections, with work by a number of Whitefriars’ top designers. We set up a conservation lab with a humidification chamber, and hired two conservation interns, Nicole and Natasa, to humidify, clean, and flatten the cartoons, mending tears where necessary. They worked hard from late May through early August, and left us with 100 conserved cartoons. Late September brought our digitization team, Boston Photo Imaging, to town; they set their cameras up in the same lab that had recently held conservation equipment (and Beyoncé). Many of the cartoons were so large they required multiple photographs, which will be stitched together to create images of the full cartoons.
In the meantime, the project team is finishing the final phase of the grant and tying up loose ends. Our plan, moving forward, is to continue conserving and digitizing the collection. With the help of our Digital Department, we will create an interactive website featuring our digitized cartoons and drawings, the Museum of London’s Whitefriars presentation drawings, and crowdsourced images of the executed windows. We want to bring the stained glass design process to life, and connect communities with Whitefriars windows around the world. So keep an eye out for a little White Friar in your local stained glass windows – his cartoon might just be in our stacks.
Whitefriars often signed their windows with little white monks – look for this and other artist and company signatures in the corners of stained glass windows.
More More!
See photos and posts from the project so far, and follow our #WhitefriarsWednesday updates (also on Twitter and tumblr).
This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (#LG-55-14-0110-14).
