Last weekend I went to visit my little brother at MIT. Then while at the MIT Press book store, I saw my book, Fashion Geek. Being the dork that I am, I took a photo. I think the book store workers thought I was crazy. There was also a giant photo of fellow NYC Resistor co-founder, Bre Pettis on magazine beside my book. I guess the maker community is a pretty small place.

Audio Interview at Carol Tavris – Mistakes Were Made | For Good Reason.

While working on my NYU class on combining simple machines, I stumbled upon this gear ring. Ben Hopson collaborated with entrepreneur Glen Liberman of Kinekt Design to realize this first piece in what will be a line of kinetic jewelry. My first reaction: I want one. My second reaction: I want to collaborate with them on future designs! I took an intro to silversmithing class a few years back at Studio 174, which has since split into Liloveve and Fitzgerald Jewelry. They both do beautiful work, but alas, no gears. I’ll definitely be in touch with Ben Hopson and Kinekt soon.

I asked Servo City if I could use some of their images in my book, and here’s the email they sent:
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Yes, you are welcome to use the images…and thanks for asking.
Please send us a copy when completed, we would love to see it and we could help promote it as well on our site.
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Excellent! Of course I’ll be sending them a complimentary copy, and I love the unsolicited offer to promote it. This is going to be great.

Actually, the offer from American Express was mailed to Dustyn Robot, my official company name:

You see, Dustyn Robot is registered as a sole proprietorship. In NY state (not sure about others), you can’t register a sole proprietorship with a name that ends in an S that makes it plural – believe me, I tried. So when I register as an LLC one of these days, it will be Dustyn Robots, but for now, I’m just one robot.

I was writing the chapter on motors and motor control and realized I was referencing a lot of Sparkfun.com’s products. So I emailed Sparkfun to ask if I could use some of their product photos in my book – and here’s there response:

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Thanks for contacting us. Yes, you may use our photos in your book with the proper credit (something like “image used with permission from SparkFun Electronics” would work fine). All we ask in return is that you send us a complimentary copy of the book once it comes out in the fall. We are honored you are mentioning our products in your book and we’ll look forward to reading it. Please let me know if you have any questions regarding the images or if you need higher resolution images.

Thanks again Dustyn, and best of luck with your book!
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I’ll be giving a 2 hour demo/workshop on 3D modeling this Wednesday at 3rd Ward in Brooklyn – see event announcement here. We’ll be using Alibre Design, a program that’s comparable to Solidworks and other expensive 3D modeling software but has a free demo version and a capable standard version for just $97. You can use 3D modeling to work out the details of a mechanism, then directly export the files for 3D printing or machining. Alibre also lets you create 2D profiles of 3D parts that you can export and send directly to a laser cutter.

Thank you to Lauren Schmidt, Matt Bninski, and Jennifer Pazdon for braving the miserable weather last night and giving me some great feedback on chapters 4-6! Between that and a couple people that are reviewing the text remotely, I’ll be in good shape for my 50% submission tomorrow. Phew!

I’ve scheduled my next Book & Bribe party on March 13th, just before my 50% deadline on March 15th. If it’s anywhere near as successful as my last one, I’ll have a lot of edited papers to go through the next day, and a renewed sense of confidence that what I’m writing makes sense.

The deal is that I invite a bunch of people over, then bribe them with beer/wine and food so they’ll read a few chapters of my book. This time it’s chapters 4-7. Leave a comment if you’d like to come and I haven’t reached out to you yet.

The Fairytale Fashion Collection was presented on February 24, 2010, at Eyebeam Atelier in Chelsea, New York City. Models hit the runway while a quartet of circuit bending DJ’s created music from a hacked sewing machine and conductive felt. Seated front row were celebrity scientists, designers, and school children.