Why we need Open, Hackable Materials now – An Interview with Catarina Mota ( our founder :P )

 

Why we need Open, Hac­ka­ble Mate­ri­als now – An Inter­vi­ew with Cata­ri­na Mota @ Mee­daby­te.

Catarina Mota

I had the oppor­tu­nity to get in tou­ch with  Cata­ri­na Mota recen­tly, whi­le I was hel­ping my fri­ends at openp­Pi­cus, to con­nect with the Open Sour­ce Hard­ware Asso­ci­a­ti­on. She is, no doubt, amongst the most emi­nent repre­sen­ta­ti­ves of the Hac­king­mo­ve­ment. To me, it’s extre­mely impres­si­ve though how one of the lea­ders of this revo­lu­ti­on is coming right from out­si­de the tech­no­lo­gi­cal world and actu­ally has a com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on sci­en­ces and film col­le­ge back­ground. When I asked her to tell me a bri­ef recap of her expe­ri­en­ce of hac­king, she gave a really insight­ful and detai­led story.

OF007-lx — workshop report

 

This last wee­kend, at altlab, we had OF007-LX, an workshop on cre­a­ti­ve c++ coding using open­Fra­meworks, led by André Sier.

The workshop began with ins­tal­la­ti­on of open­fra­meworks, tuto­ri­al on vari­a­bles, func­ti­ons, cycles, clas­ses, all tho­se goo­di­es whi­ch allowed us to pro­cess with ima­ges, sounds, came­ras, par­ti­cles, blobs, phy­si­cal computing.

A seri­es of situ­a­ti­ons whe­re deve­lo­ped and dyna­mi­cally chan­ged to adjust into finer pro­grams. Drawing sha­pes with sty­les, video pon­ti­lism, par­ti­cles inte­rac­ti­ons, kinect meshi­fi­ca­ti­on, video inte­rac­ti­on to pro­grams, sound making and interactivities.

The last after­no­on we had a pro­gram­ming jam, buil­ding indi­vi­du­al pro­jects, whe­re peo­ple would let loo­se their thoughts and attempt to code them. Almost everyo­ne left the workshop with a wor­king idea run­ning on their devi­ces, and, abo­ve all, a power­ful new way to build more and more ideas:)

We should pro­ba­bly do this again soon, it was fun, stay tuned!

 

»On 16 Jul 2012, at 4:58 PM, João Alves wrote:
»
»Boa tarde!
»
»Gos­tei mui­to do workshop e apren­di bastante.
»
»Só tive pena na ins­ta­la­ção dos dri­vers da Kinect para Win­dows que me atra­sa­ram um pou­co mas devo infor­mar que já con­se­gui ins­ta­lar e cor­rer a compilação.
»
»Eis alguns prints de um pro­je­to que ten­tei desen­vol­ver na aula (atta­ch­ments).
»
»Fico à espe­ra do nível dois do workshop OF:)
»
»Cum­pri­men­tos:
»
»João

 

some ima­ges of the cool pro­jects coding at the workshop!

 

3D Printing, a disruptive technology…

Pho­to illus­tra­ti­on: Andrew B. Myers

 

3D Prin­ting seems to be finally hit­ting the mainstream.

Peo­ple are becom­ming awa­re of this new old tec­no­logy, much due to the fact that the avai­la­bi­lity and open sour­ce­ness of it is plun­ging down the cost of model printing.

The rea­lity of this is fal­ling like a ham­mer in the indus­try that is star­ting to see how dis­rup­ti­ve this tech will be. So much that law suits over copy­right have star­ted to hap­pen as we write.

 

Games Workshop, the UK-based firm that makes Warham­mer, noti­ced Valenty’s work and sent Thin­gi­ver­se a take­down noti­ce, citing the Digi­tal Mil­len­nium Copy­right Act. Thin­gi­ver­se remo­ved the files, and Valenty suddenly

beca­me an unwil­ling com­ba­tant in the next digi­tal war: the fight over copying phy­si­cal objects.

 

Check out the full arti­cle @ WIRED >here<

 

 

altLab Last Meetings — Update

 

We have been absent from pos­ting news for a cou­ple of weeks now, but we haven’t been in no way inactive.

The­se last two mee­tings have been fruit­full, we have dedi­ca­ted some time to fixing the teles­co­pe con­trol­ler, the col­lec­ti­ve has new mem­bers and this new blo­od is pum­ping full of ideas.

It is time to talk back to the com­mu­nity, and tomor­row we will be put­ting up some inves­ti­ga­ti­ons we have been up.

Here’s a list of some things we will be upda­ting tomorrow

 

- PCB work­ben­ch Pro­ject may come with a silks­cre­en flavour

- Dimen­si­on Eli­te tes­ting @Fablab EDP, Vio­le­ta’s Big Brother √

- Laser­cut Tes­tings @Fablab EDP

- Explo­ra­ti­ons on PCB cre­a­ti­on tech­ni­ques — The Silks­cre­en Method

- The Pro­ject’s Project

- Vio­le­ta Fixed and going on Tour √

 

See you soon, here is a peek at some shots of the upcom­ming articles 😉

 

 

Our founder Catarina Mota @ TEDGlobal 2012

 

To be equipped for the future, you need to know smart materials’:
Catarina Mota at TEDGlobal 2012

 

Catarina Mota at TEDGlobal 2012

Cata­ri­na Mota has many fri­ends. One of her friend’s fathers, when her fri­end was a kid, built a vehi­cle out of a bicy­cle and washing machi­ne, becau­se the family couldn’t afford a car. Cul­tu­rally, we used to know how to make and fix everything. As the 20th cen­tury pro­gres­sed, we lost that abi­lity, but thanks to the maker com­mu­nity, we are slo­wly get­ting it back. By fos­te­ring the deve­lop­ment and inven­ti­on of new smart mate­ri­als, Cata­ri­na hopes to help makers rea­ch the next level.

What are smart mate­ri­als? Fun­da­men­tally, they’re mate­ri­als we are alre­ady incre­di­bly fami­li­ar with like paint, paper and plas­tic. The trick is, all of the­se mate­ri­als now come with a twist. Paint and ink, for exam­ple, can now con­duct elec­tri­city such that peo­ple are able to paint cir­cuits with a brush or, with the addi­ti­on of a mag­net, make a spe­a­ker out of a she­et of paper. Acry­lic, a type of plas­tic, can now be infu­sed with light dif­fu­sing par­ti­cles so light can reflect through its enti­re sur­fa­ce ins­te­ad of just the edges. What this means prac­ti­cally is, by flip­ping a light swit­ch, you can turn your win­dows from see-through to opa­que. Ther­mo­ch­ro­mic pig­ments can be added to plas­tics so you can see when your baby’s bot­tle is hot. Pos­si­bi­li­ti­es are beco­ming endless.

Howe­ver, in order to har­ness the full poten­ti­al of the­se mate­ri­als, Cata­ri­na beli­e­ves that we need to have a dee­per unders­tan­ding of the com­po­nents that are making up our world. We need to have a dee­per unders­tan­ding becau­se when we do, we are able to sha­pe the objects we use ins­te­ad of tho­se objects sha­ping use. Beyond being savvy con­su­mers, by del­ving into tin­ke­ring, we open the doors to inno­va­ti­on. From moun­tain bikes to air­pla­nes, semi-con­duc­tors to com­pu­ters, his­tory has repe­a­te­dly shown that it’s been the ama­teurs who have been the sig­ni­fi­cant inven­tors and impro­vers of the world.

To bols­ter the tin­ke­rers’ abi­lity to cre­a­te, Cata­ri­na co-foun­ded openmaterials.org, a web­si­te whe­re peo­ple publish infor­ma­ti­on and aggre­ga­te rese­ar­ch, papers, and tuto­ri­als by other makers. Her ove­rall mes­sa­ge is sim­ple: draw from the expe­ri­ments of the crowd and unders­tand smart mate­ri­als. Like lear­ning about com­pu­ters in the 1970s, the best way to ensu­re we have a say in our futu­re is to acqui­re pre-emp­ti­ve kno­wled­ge of emer­ging tech­no­lo­gi­es now.

Catarina Mota at TEDGlobal 2012

Pho­tos by James Dun­can Davidson

VIA [TED Blog]