I am amazed by this, its an incredible project that uses sunlight, 3D printing components and sand to produce glass sculptures. Watch the video right through to understand what is happening.
Markus Kayser – Solar Sinter Project from Markus Kayser on Vimeo.
Check out the other Best of 2011 Projects on the site as well.
Here is a design for a traditional chicken ark. This is from Charles Haywards 1940 book “Carpentry for Beginners” which has still a useful reference as it shows hand tool methods (even better is “Cabinet Making for Beginners”).
Click here for the full PDF -> How to build a chicken ark
I have love notebooks, especially interesting quirky ones that help me feel creative.
My latest notebook is the Makers Notebook from Make magazine. Its modelled after a lab book with graph paper pages. Solidly bound and with loads and useful (and just plain weird) data in the back pages. Included in the book are two manifestos, The Makers Bill of Rights and a Crafters Manifesto. Here is an extract
People get satisfaction for being able to create/craft things because they can see themselves in the objects they make. This is not possible in purchased products.
The things that people have made themselves have magic powers. They have hidden meanings that other people can’t see.
The things people make they usually want to keep and update. Crafting is not against consumption. It is against throwing things away.
People seek recognition for the things they have made. Primarily it comes from their friends and family. This manifests as an economy of gifts.
One of my other favourite notebooks are Moleskins – these are fantastic and come in many great formats. Lots of magnificently illustrated moleskins can be found at moleskinerie and at their Flikr pool (here). This photo is taken from the Logan Wines Cellar Door in Mudgee.
While browsing the website of designer Zach Debord (found via a Make RSS post) I came across this great picture of a chook in the snow with a jumper on, she looks very cosy. Head over to their site to see more of these pictures in a slideshow.
Their blog has quite a few posts about their chickens and burgeoning interest in Permaculture.
Worth a look.
For the those with a technical bent Zach’s beam robots are stunning works that merge art and electronics.
They remind me this work by Robert Klippel which featured 87 small painted objects.
Horrified to discover the damage that plastic bags were causing to our marine environment, Claire Morsman devised a plan for action – ‘sociable guerrilla bagging’.
The idea is that people make reusable bags from recycled material and then give them away to friends and family or sometimes during mass handouts.
Since it began in January 2007, hundreds of people working alone or in “pods” who work together on the bags have made over 20,000 bags. Its taken off in the UK, US, New Zealand, Spain, Japan, Morocco and France.
The bags are known as Morsbags.
Check out the website here www.morsbags.com.