Tuesday, September 29, 2015

#46 Super Awesome Sylvia's Arduino Trio

Andong and I paired up to work on Sylvia's Arduino Trio projects. Our demos of the Blink Test and the 3 projects are below:

Blink Test: https://youtu.be/1ll5Sa59omM

Strobe Light: https://youtu.be/9e-3WHZXxO4
Riff: https://youtu.be/ue6EnS1Pgtk
Tapper: https://youtu.be/uKi6bC9CSXc

Monday, September 28, 2015

4. Reflection

REFLECTION
I really enjoyed our squishy circuit activity last Tuesday. Actually, when I was doing the readings last weekend, I was considering making some conductive dough myself on Saturday. I glanced through the ingredients list in the Squishy Circuit book and I had everything in the house to make the squishy circuit dough (minus the food coloring). But due to time, I didn't make it and decided to wait until class. When we were asked to make the squishy pig, I was feeling a little intimidated because I had to think of how circuits work. The only hint was that we would need insulating dough when making the pig but I wasn't sure how they would come together. But after observing how Andong made his "Picasso" pig, I took a few notes. For example, he connected the battery directly to the motor wires, which was something I would not have done on first instinct. But after his explanation, I understood why he did that. Apparently the electrical current was not strong enough to go through the dough to power the motor. When I got home, I tried out several ways to connect the circuit and finally found that only one wire had to be directly connected to the motor while the other can be connected through the dough. That was an interesting discovery.

For my readers' benefit, I am linking my squishy pig video here:
https://youtu.be/kxsMEex4naM

As for the discussion part of class, I found the topic of the day a little repetitive. We were still talking about what defines making, does it include cooking, does it include this and that and I guess I was just expecting us to move on from that topic. Didn't we already establish that in our class we do accept that making does not only revolve around electronics and technology and woodworks type of making? So I was expecting to move on from the "what is making" to more "what did people make" project-based topics. I want to see all the different kinds of projects that makers have made or are making through project videos or articles and tutorials about the kinds of projects done. And to add to my slight disappointment with regards to our discussion topic, we also focused a lot on that one lady who was not happy about being called a maker and we also bashed Mark Hatch's Maker Manifesto, which I actually identified a lot with. Perhaps I'm just interested to learn more about what people make and not so much whether or not what they made is considered a making. Personally, I'm kind of way beyond that point but maybe that's just me.

READING SUMMARY
The readings / videos for this week were really interesting! I'm really excited to start on the Arduino projects now! At the end of last semester, Andong introduced me to Arduinos because he was planning on taking this class. I thought they were really cool but I still didn't know that much about them and what they could do. In my mind, it was like they were just these little motherboards with no particular purpose. In a sense, that's what they are. We, makers, need to find a purpose for them and make them do what we want them to do. This is what I've been learning more and more especially since the start of the semester. Through our readings this week, I'm quite encouraged to see from Massimo Banzi's TED Talk, the different kinds of projects in, around, and outside the house that Arduinos can power and by using so much open source code and hardware. I was personally intimidated by the programming part of Arduinos because even though I have some exposure and experience in programming, they are very limited. I am not a programmer and have never fully enjoyed pure coding and solving multitudes of bugs. A few bugs here and there are fun and makes me feel accomplished but humongous bugs linked to other bugs just makes me so frustrated. Anyhow, through this week's readings, I am now very much excited to come up with a cool and useful project that would solve a problem in the house or would just be plain fun to do (like drones! But I heard they were expensive...). I would love to get started on project #610 Build In Arduino Examples and start learning to use them!

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Saturday, September 19, 2015

3. Reflection

REFLECTION
In last week's class, we watched the Chevrolet makers video and I couldn't help but be reminded about how much maker culture was so much depended on in those days. It was very hands-on, every single item was made individually and it was just their way of living. That was their work. That was their specialty. Every piece was made uniquely. It was because of this kind of maker culture in the previous generations where people hand-carved lazy Susans, handmade teapots and glass jars, baked pies from scratch, etc., that we have a lot of the convenient tools and products we can just buy off the shelf in stores today. Those handmade products in the beginning were the prototypes and eventually they wanted to make things more efficient, make things quicker, and create standardized and equal parts so that they all look the same. So mass production came in to assist there. But because of wanting to increase efficiency in this way and replacing man with machinery, we who are born in today's convenient age have lost some sense of the maker culture today. Back then, maker culture was out of necessity, a lifestyle, but today, it seems to me that maker culture is almost regarded as just a hobby or something that not everybody has to do. It's as if not everybody has to be a maker and we'll still live comfortably, which may be true but is also sad. I believe that in order to continue to provide for our society today, mass production is necessary. However, in order to progress in terms of innovation and creating new things to fit the ever-changing needs of people, there is a need to keep and grow the maker culture.

READING SUMMARY
I felt that this week's readings had somewhat conflicting views of what the maker culture is. Mark Hatch in The Maker Movement Manifesto presents a list of rules for what a maker is or does. His point of view is very much that everyone is a maker and that makers make anything. I do agree with this view. I also gather the sense (after reading Making It and Why I Am Not a Maker) that he still focuses very much on electronic, metal, wood, plastic, and (the most feminine of all) sewing projects and mentions nothing about cooking, drawing, painting, etc.. Maybe these "manly" projects emphasized are just his interests and he forgets to mention the more feminine projects, which though he includes, does not mention as frequently due to lack of experience or interest. In any case, this distinction is not important. He does push a little more on taking classes and learning and picking up skills in order to use tools to help make your projects. This thought I agree with but to a certain extent. It is definitely helpful to learn and pick up these skills and no doubt taking classes is a speedier and more formal way to do so. It's kind of what we are doing in our class too. We are taking a Makerspaces class to exercise our interest as makers and learn to make new things and pick up new skills. But I was also thinking, perhaps he is also doing so to promote his TechShop? We won't know for sure.

In contrast, Debbie Chachra in Why I Am Not a Maker seems to be upset about how the whole "maker" identifier assumes to primarily include male-dominant activities producing materialistic products and rejects the more traditional, feminine roles such as care-giving. Perhaps I am just reading too much into it but her writing, to me, implies that because "maker culture" is so male-domain focused, she refuses to be identified with this culture and therefore denies that she is a maker. To be honest, we need to forget about that. Yes, I agree there is frequently an implication accompanied with the term "maker" that you are producing something material and tangible. But that is because we humans are very materialistic beings. We need to see, touch, feel results, which, the most tangible of all, are physical products or at least virtually packaged units of code or media (like films). But you can also make events, make makers through educating, make philosophy through analyzing, make better people through care-giving. It really doesn't have to be a "thing" and we are not regarding people as objects of our manipulation. Regardless, everyone always affects everyone through actions, words, thoughts, intentions. It's just a matter of big or small. And that is what I call "making" a person.

Then, this whole "which male and female activities are considered part of maker culture" is just a big fuss. You can code if you are a girl and you can sew if you are a boy. That's okay. Perhaps it's not emphasized that way because we were created differently by God. Adam was created first and the Eve was made out of Adam's rib to be his helper. Already, you see that there is a difference since the very beginning. It's innate. We were created and born this way. Call me old-fashioned, or anti-feminist, or whatever. Men and women are different. That is a fact. But even so, I am not saying that women can never make what men make nor that men should never make what women make. No. Men and women can make whatever they want to make. We just have natural tendencies for men to lean towards male-domain activities and women towards female-domain activities and it is just currently emphasized that way in the media. And that is okay. If she would like to change that, then she should make something in the female-domain that is not necessarily physical (such as care-giving and educating) and write about how it is part of the maker culture instead. I just don't think our time should be focused on these minor male/female issues. Rather, we should be focusing on what we (both male and female collectively) are making, how we are making it, and how it contributes to society.

In Making It, I find it somewhat difficult to understand what Evgeny Morozov's main point is. Hopefully, this will be unravelled more in class. But what struck me was in the later part of his article where he pointed out that there is an inequality of opportunity on online platforms to support maker products even though we might at first assume the opposite. He also mentions how Kickstarter has now diminished the need for formal large corporation investors yet how Kickstarter is more useful only when you have a multitude of Twitter followers compared to only a handful.

With regards to the Squishy Circuits tutorial, I think it was an excellent, very easy to read book for teenagers. I am even considering doing this with the kids at my church on Sundays during craft time since it is relatively simple to make! The only thing I feel is a little lacking is the tutorial about the battery pack. It mentions briefly about soldering the wires to the terminals but it doesn't tell me what kind of wires they are (they are just described as y-shaped metal wires). It also doesn't show me which part of the battery holder I am soldering the wires to. But overall, this makes me very excited to try it out in class this week and try out different things I can do with it!

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

#801 LED Flashlight Hack



I explained pretty much everything in my video but I will also write a few short paragraphs here on the blog.

Basically, I discovered a problem in the original LED flashlight project we did in class, that is, you have to constantly press and hold down on the battery in order for the LED to stay lighted up and many times, I don't want to have to keep one hand on the flashlight at all times. I would like to keep both hands free and even be able to place the flashlight on a surface while I do what I need to do.

So in this hack, I used some pieces of tape attached to the back of the battery and pulled through the foam on the front. The foam is sturdy enough so it actually holds the tape in its position. When I pull on the tape from the front, the battery, which was hovering above the LED's positive leg, gets pulled down to touch the leg and completes the circuit, making the LED light up and stays lighted up because the tape is held in that position by the foam. To turn it off, I push the tape slightly back into the foam and the LEDs will turn off and remain off.

Additional benefits I did not show in the video:
The sturdy foam also allows the flashlight to remain upright, which makes it a "handsfree" flashlight. If you also notice in the video, the white LED is directly facing the front while the red and orange LEDs on the other end are facing the sides. So you could place the flashlight on its side so that the white LED flashes the brightest or you could also place the flashlight face down in tighter spaces (such as under the couch) so that the red and orange LEDs light up from the sides.

Monday, September 14, 2015

Baking, a making?

To make or not to make...?

That is not the question. The more suitable question is: Is baking a kind of making?

Last Saturday, I took a Bake with Zing class with my housemate at Zingerman's Bake House. It was a class that taught how to make Zingerman's soft and rich challah bread (pronounced "ha-lah" not "cha-lah"). The day before this class, I thought, hey, I'm learning something new, right? I've never made bread before and I don't really know how to. And here I am, finding ways to learn how to make a particular kind of bread (albeit, a slightly expensive way $100!, but still). So isn't this a "maker" activity for me? Well, we'll find out by the end of this blog. But first, I would like to go through what actually happened in the class.

When we arrived in the classroom at Zingerman's, there were ingredients such as the flour, yeast, eggs, oil, water, honey, and salt already measured and laid out for us at each of our assigned seats. After Dan, the teacher, finished explaining some of the facts of protein and a round of introduction, he began to demonstrate how to make the challah bread, pouring in the ingredients as he explained. While he was doing this, I thought, hmm.... It would have been nice if I could've started the entire process from scratch. Of course, it would have been complicated and more time-consuming to have each person crack their own eggs and measure their own water but at the same time, I felt a slight lack in my learning for not being able to do that myself. In any case, we began by pouring in the prepared ingredients as instructed. And then came the part where I felt like I learned the most. We had to form the mixture into a dough by kneading the sticky pile for about 5 minutes. At first, it was difficult because the dough was just sticking all over my hands and fingers and scraping it off was not only difficult but also seemed kind of gross. But as the instructor and his assistant made their rounds, they would give us tips about technique and a small demonstration with our dough. They encouraged using the palm of the hand, not the fingers, pushing the dough closely parallel to the kneading surface with quick motions. Totally NOT what I was doing. When I got the hang of it, the dough shaped up pretty nicely and it was very gratifying to see the result of what I did.





While the bread was left to rise, the next step was to learn how to braid (for the 5- and 6-braided challah). We were first taught with rope (alongside our formula sheets) to learn the technique and then eventually applied the learned technique to our actual dough. This was interesting. The rope obviously did not have the same stretchy texture as the dough, so we had to tug on the rope much harder to tighten the braid compared to when we were working with the dough. The braid was confusing because each strand was replacing the strand it crossed over. But again, once we got the hang of it, it was also gratifying to see a beautifully patterned braid. I also felt extra proud when the instructor took my braids and said, "Wow, you did this one really good," as he unknotted it for the next person to try.




After we completed rope practice, our dough had risen enough. There was a quick demonstration again and we were then tasked with making a turban and slicing the other two loaves into 5 and 6 pieces (depending on which braid we were working on) and rolling them into these fat long strands with very thin ends. These strands were then grouped together at the ends and we were ready to start braiding. The dough was in some ways easier and in some ways harder to work with compared to the rope. The dough gave in to our manipulation way easier than the rope but it was also slightly harder to control. I had to make sure I wasn't pulling too hard or too little because if I pulled too hard, the strands would become really thin but if I pulled too lightly, the dough would just spring back into its original place (because of the glutten). After a few rounds of the braiding formula, my braid was egg washed and ready. It looked so neat and pretty! Neat things make me feel so happy and accomplished.





Finally, the last step was to let it proof, egg wash a second time, and into the oven it goes! This part of my learning process was also slightly disappointing as the assistant did every thing for us. We were told how to tell when the dough was under-proofed, over-proofed, or proofed enough but we were not given the opportunity to test our own dough. The assistant also egg washed them the second time for us, put it in the oven, and even watched it all on our behalf to see when it was ready to come out. Not really what I was hoping for.

In the end, we got our breads. I still feel really proud of myself. And I asked myself again: is baking a making? My answer is yes and no. If I were to learn to make this on my own at home, baking is definitely a type of making because there would have been way more failures and mistakes to learn from compared to being in the class. However, in the context of my experience described, I would say, the class overall was not really a making experience since many things were prepared and done for us and I can't entirely say that I made it all by myself. The class was built to be a success (otherwise, no one would want to take it). If I were to compare this in-class experience with the maker identifications in AnnMarie Thomas' book Making Makers: Kids, Tools, and Innovation, there was very little room for experimenting (although that does not stifle curiosity, but it also does not satisfy it) and little room for risk. However, specifically related to learning technique, I would say, it definitely was a making experience. I did learn to knead dough. I did learn to braid challah bread. I was responsible for my own dough and had to make a decision whether to use that one strand that fell to the floor while I was rolling it (5 second rule, I promise!). Much knowledge was not only shared by the instructors but even contributed by fellow students with more experience while questions were supplied by less-experienced students. Sure, this may not have been the cheapest way to learn how to make bread but I would not say it was not resourceful. Just as online instructions are a resource, in-person classes are also a resource. 

Lastly, I believe touch, texture, and reiteration are all essential in the learning process. Actually being able to feel the sticky dough as we were kneading it, correcting our hand technique after receiving instruction from the assistant and then repeating the process with this new technique taught me how to tell when the dough was ready and when the dough needed more kneading. I did receive a lot more help than if I were to try making this on my own at home but I did make it and I did learn from making it. If anything, this class sped up my learning process and equipped me with the basic skills to advance my future maker activities in baking.

Sunday, September 13, 2015

2. Reflection

REFLECTION
During last Tuesday's class, we had two primary activities: (1) Designed our own board game and (2) Discussed the ideas and our understanding of "Makers" in the books we read before class.

When we first were given the printed board game sheet, a game piece, and two dice, I was wondering how this would apply to "making". We were instructed to play with our neighbor by rolling the die (or dice) to see whose game piece would reach the end first. But after a few rounds of rolling, which we obediently executed, we were then instructed to make the game more interesting by adding a set of rules. It took a little while to break out of our "obedient" mentality but once we all got our games developed, it was pretty fun to try out our invention and to also play the games the other groups created.

It is interesting to see the consequences of the game decisions made by each group. Having just created a Geolocation Hunt Challenge (with QR codes) for about 30 people at our church picnic on Labor Day, I had a fresh understanding that the decisions we made to restrict the players in the game will also direct their behavior and attitude as well as the way they played the game. In the same way, although we did not have as much time to develop our board game further, the outcome we expected and the actual results of the game were slightly different. In our group, we expected that our game would end pretty well and pretty swiftly. In actuality, when we demonstrated the game to the others, each player was stuck returning to the start block multiple times without a way to quickly progress forward. This could easily frustrate players. In another group's game, I was stuck towards the end of the game, continually going back and forth within the last tail but never able to reach the end. However, in my experience, I felt more satisfaction than frustration in the latter game while I felt more frustration than satisfaction in the former game (my group's game) even though in both games I was stuck for quite a while at specific segments. I now realize that game-making requires so much UX design.

Our discussion last week was also very intriguing. The question that was posed to us was "what is making?" or "what is a maker?" My understanding from reading the book Making Makers: Kids, Tools, and Innovation by AnnMarie Thomas (as you can read from my book review blog last week) were that makers are self-identified with a set of qualities that includes learning and playing, curiosity and resourcefulness, taking risks and responsibilities, sharing ideas, etc. These makers make anything from woodworks to algorithms, Lego Mindstorms to squishy circuits, sewing to tape-figurine making and many more. Based on this, I believe that everyone is a maker (more on this later in my summary of this week's readings). And everyone can make anything. However, the other school of thought brought up in other books during our discussion was that "making" only encompassed hardware and technology such as welding, electronics, programming and others of that manly sort. Although I can see where they are coming from, I do not particularly agree with this idea. I believe that working on other kinds of work in addition to these manly activities will actually train one to "think outside the box". In other words, it can encourage innovation. When one works on sewing, drawing, music-making, crafts, even cooking, though seemingly feminine, actually engages one to be resourceful and curious in different ways. It may even expand their capacity in these areas, allowing one to think with an even more open mind than one that is constantly considering only one topic or area of interest.

READING SUMMARY
The Ted Talk by Dale Dougherty was very inspiring. The tagline caught me from the very beginning: Everyone is a maker. I whole-heartedly agree with that. I do believe within everyone, there is a desire to make and create things, even things that express themselves and their interests. It is just a matter of how much time and effort they put into making as well as how much they have given to develop the maker in them (either since childhood or during adulthood). We can also see this desire to create in the IKEA hackers that were interviewed in Rosner & Bean's (2009) paper and IKEAhacker.net. People are creating (or hacking) things mainly for their own personal and unique use like the kitchen made out of IKEA cabinets. People were also creating things to express their personal creativity like the GYNEA chair or the Sashimi car in Dougherty's Ted Talk. Additionally, as mentioned in Lindtner's paper on Emerging Site of HCI Innovation (2014), we see people creating things to sell them to the public via Kickstarter for the public's benefit. All in all, these readings lead me to the same conclusion, everyone is and can be a maker.

Furthermore, throughout the readings, the video, and through browsing IKEAhacker.net, I see the maker traits described in Making Makers constantly repeated and proven to be true. All these makers are curious, all these makers are resourceful, all these makers share their inventions and ideas. Even the ones that were in fear of idea copycats still posted their ideas and hacks to the hacker site in the end because they want to get their ideas out there and recognized (Rosner & Bean, 2009).

Lastly, I would like to bring up a question I have been frequently asked. Friends and family have been asking me how my classes have been going this past week and I always start by telling them about makerspaces. The next set of questions I am bombarded with is "What is that?" and "What does it have to do with your field of study (Information / HCI)?" I have to admit, I am still not entirely sure of the answer to this question. I know in my gut feeling that makerspaces is definitely related to HCI. But in what way? How does making contribute to user experience design? I know this was somewhat brought out in Lindtner's paper. But I have been considering how to put it in a way that someone outside our UMSI community can understand. The best I have come up with, and I have a feeling I will continue to discover the answer throughout the rest of the semester, is that human-computer interaction deals with improving a user's experience with anything they are interacting with (though specializing in, but not limited to, computers and technology). Because of the continuous need to improve the experience, there is also the need to continually be innovative in order to fit the ever-changing and -evolving needs of people as the ages and generations continue. In order to be innovative, we need to be these makers who are curious and resourceful to discover new (better) ways to do things, new (better) ways to solve problems, new (better) ways to satisfy people. We learn all these by doing and making and even enjoying what we are doing and making. That is my consideration. I would love to hear every one's thoughts on this question.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

1. Book Review

Making Makers: Kids, Tools, and the Future of Innovation (Thomas, 2014) is an extremely interesting read. As I recall from my reading, the author AnnMarie Thomas is a mother as well as an educator. She writes from various perspectives. Being a maker herself, she writes from the perspective of a maker observing other makers. Yet as a mother, she writes as a maker mom who is learning to raise her kids to also follow in her footsteps. Being an educator, she writes in the perspective of a researcher and observer. She interviewed various makers who also have kids of their own and are also learning to raise them as makers. Throughout the book, I could just see all these perspectives playing specific roles at specific instances she mentioned but at the same time, the collide into each other, sometimes having several roles appear at the same time.


In this book, it seemed to me that the tools, materials, and products that were used and created could have been anything. Tools ranged from the simple paper and pencil to computers and math, sewing machines to eating utensils. Materials mentioned comprised of wooden blocks, tape, dough, broken electronics, and even gunpowder! And what did they create with these? Alien maps, sports score algorithms, clothes, working electronics, Squishy circuits, and rockets and explosives. The items mentioned were definitely a wide range and variety and it seemed to have roots in the maker's childhood activities.



AnnMarie Thomas included many childhood stories of makers, including her own. Many of them were kids back in the day when there were no computers. These makers are now probably between the ages of 35 to 50 and many of them have their own children or are educators who teach PK-12 and university courses about making. Since the book is more focused on how to make kids makers, which could be anything they had interest in, the types of making was also widely varied from a museum exhibit director who is also a seamstress, to a young owner of an engineering consultancy, focused on industrial machine design projects.



AnnMarie Thomas puts it very well on the first page of her book: "Makers make things... It isn't a title conveyed after passing some test or degree program; rather, it is a self-identification". This definition is very clear and straightforward and I agree whole-heartedly with it. Furthermore, according to AnnMarie Thomas, she provides a list of traits that makers generally have. Though it is not an exhaustive list neither will every item apply to every single maker but I feel that it is sufficient. Makers are curious, playful, willing to take on risk and responsibility, persistent, resourceful, sharing, and optimistic.



I definitely appreciate the content of her writing and found it to be very helpful and useful not only for when I babysit my nieces, nor for when I take care of the kids at Sunday church service, but even for my own future family and future children. This is such an awesome way to raise kids, allowing them to do what they want to do in order to explore and learn and play at the same time. I grew up in a really sheltered environment so I did not have the opportunity to grow the way these people did as makers. But somehow, I believe somewhere along the way, especially because of the curiosity my father instilled in me since childhood, I have an extremely inquisitive mind. I always wonder "what is this", "what does it do", "how does it work", "why did someone create it", "why did they create it this way", "what if it was created that way", "what if it does this instead", etc. Due to this constant desire to understand things, the little maker in me still managed to grow over the years. I wouldn't call myself a full-fledged maker due to the many prohibitions in my activities during childhood. But still, I somehow made stuff. I drew cartoons, made wooden boxes with only skewer sticks and string, machine-sewed a wallet and a stuffed animal shirt, hand-designed ambigrams, made 4-page cards / bookmarks without staples nor glue. Eventually the things I made and did got more and more advanced. I made a bigger version of the wooden boxes with dowels, repaired cracked iphone / ipad screens, filmed a short in Australia about how my sister and brother-in-law met, made their wedding ring box, etc. All these little projects stemmed from the little maker in me I didn't know existed. But I do remember, just as AnnMarie Thomas has heard from all the makers she interviewed, the great sense of accomplishment and pride of having made or fixed something all on my own through tinkering and just lots of thinking. So as I read this book, I felt that it was constantly describing me (except for taking risks, I was not allowed to do much of that). I would like to learn from these makers' childhood experiences as well as how they are raising their kids now and apply these to my own future experiences.