Tinker it now!

Sketching in hardware 08 just took place, and although we couldn’t make it, we’re glad the interwebs can keep us connected to the great talks that took place. One that I really must mention was Tom Igoe’s on Physical computing’s greatest hits: the wheels that people reinvent again and again. Genius really.

1. theremin-like instruments
2. drum gloves (tangible vs intangible)
3. dance floors
4. Scooby-Doo paintings: paintings that react to presence (easy to sense presence, hard to sense attention)
5. body-as-cursor
6. video mirrors (aka, hand wavers, because people always wave their hands)
7. mechanical pixels
8. hand-as-cursor (aka Minority Report)
9. multi-touch surfaces (exercise:operate an iPhone while it’s in your pocket)
10. tilty stands and tables
11. tilty controllers
12. things you yell at
13. meditation helpers
14. fields of grass (running your hand across it affects it)
15. dolls and pets
16. remote hugs
17. LED fetishism

A few days ago, Matt Biddulph of Dopplr an active supporter of Tinker, made a Google map of what he nicknamed “the Silicon Roundabout”, which is the startup-friendly area around Old Street in London. As our offices are a 15 minute walk away from that area, he was lovely enough to include us on that map. The Evening Standard picked up on this and decided to interview us and included us on today’s print edition!

Mark Prigg, journalist at the Evening Standard, attended our last Beginners workshop and was kind enough to write a lovely article on it.

There’s something oddly organic and lo-tech about the whole movement – it’s about recycling, essentially, and old toys, computers and even home appliances form the basis of many of the gadgets created. While they are pushing the boundaries of art and electronic installation, they are doing it all with kit that might once have run a child’s toy or controlled a kettle – and in a world where the launch of a new mobile phone can create headlines around the world, it’s an approach that’s very refreshing.

At least it’s also italian :)

Thx to bopuc for the link.

We’re very happy to welcome Nick Weldin to our team. We met Nick at the very first Arduino workshop in 2005 and started leading Beginners Arduino workshops in January 2008. We’re very happy to have him join our team as Senior technologist, helping us develop the educational side of our activities as well as bring leadership to some our client work.

“Nick had many jobs including pyrotechnician, for companies like Theatre of Fire and Le Maitre, he helped set fire to the Fourth Bridge for its centenary celebrations. He ran an adventure playground for disabled children for Kidsactive and set up a project in the London borough of Westminster developing multimedia work with people with profound learning difficulties and the people who support them, and has played around with electronics since his teenage years.”

++Drawdio from Jay Silver

++ Coding4fun hardware examples.

Some months ago, we ran a Flash and Arduino workshop lead by Alias Cummins and Brock Craft and I thought I’d share some nice documentation from it.

Check out the troubleshooting and documentation on the workshop page.

Video 1 and Video 2.

Yes seems strange, but even online businesses go on vacation :)

From August 18th to 31st, the Tinker store will not be processing orders. You will still be able to put order through but it wont be processed before September 1st and will be processed chronologically. Thanks!

While in San Francisco for FooCamp, Massimo and I had the great pleasure of having lunch with Chris Anderson, founder of Wired magazine and author of The Long Tail.

These 2 got along fabulously and started talking tech immediately as Chris is a big fan of Arduino. Check out some of the results of that conversation on his blog.

If you’re curious what went on during Reboot 10 in Copenhagen check out somevideos of my Reboot experience. I got selected to take part in this as I was a “first speaker” and also gave an interview for Danish Radio (also available as a part of a podcast) on the work we do at Tinker and how we encourage Arduino as a platform as well as a video of some of the workshop bits and pieces.