Season 3

A New Ride: Demo Guy With the gachapon machines up and running, I started casting around for a new idea. Maybe something character-based? I began exploring automata culture, and looking around the city.  My automata explorations led me to the U.K., where this art/craft flourishes.  As for Boston characters, there was one group of dudes I could hardly avoid: construction guys (and gals).

Modifying Gentleman Jack I downloaded a 6-page PDF with the paper cut-outs needed to create Gentleman Jack. But I wanted/needed to customize it. Gentleman Jack seemed to be a Victorian-type of chap. He's wearing a top hat, for example, and has wide, rounded sideburns. We had to fix that. QuackYeah was happy to oblige.

From Continuous Servo to DC Motor My strategy with my emerging Demo Guy automata was to replace the hand crank with a continuous servo. But when I pitched the idea to Jack Greenfield, over lunch at a Shwarma place near the Northeastern campus, he had a better idea.  "Why not just use a DC motor?"

3D Printing Motor Mounts After testing the newly-arrived motor at Cambridge Hackspace, it was clear we needed a mount to keep the thing from skittering around the table every time we connected it. Given the motor's commodity status in the DIY world, I was confident I could find one that I could 3D print on Thingiverse. It did not disappoint.

COVID-19 Arrives For a month or two it was off in the distance, then suddenly it was on us: COVID-19. When Fab@CIC and District Hall and Cambridge Hackspace closed their doors, I joined a number of local Slack- and Zoom-powered COVID groups. But without sewing skills, I couldn't help the mask cause. So I shifted my explorations to a humbler "information pain" challenge: "touchless."

Doubling Down on Gesture Sensors After flirting with a capacitive sensor on some Mixed Reality rides, such as inviting people to "touch the oak leaf," I had to abandon the capacitive sensor. Asking someone to touch something suddenly seemed like a dangerous request.  So I started converting everything to "touchless."  My first enabler was the APDS gesture sensor. 

LCDs - Again When I started talking to Evan about possible touchless projects, he mentioned using a "Time of Flight" sensor, and an 16x2 LCD display. I had no idea what a Time of Flight sensor was, but I remembered 16x2 LCD displays. I had a brief dalliance with them way back in the early days. Perhaps I should give them another chance.

Maker-in-Residence @ District Hall Blinky lights: check. Capsules loaded with refreshing moist towelettes: check. Scrolling text explaining what's going on: check. A giant, glowing QR code that links to an introductory tour: check. No sense holding off any longer: my initial Maker-in-Residence build is now live at District Hall, Boston, USA. 

Holiday Tree at District Hall features "TikTok Lights" When District Hall joined up with a neighborhood "Holiday Tree" campaign, I knew our tree would feature TikTok lights. 

Not an Advent Calendar, an Invent Calendar, and I'm Day #6 Proud to be part of a Holiday Countdown, alongside a Floral Book Wreath and Origami Robot Paper Circuits Kit. 

Place Report: Somerville Bike Trail Sculpture Garden With District Hall closed for the holidays, and a second Covid surge descending like a cloud on indoor places all over, I decided to take my placemaking research outside. I started with a sculpture garden that had sprouted up alongside a nearby bike trail in Davis Square, Somerville.

Place Report: Pine in the Sand After the sprawling, messy, free-form expression along the Somerville Bike Path Sculpture Garden, I was up for something minimal and curated.  Pine in the Sand fit the bill. It's a striking installation: a single living pine tree atop a sand dune, surrounded by concrete barriers and a cluster of granite blocks. 

Place Report: Newsprint Art in Allston Art in Print puts out editions of prints by local artists for 25 cents. It is now on its seventh edition.  These prints are dispensed in old fashioned metal boxes, so called "honor boxes," in the Boston neighborhood of Allston, which Harvard University recently expanded into.

Place Report: Ninja Walking in Bow Market A Place Report visit to Bow Market in Somerville, MA - Ninja style, with a DJI Osmo Pocket 3-axis gimbal camera.

Place Report: A New Canyon in Cambridge: Cambridge Crossing It doesn't make any sense geologically, but there's a canyon emerging in Cambridge. A remote urban canyon, surrounded by tall cliffs of glass, metal, and concrete.  Way over on the far eastern tip of Cambridge: past Kendall Sq., past Lechmere, past even East Cambridge. East East Cambridge.

Straight Up from District Hall A new direction from District Hall -- straight up. Starting at 100 feet up, looking out at Boston Harbor.

Some Experimental Phone-First Place Reports Instagram and YouTube have woken up to the TikTok threat. Which means that there are now 3 phone-first platforms available for Place Reports. I tried them out.

Snag A snag is a dead tree that's still standing. I was looking for something to shoot in a vertical format. This snag is vertical, for now.