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Last week, I forgot to include a link to the oscillating multi-tool tips video I included. Thanks to those of you who kindly pointed out the omission. In the future, if this happens, you can always go to the channel I mention, search on the subject, and find the video. My apologies for the hiccup.
Tips Busters: Amazingly Stupid Tape Tricks
Months back, I proposed the idea of doing a “Tips Busters” section where I deputize readers to try out a tip, any tip they see that appears too good to be true, to determine whether it works, doesn’t work, sorta works. I’m still hoping to put such a series together. If you want to bust a tip or have a tip to bust, message me. In the meantime, I’m going to start running pieces from others who are testing and evaluating tips. On this episode of Stumpy Nubs, James looks at a number of dubious (at best) painter’s tape “hacks” as found on YouTube. There are many such tips. As James points out, lots of them are just plain silly.
Understanding Tolerances for 3D Design and Printing
Via Maker Update comes this gem of a video on Practical Alchemy about understanding parts tolerances when designing in Fusion 360 (and other CAD programs) and how to ensure that your 3D designed parts will properly fit when sent to a 3D printer. They also show you how to create a 3D printed “Fit Guide” to better understand and accommodate tolerances for your particular printer.
A User’s Guide to H-Bridge Motor Drivers
Anyone with even a casual familiarity with hobby electronics is likely familiar with H-bridge motor drivers. So named for the H-like configuration of the circuit schematic, with its 4 switching elements, these drivers allow you to control DC motors for speed and moving forwards, backwards, left, and right. In this DroneBot Workshop, they look at a number of popular H-bridge drivers (e.g. L298N, DRV8871, and the MX1508) and the types of DC motors they can control. At over 1-hour, this is a useful crash course in understanding and using this common drive train controller.
Animations of 75 Different Knots
Via the Tools for Possibilities newsletter comes this amazingly useful resource. Knot-tying is a fundamental maker skill. But learning to tie them from a text, or looking at still images, can make them seem unnecessarily confusing and complicated. I don’t know about you, but seeing these knot animations immediately makes me want to grab a rope and go to lashing school.
Maker Slang
Slang, jargon, and technical terms for the many realms of making things.
Surface profile – The 3-dimensional tolerance zone around the surface of an object, often one that’s a complex curve or shape. This profile requires that every point along the surface lies within a specified tolerance range.
Slush casting – A form of casting where material is “slushed around” inside of a mold, creating a thin layer on the outer walls of the casting. This technique is most often used to create a lightweight, hollow castings. It can also be done as the first pour in a highly-detailed mold, with a second pour finishing a solid cast.
The Rule of Cool – In making anything from realms of the imagination (e.g. sci-fi, fantasy, other fiction), the overriding of realism, the laws of physics, and practicality in the service of sheer cool factor.
Shop Talk
In response to my piece on toilet floats and valve reseating tools, I got an interesting message from a reader. He was taken aback by the fact that doing this sort of basic household plumbing was even a question for me. He assumed that any maker/handyperson would do this type of maintenance/repair work without even thinking about it. This led him to ask: “Is there anything you look at and think: ‘I cannot fix THAT!’ I’ve never once thought that. Am I in the majority or minority?”
My situation might be somewhat unique in this regard. I have severe spinal arthritis. So, many maintenance, repair, and DIY projects are outside my reach. Even to replace the float tank, I couldn’t reach down and shut off the very frozen water intake valve on the toilet. I had to get a friend to come over and do that for me.
But even for the more physically able, I’m sure there are preferences. I know plenty of people who loathe house painting, and others who would never think about doing electrical work. And I know plenty of electronics nerds who build robots, microcontroller projects, and all sorts of other high-tech makery who wouldn’t think about doing traditional shopcraft (woodworking, metalwork, etc). And vice versa.
Different strokes for different folks. And so on and so on and scooby dooby dooby.
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A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. All reviews on this site are written by readers who have actually used the tool and others like it. Items can be either old or new as long as they are wonderful. We post things we like and ignore the rest. Suggestions for tools much better than what is recommended here are always wanted.
In 1958 and ‘59, an unprecedented study was conducted by the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research at the University of California, Berkeley. The idea was to apply the latest psychological tests on the world’s most famous and accomplished architects to try and determine what makes them so creative and successful. In studying them, could some magical key to creativity be discovered?
Astoundingly, some 40 major architects volunteered, including Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei, Philip Johnson, George Nelson, Louis Kahn, and A. Quincy Jones. The group spent three days being subjected to a battery of tests, sitting for interviews, even evaluating the creative and design prowess of each other. While the idea was to publish the results of the tests at the time, besides some news and fluff pieces about the study, and some superficial conclusions about the nature of the creative impulse that drove these design superstars, the full results of the study have remained unpublished until this impressive new release from Monacelli Press.
The Creative Architect: Inside the Great Midcentury Personality Study is a lovely and thought-provoking time-capsule of a book. Through its numerous black and white photos and reprints of the research materials, correspondences between the subjects of the study and the psychologists, and news clippings of the day, the book paints a surprisingly evocative picture of this unique study and the era in which it was conducted. Reading the test results, in the architects’ own hands, and the evaluations of the researchers, is fascinating.
So, what conclusions did the study finally reach? Nothing earth shattering. Going into the study, the research group had circulated a list of “genius” attributes from a 1957 book about Freud, which included things like “the power of deep concentration, tremendous patience, and self-discipline…” and “ability to generalize from the particular and to separate the significant from the unimportant…” Drawn from the data, the conclusion of the study: “What propels creativity is the unfettered expression of the self,” “finding the solution to a problem is not sufficient to bring them personal satisfaction: there is a further demand for the solution to be elegant,” and the discovery that creative individuals “consistently safeguard their self-determination in order to stay their course and pursue what interests them no matter what, in a fierce escape from conformism of thought and behavior.”
The Creative Architect: Inside the Great Midcentury Personality Study doesn’t contain any easy, replicable recipes for living a creative life, for becoming a design god. But what it does do is curate a captivating collection of literal and figurative snapshots from a peak time in design history and the creative genius that drove it. And that is ultimately very inspiring.
HOW TO TALK TO GIRLS AT PARTIES – NEIL GAIMAN AT HIS BEST WITH FANTASTIC CHARACTER MOMENTS
How to Talk to Girls at Parties by Neiman Gaiman (author), Gabriel Bá (illustrator), and Fábio Moon (illustrator) Dark Horse Books 2016, 64 pages, 6.9 x 10.5 x 0.4 inches
How to Talk to Girls at Parties is an adaptation of the Neil Gaiman short story of the same name, originally published in his collection Fragile Things. As adaptations go, this one tells the story pretty exactly as it was done by Gaiman. Two teens named Enn and Vic go to a party with the intention of picking up girls. Vic is handsome and confident, while Enn is shy and awkward. Enn doesn’t know how to talk to girls, and this becomes the central problem of the story. His attempts to seem cool and desirable are both humorous and relatable to anybody who has ever tried talking to a potential love interest. As the night moves on, it becomes clear that something is amiss at this party, but exactly what is unknown to Enn, and a little ambiguous to the reader.
I really like this book. At first glance it might seem like an odd choice for a comic – the story doesn’t reach the heights of some of Gaiman’s other work, for example. But it’s short and sweet and so unique. The story is Gaiman at his best in terms of information release and character moments. You’re never completely ahead of the plot and it is so easy to sympathize with Enn’s awkwardness. The charm of the original story was Gaiman’s ability to play with a young man’s feeling that girls were practically another species, and that aspect thrives in this version. In terms of visual storytelling and artistic prowess, Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá are absolute masters, and I cannot recommend their work here enough. They have an incredible ability to draw worlds that look like reality, but maybe just a few degrees more fantastic. What perfect partners for Gaiman’s work.
How to Talk to Girls at Parties gets my highest recommendation, both for fans of Gaiman and/or Moon & Bá as well as fans of unique sci-fi. It’s a short book you can breeze through pretty quickly, and then immediately restart to find more hints of what’s really going on. A film adaptation directed by John Cameron Mitchell (Rabbit Hole) is set to debut in 2017, so at the very least this interesting comic will prepare you for the film. – Alex Strine
