toys – RasterWeb!

Remember when I got the Kids Camera Instant Print which I now just refer to as toy camera most of the time?

Well last month I went to Kenilworth Square East to see work by UWM PSOA students (including my daughter) so I brought the toy camera along and shot portraits of people. When you are holding a toy camera that looks like a pink kitty, people tend to let you shoot their portrait. Then when you hand them a receipt with their photo printed on it they smile even more!

So here’s a bunch of photos from the evening. I set the camera to print after each shot and tore off the print and handed it to the person (or people) in the shot. It was a ton of fun being able to share like that!

I took most of the photos but the one of me (and a few others) were shot by my daughter Madeline, who is also a photographer, and actually had work on display at the event.

When I got home I printed a second copy of each photo so I could use them for this blog post…

I also started a new photo album called Toy Camera to upload more of these shots…

The metadata says they were shot with an iPhone, which is sort of true, since I took a photo of each photo with an iPhone. Weird, right? It seemed like the easiest way to digitize them…

I originally messed around with a desktop scanner, but wanted a faster process.

Oh, there’s also a device to assist with taking the photos of the photos, and I’ll write more about that in another post.

For now, just enjoy these photos!

Stabuilt Blocks

I’ve been looking into press-fit construction techniques for a while now, and I stumbled across this 1917 building set “The Embossing Co Stabuilt Blocks” yesterday. (Nice font, eh?)

Stabuilt Blocks

It consists of a bunch of wood blocks with round round holes and pegs that hold them together. (I know you’re probably thinking I’m a big fan of LEGO, or maybe TINKERTOY. You’re half right. I’m more interested in the design of these things, and in making my own than I am in building things with them. I’m weird like that.)

Stabuilt Blocks

I didn’t examine all of the pieces, but one of the longer pegs looked a bit off with the cuts on the end. Maybe many were off like that? It almost gave it a DIY look. The DIY aspect is what I liked about this set. You could (somewhat) easily make one of these yourself if you had access to a basic wood shop.

With digital fabrication techniques you can easily create your own press-fit set. In fact, it’s a thing. For MIT’s “How To Make (almost) Anything” class one of the assignments is press-fit construction.

Vincent Chow's Desktop Organizer/Decorative Art Piece

There’s not a good master index, but you can browse through some of the student work from the past years and stumble across their press-fit assignments. (2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, etc.)

If you don’t get lost in all the documentation of other interesting projects, check out this Fab Academy page about press-fit construction, which has even more links at the bottom.

I’ve got a few projects for 2015 that will rely on press-fit pieces, so if you’ve got any good links, send them my way!