Tag: rapid prototyping

  • Lights, lights, lights: The Illumination Collective

    Lights, lights, lights: The Illumination Collective

    The Illumination Collective is comprised of community artists with a shared playful curiosity for light and shadow —  many of whom happen to be Generator members.

    Through creative tinkering, the Illumination Collective crafted a magical Illuminated Forest at the Champlain Mini Maker Faire this past autumn. Here’s member Kristian Brevik’s installation at the event:

     

    Following the success of that one-night-only installation, the team gathered again to bring new glowing surprises to Echo Aquarium with the Illuminated Waterfront as part of the inaugural night of Highlight, Burlington’s New Year’s Eve celebration.

    Some of the Generator members displaying work included:

     

    Jody Brown

    Jody Brown is primarily interested in environmental design and sculpture. She makes small-scale steel sculpture and works on ideas for larger scale work in a variety of materials. As part of the Illuminated Collective team, she’s using reflective materials combined with dynamic lighting to create sculptural installations. She co-owned and operated The Drawing Board in Montpelier, VT, for thirty-five years. She is accomplished in business management, picture framing design and production, art preservation and art materials services. Currently, she serves on the board of Studio Place Arts in Barre and is affiliated with Generator in Burlington.

     

    Ken Howell + Terrence Sehr

    Ken Howell is an artist and professor of media arts at Champlain College where he also serves as a faculty advisor with the Emergent Media Center, and leads the EMC Sandbox Team exploring new and novel human-computer interaction models .  He holds an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, and a BFA from the Maryland Institute, College of Art. He is a founding board member of Generator, a Burlington makerspace and a founder and organizer of the Champlain Maker Faire. When Ken is not describing himself in the third person, he is an I that enjoys a creative life of making, tinkering, drawing, painting, and practicing bonsai. His work, even the bonsai stuff, deals with dichotomy, emergent properties, the quieting of the monkey mind, and dislocations in time and space,  symptomatic of digitality.

    Terrence Sehr is a digital artist interested in political and social media-sourced digital art using algorithmic appropriation and remix. Other interests include interactive art, mixed media sculpture, and the maker movement. Terrence is adjunct faculty in the Champlain College Masters in Emergent Media program, as well as the Community College of Vermont Computer Information Systems program. Terrence holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Emergent Media from Champlain College, a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of Vermont, and a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electrical Engineering from The Cooper Union, NYC.

     

    Alex Constantino

    Alex Costantino is an art educator and artist working across various media, including ceramics, painting, and and digital sculptural practices. He holds a BFA in printmaking from Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from the University of South Florida in Studio Art. In addition to creating art, he teaches art at Enosburg Elementary School, Champlain College, and Burlington City Arts.

     

     

    Clay Mohrman

    Clay Mohrman uses lighting to connect spaces with the surrounding environment through the combination of LED lighting technology and found materials. Using form, function and materials, his sculptures exist at the intersection of nature, design, and the built environment. The work creates a functional and satisfying union between sculpture, light, and its surrounding environment.

     

    Jake Blend + Alex Toulan

    Jake Blend has earned a reputation as a creative, fun, and determined maker/fixer.  As the rapid prototype shop lead and manager of the Mixed Reality Lab at Generator, his daily bread is transcribing dreams to tangible joy.  Among his many projects are mini arcades, way-finding footprints for a traveling Smithsonian Exhibit, creating the World’s Largest Spirograph, and he is currently working on a secure low latency VR telepresence as part of a National Science Foundation project in collaboration with BTV Ignite.  You can find out more at jakeblend.com

    Alex Toulan is a software engineer, game programmer and product developer. He likes to dabble in electrical and mechanical engineering as well. In his spare time, Alex enjoys creating illuminated interactive installations. The LED Tetris Wall at Highlights exemplifies a number of his passions.

     

     

    Thank you to Illumination Collective and Generator Member Jane Adams for the write-up and photos!

  • Generator Stories: Meet David

    Generator Stories: Meet David

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    Meet David.

     

    David is a super creative teen who usually dabbles in film. “Making a movie has always been my go-to for school projects,” he said. “Until now.”

    David found his way to Generator thanks to our Design Lab program.

    Design Lab, conducted in partnership with schools and other non-profits, provides hands-on STEM workshops to students in grades seven through twelve.

    The design-thinking process begins in the classroom and culminates at Generator where students use the same software, tools, and processes used by professional engineers, artists, and designers to bring their ideas to life.

    “When I walked into Generator I was like, whoa,” David exclaimed. He has long been curious about product design and engineering and he considered this his chance to learn more.

    “For this project, I decided I wanted to try making something because all the stuff is here to do it,” he said. This decision was a major departure from his normal film go-to strategy.

    David’s Design Lab workshop designed and made simple phone stands. The workshop taught the students about product design and empowered them to use Adobe Illustrator and the Epilog laser cutter.

    After receiving that training, David decided to take the phone stand idea to the next level: a solar-powered phone stand. “You could place it near a window, or on the dashboard of a car, ” he explained.

    David’s project gave him the opportunity to deepen his experience with the tools he learned,  especially the powerful design software and the ever-popular laser cutter. He also spent time in Generator’s electronics lab with designer and staff member Pete Moore who taught him how to wire and solder a USB port and solar hook-up.

    David’s project also led to a conversation with Hilton Dier III, an engineer and solar expert who is Generator’s current Maker-in-Residence. Hilton is spending his two-month residency at Generator fabricating a rugged, single-person, portable solar power pack to be deployed in remote areas and during weather events and emergencies.

    Hilton and David chatted about their project similarities and David’s design challenges. At Generator, we value collaboration and a culture of support, so there are always folks around to lend a hand or give advice. Hilton gave David some pointers on how to design his solar-powered product.

    By the end of the day, much to his delight, David had conceived of a product, designed it, and made it himself. Along the way, he received one-on-one mentoring and encouragement from the Generator community, including from an expert solar product engineer.

    Empowered, David is already contemplating his next project.  “I have so many ideas now,” he said. “It’s so cool here, and everything seems possible.”

    We are grateful to our 2018 Design Lab partners who have included Dealer.com, the Winooski School District, Hunt Middle School, Spaulding High School, King Street Center, Lund Center, Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program, the Governor’s Institute of Vermont, Essex Junction Middle School, UVM’s Mansfield Hall, Spectrum Youth and Family Services, Peoples United Community Foundation and many more.

    You can learn more about Design Lab here.

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    Generator wants to expand Design Lab and empower more young people to design, create, and innovate.

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    Will you make an end-of-year gift to help young people like David expand their horizons?

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  • Member Made: Adriana Saipe & her laser cut paper Ketubah elements

    Member Made: Adriana Saipe & her laser cut paper Ketubah elements

    Some words from Adriana Saipe on her recent work here at Generator:

    I’m a full-time illustrator who focuses mostly on Jewish and Quaker wedding ceremonial art. Or “Ketubahs” if you’re familiar with Jewish wedding customs. I joined Generator because I wanted to explore adding some paper cut elements to some of my designs. Here’s a recent piece I made this week at the Generator!  Been loving my time in this community so far. 🙂

    Thanks for being here, Andriana!

    You can learn more about Andriana and her work at inkwithintent.com.

  • Maker In Residence: Peace Paper Project

    Maker In Residence: Peace Paper Project

    Drew Matott and Peace Paper Project was our Maker In Residence for August and September 2018.

    We asked him to share a little bit about his residency and he shared a summary of his work below. Thanks so much for being part of Generator’s community, Drew!

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    Peace Paper Project is an international organization of hand papermakers, art therapists and social activists. We set up hand papermaking studios around the world that in turn engage with the communities addressing specific issues.

     

    Since 2011, when Peace Paper Project was founded, we have established over 40 studios and worked with more than 30,000 survivors of war, terrorism, human trafficking, incarceration, mental illness… transforming clothing into paper, transforming associations of trauma & loss into the building blocks for healing.

     

     

    While Peace Paper Project is currently based out of Hamburg, Germany, we spend most of our time traveling the world conducting workshops and setting up papermaking as art therapy programs.

     

     

    The extreme portability of our studio and the transient nature of our operation allows us to have a wide impact with communities affected by war & terrorism and trauma & loss. The trade-off is that we rarely are able to spend quality time off the road focusing on developing specific projects. Our residency at the Generator afforded us with this much needed time and space to make innovations to, not only our program but also our tools.

     

     

    For our Maker-In-Residence at the Generator, we set out to make improvements on the tools that we use. Specifically, we focused on the Hollander beater, the machine that transforms the old textiles (rags) into paper pulp.

     

     

    While hand papermaking field is growing in popularity and practice around the world, there are only a few individuals who make Hollander beaters for sale. Since there are so few individuals making these machines, they are extremely expensive, which presents challenges to Peace Paper Project operations when setting up studios in countries that are often disaster-torn.

     

    With our time at the Generator, we set out to design and build a DIY Hollander beater that could be built for less than $1,000, using locally sourced materials and labor.

     

     

    The finished result will be published as an open source file on Peace Paper Project’s website, with a complete step-by-step to the process. It is our goal to make papermaking more accessible to communities in need and to inspire a new generation of hollander beater builders.

     

    The Generator wan the perfect location to embark on this journey; for over two weeks we were able to take classes and personal tutorials to learn how to use the tools and equipment needed to conceptualize, engineer and construct our DIY Hollander beater. The staff were incredibly helpful and the maker community offered fresh insight, inspiration and were always willing to lend a hand.

    Learn more about Peace Paper Project at peacepaperproject.org.

  • Member Made: Christine DeMello’s CNC Routed Floating Letters

    Member Made: Christine DeMello’s CNC Routed Floating Letters

    Christine DeMello floatinglettersco.com
  • Member Made: “Entanglement” – Northern Right Whale Lantern by Kristian Brevik

    Member Made: “Entanglement” – Northern Right Whale Lantern by Kristian Brevik

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  • Member Made: Anonymous’s 3D Printed Frog

    Member Made: Anonymous’s 3D Printed Frog

  • Member Made: Kendall Fortney’s Laser Cut Coasters

    Member Made: Kendall Fortney’s Laser Cut Coasters

    Kendall Fortney Laser Cut Coasters

  • Member Made: Stephanie Zuppo’s 3D Printed Cartoon

    Member Made: Stephanie Zuppo’s 3D Printed Cartoon

  • Member Made: Ben Colbourn’s 4-Axis Milled Face

    Member Made: Ben Colbourn’s 4-Axis Milled Face

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    Ben Colbourn 4-Axis Milled Face
    Ben Colbourn 4-Axis Milled Face

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