Brendan Dawes' Meta Feed

Experimenting with displays, particularly softening them. Here a piece of felt comes alive with a digital display. Looking into stuff like this with regards to context. Does a device that sits in my clothes drawer look like clothing until it does something?

Fri, 04 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Testing.

Sun, 30 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Fabric cable samples for upcoming work.

Fri, 21 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

New soft circuit wireless remote complete and fully working.

Mon, 03 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Made a prototype soft circuit button which worked well until I sewed it together. I'd made the conductive fabric layers to big which then touched when sewn together. Number two will be better!

Tue, 28 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Ported the Fibonacci sphere algorithm from Open Processing into the next release of the Dawesome Toolkit library for processing. Really lovely of distributing x number of things around a sphere.

Mon, 27 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Newly arrived book: Traditional Japanese Color Palette

Wed, 22 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Writing my first Processing library with useful things I use all the time including some layout algorithms.

Sun, 19 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Four points, creating a square outline then rotate on every frame whilst expanding one of the points differently to the others using cosine.

Sat, 18 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Vibrobot Workshop at Arup

Thu, 16 Jul 2015 11:36:42 +0000

Music by Norman McLaren en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_McLaren

Cast: Brendan Dawes

Having a lot of fun working with my newest client.

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Digital to analogue. Currently printing a series of objects that...

Sun, 26 Apr 2015 09:22:46 +0000

Digital to analogue. Currently printing a series of objects that were created by people using the States of Mind console currently on display as part of the Group Therapy exhibition at FACT in Liverpool.

These objects will be used in workshops during mental health week.

https://vimeo.com/122330273

Testing the Tilo screen

nobody@flickr.com (bjdawes) — Sat, 07 Mar 2015 11:20:37 +0000

bjdawes posted a video:

Fritzing made board for States of Mind console

nobody@flickr.com (bjdawes) — Sat, 07 Mar 2015 11:18:22 +0000

bjdawes posted a photo:

For console I designed a a little circuit board to hold the Arduino Nano and screw terminals for all the controls.

States of Mind Tilo 4 Things

nobody@flickr.com (bjdawes) — Sat, 07 Mar 2015 11:11:55 +0000

bjdawes posted a photo:

Some of the output from States of Mind

States of Mind Console at Fact

nobody@flickr.com (bjdawes) — Sat, 07 Mar 2015 11:11:54 +0000

bjdawes posted a photo:

The States of Mind console as part of the Group Therapy exhibition at FACT in Liverpool.

States of Mind Console with Claire

nobody@flickr.com (bjdawes) — Sat, 07 Mar 2015 11:11:54 +0000

bjdawes posted a photo:

Claire from Nexus gives the States of Mind console a try.

Doris Le Bot

Sat, 31 Jan 2015 13:03:29 +0000

Commissioned by BRIGHT for Twitter France, Doris Le Bot creates unique digital creatures from real-time tweets, born from various properties of the users' Twitter profile.

Commission via BRIGHT Studio (studio.brightfor.me)
BRIGHT Studio : Fabrice Starzinskas
BRIGHT : Abdel Bounane & Martin-Zack Mekkaoui
Twitter France

More info brendandawes.com/projects/dorislebot/

Cast: Brendan Dawes

When you run out of PLA half-way through a print on the...

Fri, 05 Sep 2014 17:27:55 +0000

When you run out of PLA half-way through a print on the #makerbot just improvise and create a two colour print.

Mailchimp Ham - email as a keeper of special things

Sun, 31 Aug 2014 13:06:59 +0000

What if there was a physical box that could store your most precious emails? A box that could only be unlocked with a key that you held and once opened would let you explore and print out those moments that your hold dear. Ham is that box – an analog box for digital things. Simply forward that special email to Ham and it will store it inside forever, ready for you to unlock at any time, print, tear-off, hold in your hands and read again.

Part of the Six Monkeys project for Mailchimp. See more at brendandawes.com/projects/sixmonkeys/

Cast: Brendan Dawes

Makerbot is working overtime this week to print a series of ten...

Wed, 27 Aug 2014 10:38:00 +0000

Makerbot is working overtime this week to print a series of ten prints for an exhibition in September.

Mailchimp Sarah - gentle, filtered notifications for your email

Wed, 20 Aug 2014 11:33:34 +0000

Notifications from digital devices are often like the glass form they sit behind - hard, cold and unforgiving. Paper on the other hand is exactly the opposite – soft, warm and tactile to the touch. Sarah lets you create a notification that alerts you, but in a gentle, silent unobtrusive manner. This digital connected object frees the paper from behind the glass and uses the warm subtle qualities of the analog world to create ambient notifications that inform in a more human, charming manner.

Part of the Six Monkeys project for Mailchimp. See more at brendandawes.com/projects/sixmonkeys/

Cast: Brendan Dawes

My brother-in-law – Philip Robbins – sketched out this idea for...

Sun, 17 Aug 2014 11:27:23 +0000

My brother-in-law – Philip Robbins – sketched out this idea for a coin holder to hold four pound coins and a fifty pence piece to go with his minimalist wallet by the [Machine Era Co](http://www.machine-era.com/collections/frontpage/products/the-machine-era-wallet-gunmetal-edition]. After a few prints to get the size of the holes just right the final thing rolled off the Makerbot printed in Faberdashery white. Works pretty well.

Files to make it are on Thingiverse

beware-0363

nobody@flickr.com (bjdawes) — Thu, 07 Aug 2014 18:30:23 +0000

bjdawes posted a photo:

beware-0491

nobody@flickr.com (bjdawes) — Thu, 07 Aug 2014 18:30:23 +0000

bjdawes posted a photo:

Mailchimp Nim - email as appliance

Tue, 05 Aug 2014 14:13:54 +0000

Why can't we turn email off and on as easy as other appliances in our house? Nim places such a switch for your email next to a regular light switch so when you feel like switching off for the weekend, just flick the switch and email will be prevented from coming through the network across all your devices. By changing the context of how we turn email off and on we might better manage our relationship to it, easily able to switch off whenever we feel like it.

Part of the Six Monkeys project for Mailchimp. See more at brendandawes.com/projects/sixmonkeys/

Cast: Brendan Dawes

World Cup 003

nobody@flickr.com (bjdawes) — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 10:08:32 +0000

bjdawes posted a photo:

World Cup 002

nobody@flickr.com (bjdawes) — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 10:08:31 +0000

bjdawes posted a photo:

World Cup 001

nobody@flickr.com (bjdawes) — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 10:08:30 +0000

bjdawes posted a photo:

First attempt

nobody@flickr.com (bjdawes) — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 13:57:32 +0000

bjdawes posted a photo:

worldcup-2538

nobody@flickr.com (bjdawes) — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 13:54:50 +0000

bjdawes posted a photo:

worldcup-11756

nobody@flickr.com (bjdawes) — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 13:15:32 +0000

bjdawes posted a photo:

worldcup-1199

nobody@flickr.com (bjdawes) — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 12:30:22 +0000

bjdawes posted a photo:

World Cup Data

nobody@flickr.com (bjdawes) — Sat, 26 Jul 2014 15:03:18 +0000

bjdawes posted a photo:

Distance from centre represents amount of goals scored.

World Cup data (WIP)

nobody@flickr.com (bjdawes) — Sat, 26 Jul 2014 14:33:00 +0000

bjdawes posted a photo:

Shows all goal scorers linked and grouped by country

beware-0521

nobody@flickr.com (bjdawes) — Thu, 24 Jul 2014 16:41:32 +0000

bjdawes posted a photo:

beware-0377

nobody@flickr.com (bjdawes) — Thu, 24 Jul 2014 16:41:31 +0000

bjdawes posted a photo:

beware-0396

nobody@flickr.com (bjdawes) — Thu, 24 Jul 2014 16:35:53 +0000

bjdawes posted a photo:

beware-0458

nobody@flickr.com (bjdawes) — Thu, 24 Jul 2014 16:35:53 +0000

bjdawes posted a photo:

Mailchimp Lana - email as artefact

Mon, 21 Jul 2014 12:53:29 +0000

Emails are often a container for our memories. Like physical souvenirs they remind us of wonderful times spent with family and friends yet unlike souvenirs they don't exist in the physical space so we can't easily bump into them like you can when rummaging through a box of things.

Lana transforms these emails into a literal physical form, that sits alongside and amongst other physical souvenirs. Disturb Lana by moving her and sometime later that day Lana will send you an email with those memories; connecting analog to digital. This is email as physical artefact.

Part of the Six Monkeys project for Mailchimp. See more at brendandawes.com/projects/sixmonkeys/

Cast: Brendan Dawes

Mailchimp Lucy - email as interface

Wed, 16 Jul 2014 16:02:58 +0000

Lucy responds to commands sent via email. Email Lucy with the subject "blink" and a colour in the body of the message and she will blink that colour. Set the subject to static and she'll stay at whatever colour you specify, either through a keyword or using RGB values.

Anything that can send email can talk with Lucy. This is email as an API, without having to write a specific API. Have a device or a service that can send email? Then it can automatically talk with Lucy. In our research we hooked it up to ifttt.com, without having to create any kind of specific channel, and had it telling us changes in the weather, sending us alerts to remind us about important appointments and anything else we could think of.

Part of the Six Monkeys project for Mailchimp. See more at brendandawes.com/projects/sixmonkeys/

Cast: Brendan Dawes

A few clicks using the He Mesh library + Processing and I have a...

Sat, 05 Jul 2014 14:24:41 +0000

A few clicks using the He Mesh library + Processing and I have a very nice pencil holder for my desk.

When I was a kid, if they had shown me how amazing maths was...

Fri, 04 Jul 2014 15:07:53 +0000

When I was a kid, if they had shown me how amazing maths was with things like this, maybe I would have paid more attention.

Created with a little thing I made in Processing, using sine waves to manipulate a sphere to create some pleasing shapes.

Printed in Robot Silver PLA from Faberdashery.

Beijing Breathing

Wed, 18 Jun 2014 14:15:56 +0000

Using air quality readings from the US Embassy in Beijing, the air quality in China's capital controls the speed of the breathing lights. The faster the lights breathe the worse the air quality.

Cast: Brendan Dawes

Mailchimp Oliver - a visual display of your inbox

Sat, 31 May 2014 11:40:46 +0000

Oliver acts as ambient furniture; a piece of objet d'art that can sit quietly on your coffee table silently displaying the state of your inbox using a simple light system. Red indicates the percentage of unread emails currently in your inbox. How far do you let Oliver become mostly red before your decide to tackle your email? Do you make a plan to turn Oliver purple – an indication of inbox zero – by the end of each day? Oliver is your visual guide to your inbox.

Part of the Six Monkeys project for Mailchimp. See more at brendandawes.com/projects/sixmonkeys/

Cast: Brendan Dawes

No More Keynote

Mon, 24 Mar 2014 12:45:05 +0000

Available as open source on Github: github.com/brendandawes/Flip

After Keynote decided to magically delete a load of content within a presentation I decided it was about time I made my own presentation tool for the talks I do. I just wanted something that would display text, an image and some video.

It's an app you simply drop into a folder. That folder contains other folders, each of which will become a slide. Each folder / slide is made up a text file, an image or video or any combination of those three.

Text is placed automatically, images are centered and scaled down if too large. The screen automatically resizes to whatever screen size it needs to be. There's no presenter notes or anything like that because I never use them.

The grid can be any size, defined by a settings file that also governs slide background colour and presentation title.

Cast: Brendan Dawes

First 3D print of 2014 was a Wabbit for my niece. To her and her...

Fri, 03 Jan 2014 09:11:37 +0000

First 3D print of 2014 was a Wabbit for my niece. To her and her generation it’s just normal to choose a rabbit from Thingiverse, download it and then print it out.

I highly recommend Carla Diana’s great new book on 3D...

Tue, 24 Dec 2013 15:02:00 +0000

I highly recommend Carla Diana’s great new book on 3D printing “Leo the Maker Prince”. Whether you’re 6 or 60 it’s a great intro to the world of 3D printing and of course tonnes of fun. #makerbot

Get it from Amazon

And here’s the data printed out.

Mon, 02 Dec 2013 17:08:39 +0000

And here’s the data printed out.

My forthcoming iPhone app called Kennedy allows you to not only...

Mon, 02 Dec 2013 17:06:19 +0000

My forthcoming iPhone app called Kennedy allows you to not only capture the now with surrounding context but also lets you export that data as either a CSV or JSON file. That means you can then use it to create data visualisations or even 3D models from your data! The video shows the exported CSV data used to create a sphere that maps the weather conditions - spiky bits are when it was raining and non-spiky was when it was sunny. Nothing earth shattering but kind of fun.

This is a physical representation of my Twitter activity from...

Sat, 05 Oct 2013 14:36:00 +0000

This is a physical representation of my Twitter activity from 2008 and 2012. Tweets, read in from a CSV file, are mapped across the grid for the entire year. The height simply represents the number of characters in the text which is pretty stupid but served fine for a test. #makerbot

I knew this wouldn’t print, but I did it anyway. Still...

Tue, 24 Sep 2013 16:00:00 +0000

I knew this wouldn’t print, but I did it anyway. Still kind of like it. The form is created from Prince’s Kiss, after being generated and then exported as an stl in Processing.

Always print a Field Notes clip when I get a new filament...

Thu, 19 Sep 2013 16:14:53 +0000

Always print a Field Notes clip when I get a new filament colour. This is Jet PLA in orange bought from Amazon.

3D Printing is Abused Wise words from Ron Arad. Whilst printing...

Mon, 16 Sep 2013 10:18:00 +0000

3D Printing is Abused

Wise words from Ron Arad. Whilst printing lots of things is part of the process of getting to know 3D printing, pushing the buttons to see what happens (and god knows I’ve done my fair share of printing unneeded things), eventually you have to stand back and ask what is this good for? I don’t think the world needs anymore Darth Vader key rings or badly designed jewellery.

You look at Ron Arad was doing with rapid prototyping years ago and it’s better than 99% of the stuff on Thingiverse. But of course, he’s Ron Arad.

Prototyping a little box/enclosure system using a snap-fit tab...

Mon, 16 Sep 2013 10:13:25 +0000

Prototyping a little box/enclosure system using a snap-fit tab on the #makerbot Works pretty well though more to do yet.

Any electronic project needs to be held in some kind of...

Fri, 30 Aug 2013 14:54:37 +0000

Any electronic project needs to be held in some kind of enclosure. In the past I’ve used off the shelf boxes and then drilled or cut the required openings or I’ve had laser cut boxes made that I then stick together. But I’ve never been happy with any of these solutions. I also tried using my original Thing-o-matic Makerbot but even if I could fit it on the build plate I’d just get a huge amount of curling and warping.

So when I was needing an enclosure for the latest version of my Happiness Machine I revisited the Makerbot except this time I had the Replicator 2 but more importantly I had the latest version of Makerware, the printing software created by Makerbot. Printing with the raft option, just on standard, the results were fantastic. Yes this is not yet shop bought quality but it’s getting there and it was certainly good enough for the exhibition it was planned to go in. No warping, no curling, just nuclear green loveliness!

The reason I upgraded to the Replicator 2 was so I could use it to create this kind of thing, so my studio at home could do everything I needed it to do to create the things I make to a certain level of quality. It’s been fantastic to see the quality level advance so much and I know it’s going to continue to get better. It also means I can now start to create some more interesting forms and shapes to enclose these things…

The Happiness Machine

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 08:40:28 +0000

The latest incarnation of my Happiness Machine, printing random happy thoughts from random people from across the web.

More details: brendandawes.com/projects/happinessmachine

Cast: Brendan Dawes

Moments in Music - experiments in creating physical forms from...

Tue, 27 Aug 2013 12:46:00 +0000

Herbie Hancock's Sly.

Various iterations and experiments.

Moments in Music - experiments in creating physical forms from music.

This is very much an ongoing experiment, but I’m exploring creating forms from moments in music; data as object. Each form is made by analysing the sound data in real-time using software I’ve written in Processing and then pushed and pulled using various algorithms to create a 3D printable model.

Might lead somewhere, might not. More to come.

Now Next Later - a minimal weather app for iOS

Mon, 22 Jul 2013 09:49:48 +0000

A simple, minimal iOS weather app that displays the next three days weather for anywhere in the world as well as your current location. Gone are the usual weather icons and instead a simple "cross" device is used to display clouds, wind speed and other weather conditions such as rain and snow. Maximum and minimum temperatures are shown for each day together with a colour coded background.

Available on the Apple App Store.

Cast: Brendan Dawes

Box of Tweets - a physical box for past tweets

Fri, 12 Jul 2013 09:40:44 +0000

Box of Tweets is a standalone box containing the last five years of tweets from my Twitter archive. A simple dial allows me to traverse the archive back and forth, either one tweet at a time or in large chunks, dependent on how fast I turn the dial.

Cast: Brendan Dawes

Experiments with making an acoustic speaker for my iPhone. I...

Mon, 08 Jul 2013 20:10:00 +0000

Experiments with making an acoustic speaker for my iPhone.

I know nothing about acoustic design so I’m just stumbling around with this but I’m certainly getting somewhere. The first version pretty much amplified the middle frequencies (or dampened the high frequencies) but by the time I had fiddled around to get the third version things were starting to get somewhere.

I know there’s some lovely wooden speaker docks that will amplify the sound and I imagine wood really helps with the timbre but I’m having fun exploring this, not least because I kind of like them as a form, especially with the slightly bigger radius on the corner of the third version. Of course the speaker grill is a little homage to transistor radios as well as Dieter Rams!

Transforming organic shapes into hollow models using openScad....

Sat, 06 Jul 2013 12:35:42 +0000

Transforming organic shapes into hollow models using openScad. With these organic shapes I’ve been making on the #makerbot I’ve needed a way to make them hollow as reducing the volume cuts down print time and also drastically reduces the price on Shapeways if I want to get them printed in ceramic for instance. I tried various methods but the simple one that worked was importing the stl into openScad, duplicating it and the scaling down and subtracting this smaller version from the bigger one. It worked like a charm!

Liking this new translucent blue PLA from RepRapCentral....

Tue, 02 Jul 2013 16:36:11 +0000

Liking this new translucent blue PLA from RepRapCentral. #makerbot

Work-in-progress: Box of Tweets - mini display and navigation of Twitter archive.

Fri, 24 May 2013 10:14:23 +0000

A tiny OLED display is used to show past tweets from my Twitter archive. Turning the rotary control allows me to traverse the archive one tweet at a time, or by turning the control faster it allows me to jump back in time quicker – months/years at a time.

Very much a work-in-progress as I still need to work on the word wrapping and a few other bugs but there's something nice about spinning a dial and finding things you'd forgotten about; a physical box for digital things.

Cast: Brendan Dawes

Mechanical Fuzzy Weather Indicator

Thu, 23 May 2013 12:27:52 +0000

Every hour it connects to the Internet, gets the weather forecast for my local area, then spins the wheel to display the correct icon for the forecast.

Music: Raymond Scott - Domino.

brendandawes.com/projects/fuzzyweather

Cast: Brendan Dawes

Growing a 3D model of Daft Punk's Get Lucky

Sat, 11 May 2013 09:22:39 +0000

Waveform data pushes and pulls a sphere to create a physical representation of Daft Punk's Get Lucky for 3D printing.

Very much a work in progress.

Cast: Brendan Dawes

Growing a 3D model of Brian Eno's Always Returning

Sat, 11 May 2013 08:50:49 +0000

Starting with a sphere, waveform data pushes and pulls the shape to create a physical representation of the song, ready for 3D printing.

Apologies for the audible clicks - trying to sort that out.

Cast: Brendan Dawes

Tags: makerbot, audio, song and 3D

first experiments with muscle wire

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 21:19:04 +0000

Very lame example, but just starting to play with Shape Memory Alloy. Paper reacts when an electrical charge is sent through the Flexinol wire.

Cast: Brendan Dawes

Creating a physical button to "mark the now" with Electric Imp

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 14:11:57 +0000

Marking a moment in time – together with events that surround that moment – using a button connected to the Internet through Electric Imp.

Cast: Brendan Dawes

Tags: electricimp and IoT

Electric Imp powered Walkie Talkie

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 09:38:01 +0000

Using a cheap greetings card audio component, a toy Walkie Talkie bought at a flea market and an Electric Imp, I created a WiFi powered audio device.

Clicking the image of Neil Armstrong triggers the audio in the Walkie Talkie.

Cast: Brendan Dawes

Tags: IoT and Electric Imp

First steps with Electric Imp

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 10:29:15 +0000

I've been lucky enough to get hold of some Electric Imps and this is the first little
Internet connected thing I've built with them - just as a small demo. It's a very simple example but
the potential of Electric Imp's hardware and infrastructure is very exciting. Now we have
to ask ourselves, what conversations are we going to have with these objects?

Apologies for the blurry bits!

electricimp.com

Cast: Brendan Dawes

Tags: IoT

Saul Bass inspired capacitive touch light switch made with Bare Conductive conductive paint!

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 08:59:48 +0000

So file this one under "pointless" – but it's still fun! Using Bare Conductive's conductive paint I created a capacitive touch light switch. Uses an Arduino, a relay and of course a light bulb.

You can find out how to make your own on bareconductive.com

Cast: Brendan Dawes

Tags: arduino and conductive paint

Dynamic Identity System

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 17:42:37 +0000

Cast: Brendan Dawes

Journey to See Conference #6 in Germany

Sat, 21 May 2011 09:11:08 +0000

See is a data visualisation conference now in its sixth year. I was honoured to speak at what was a wonderful event, held inside a church in Wiesbaden; great inspiring talks by all the speakers and fabulous hospitality from the organisers.

see-conference.com/

Music: Rugla by Amiina.

Cast: Brendan Dawes

Phoenix's First Christmas

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 16:07:49 +0000

My little nephew Phoenix and his first Christmas

Cast: Brendan Dawes