Bent Wire Automata

Photo by Matt Mets

Article on bent wire automata for the 29th issue of Make Magazine, co-written with Matt Mets.

Ditter

Photo by Dominic Dagradi

Ditter is a telegraph key that posts to Twitter. The project uses an Arduino microcontroller and was a collaboration with Jason C. Reed, who wrote the morse code parser. Ditter was shown at 937 Liberty as part of the Rossum's shows "Robot Resolution" and "Signal to Noise Patio," for Pittsburgh First Night and a Gallery Crawl in the Cultural District, respectively. You can read Ditter's posts (some of which are much more coherent than the others, naturally) at twitter.com/ditter. (More images...)

Interactive Fiction Quickstart Card

This is one side of a postcard given out at the Penny Arcade Expo East in March 2010 as part of a public outreach program by the People's Republic of Interactive Fiction. The card is a reference for many of the most common commands encountered by players of interactive fiction in a convenient postcard-sized format. The text is by IF visionary Andrew Plotkin.

A PDF version of the card can be found here; it can also be found, along with various other less faithful formats, at the PR-IF website. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Ornament and Crime

Ornament and Crime pairs a dated architectural essay by Adolf Loos with images taken in the South Side of Pittsburgh. (More images...)

Cyborg Spyglass

Photo by Dominic Dagradi

Gel frames mounted on a servo powered by Arduino, which dynamically filter light. Cyborg Spyglass was shown as part of the student robotic art show Mashings at the Pittsburgh Filmmakers gallery and at the Carnegie Science Center, both as part of Robot 250 in Summer 2008.

Please Touch

Please Touch is a thing what bleeps and blinks, and is made of recycled wood from Construction Junction. It was shown at Tree Pittsburgh's 2010 Arbor Aid fundraiser. (More images...)

Belle

Sculpture in ceramic-shell cast bell bronze.

Bench for two

Bent laminated hard maple with cherry seats, mortise and tenon joints.

Orc

A soft sculpture Orc made for a friend who is into Warhammer.

Pocket Watch for the White Rabbit

Forged from brass (sheet, tube, and wire). Simultaneously a precious object and a reminder of the futility of punctuality. (More images...)

Mad Science

A panel of buttons, knobs, and switches, for a booth for CMU's Spring Carnival 2009. The panel displays responses ranging from logical to snarky; the buttons are labeled such things as "Chronosynclastic Infundibulum," "Esperanto," and "Sass." (More images...)

Who Needs Anenomes?

Photo by Dominic Dagradi

A kinetic sculpture of a sea anemone, driven by a servo powered by Arduino. There is a video on youTube here.

Fish Necklace

Photo by Vincent Zeng

You'd be surprised how many people have never before seen a fish necklace.