Week 14 (probes arrive)

Reading 
Makeshift magazine This is a stunning quarterly that has fantastic articles, in its first issue Hackonomics, science of scarcity and looking overall at re-culture. Need to get back in the library and stop meeting people next week.


Doing
I have been sending Probes out left right and centre to some fantastic groups of makers. These so far have all been keen hobbyists that may make some money out of what they are doing but are not professionals. This also allows me to explore the area that Opendesign can and will have an effect on, it is very naive to think that professionals will not use Opendesign... look at Arduino.

Some of the received images on 'making' from a gardener have been interesting, the areas of home made furniture but also the copulations that they produce. The area of what you would make for someone else is also an interesting concept, mini maker consultancies. These already exist and are interesting because they are based around communities, need and the illustration of skills. As more probes arrive I will post up the interesting bits. They are a good practise for expanding your area of interest.

Talking
Went to meet the Royal Academy of Engineers to receive my Visiting Tutors Fellowship.  had a nice meeting with Brendan Walker, an inspirational designer/interaction designer and now TV presenter, doing some interesting projects. Interesting discussion revolved around how would rural people use Opendesign to enable an ease of life or more yield?Publish Post

Thinking
The expanse of research questions keeps going round. At the core I am still interested in what people will create, optimise Opendesign and not just here is another technology. I am aware of tool kits and platforms, the only aging problem is that these get limited by the tools themselves. This also bears in mind two very important factors, Design constraints, parameter and the context of use... Aesthetic will be interesting to think about, but in this area is it just cost driven? Making knowledge driven?...