#makersafterhours — Public Fediverse posts

Q5: What do you plan to make in the future? #MakersHour

I actually have a decent answer for this question for a change!!

A map!!

This is kinda a work thing that came up today. The idea is a map of the UK broken down into regions. Each region will be ringed with internally facing addressable LED strips, so we can highlight the regions and chase lighting effects around their outlines to indicate particular stats and events.

This will utilise a decent sized laser cutter I now have access to at a new makespace nearby, plus my usual kinda microcontroller/electronics malarkey.

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Q4: What is your definition of making? #MakersHour

I don't really have one, and it is relatively new terminology to me. From everything I see from folks who use the term it seems a broad church, and I'm good with that.

Part of me sees my own ideas of it rooted in what I consider "hacker culture", and is more slanted to the tech side of things, but also a deep DIY ethos and a need to understand things. Sometimes "making" is taking things apart from that angle... you can make understanding. In a way it is also anti-authoritatian and anti-capitalist too, even though most of us (me for sure) partake of consumerism to some extent to feed the "make". 🤷🏻‍♂️

It's complicated. I'll talk myself in circles on a topic like this, and now I'll be up all night thinking about it probably.

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Q3: What encouraged you to make? #MakersHour

Some dark back room of my deranged mind, where obscure machinery whirrs and clicks in perpetual motion, never letting me rest in peace.

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Q2: What is your favourite project so far? #MakersHour

I don't think I have a favourite, many I fondly remember... but nothing stands out above others particularly.

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Q1: Introduce yourself and tell us what you’ve made this week! #MakersHour

Oh, I missed it... is that the time...

Well, it wasn't this week, but since I last fitted in a makers' hour I soldered together a couple of fun kits I bought at #EMFCamp!

I haven't done much since then... fits and spurts is kinda how things happen here. Usual story of long days, work, exhaustion, and a spicy peppering of anxiety getting in the way.

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Righty, going a bit #MakersAfterHours here for #MakersHour lol... dinner got in the way... but figured I'd fling some words out... A1:

I’ve made/created many things with new skills, I have a habit of DIYing pretty much anything that takes my fancy, working it out “well enough”, and perhaps then never doing it again.

I've not done anything to fit the category super recently... but it made me think of when I taught myself to weld pretty much just to make this stair rail in summer 2023… adapting/extending an existing bit of rail to a new design. This involved welding both mild steel and cast iron. It is certainly a bit rough in spots on close inspection, but a bit of paint makes up for a lot.

Fun fact: the knobs on the end of the lower rail are actually wooden balls that I cut a hole into and epoxied in place.

The who is in the bio and intro.

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