Michal Piasecki » creative commons

“grasshopper primer”

Michal Piasecki — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:30:19 +0000

I have learned through Andrea Graziano blog that LIFT architects wrote “The Grashopper Primer” – a step by step introduction on how to use Grasshopper. Basically, Grasshopper Primer is a collection of tutorials available on the web – gathered in one pdf and organized depending on the level of difficulty. It’s available under CC from LIFT’s website. I think this admirable effort of LIFT might help many designers and architects to make their first steps into the world of parametric/generative processes (what ever name you prefer) so – it’s a great work.

Here is how LIFT has used Grasshopper for the Slow Food Nation canopy:

design and piracy

Michal Piasecki — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 15:48:31 +0000

My new short text was just published at the Thinking blog. I argue, that with new image processing technologies, like Microsoft’s Photosynth will make room for the intellectual property rights debate in the world of design. It might mean that designers will find themselves in a need to implement new organizational scheme; Perhaps one that harnesses collaboration rather than discourage it. Have a good read.

another attempt to bring tangibles closer to the world of 2.0 value creation

Michal Piasecki — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 12:46:02 +0000

Ronen Kadushin’s company Open Design is another attempt to bring tangibles closer to the world of 2.0 value creation. It seems one worth a closer look. In his own words:

“Open Design is a personal attempt to close a creativity gap between product design and other fields (music, graphic design, animation and photography), Which found their creative output in phase with the realities of information technology and economics.”

He later continues on the application of the open-source value creation model to the tangible:

“The Open Design method is based on the principles of the already successful Open Source method that revolutionized the software industry, and gave birth to a social movement that is cooperative, community-minded and seeks legitimate ways of sharing creativity.”

The way it actually works is similar to Ponoko’s one. The design is represented as a series of 2d templates to be cut out on the CNC machine (in Ponoko’s case, it’s the laser cutter). The constraint of raster image processing software knowledge is still present, but it doesn’t make the visit to the Open Design projects gallery less exciting.

grassroots digital fabrication

Michal Piasecki — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:51:03 +0000

The Ponoko blog reports on a rapid prototyper able to replicate itself.

The machine (called One Darwin) in fact replicates around 60% of it’s parts and you have to by the rest at a cost of approximately 500 euros, which is of course nothing comparing to the prices of standard 3d printing devices. What’s really interesting about it is that the whole documentation is available for free and there seem to be a whole community around the Rep Rap project, with their wiki and discussions forum. We might be witnessing a birth of grassroots digital fabrication movement.

A whole different approach to the topic is available through a link from Fab Lab Central: “The Fabaroni is a 3D printing machine that constructs 3D models with pasta dough.”

The approximate cost of materials for Fabroni is 1000$, a bit more than for One Darwin then. On top of that it seems that One Darwin is a bit more multi functional (and visionary).