Recent Blog Posts

Maker Faire UK 2013

This coming weekend, Maker Faire UK is at the Centre for Life in Newcastle. I’ll be exhibiting as part of the DoES Liverpool stall this year. While I initially started going to DoES Liverpool, it was to get some hands-on experience with running a laser cutter, which would improve the work I was doing with [...]

Posted on Monday 22nd April, 2013

So What’s a Practical Laser-Cut Clip Size?

I’ve previously shown for laser-cut elastic-clips for comb joints what the equations are for calculating maximum bending stress and operating force, using the distance that the clip has to deflect in use as the starting point. I also explained how a tapering clip profile was preferable to a straight one. This time I’m going to [...]

Posted on Friday 22nd February, 2013

Laser-Cut Elastic-Clipped Comb-Joints

During a makerday, I saw a someone struggling to put together a Raspberry Pi box that they’d laser cut, and were trying to hold together: two pieces of acrylic to make the joint, and the Raspberry Pi board, and a nut into a slot, while also attempting to screw in a bolt, and not drop [...]

Posted on Wednesday 6th February, 2013

About

"The days of companies with names like 'General Electric' and 'General Mills' and 'General Motors' are over. The money on the table is like krill: a billion little entrepreneurial opportunities that can be discovered and exploited by smart, creative people."

Cory Doctorow, "Makers"

...maybe not yet, but it is already beginning.

The world still lives with mass-produced products; designed to averaged, normalised, focus grouped specifications, where one-size-doesn't-quite-fit-anyone. It buys proprietary products, locked boxes with stickers that say "warranty void if opened". But contrary to popular misinformation, products are never finished. There is no "best" design. How is what you need the same as what everyone else needs?

What if a product was open? What if you could see the work that went into it? If your ideas were as valid as the designer's and made-at-home was just as good as made-by-us?

That's what we do. Open Source Design Engineering.
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