So I started this blog a billion years ago for art/design stuff. Then I went to design school, then a Masters in Tangible Interaction Design (aka “physical computing”), then lots of interesting career paths.
I’m going to start writing about design and related stuff on my professional blog at functionalprototype.com; I’ll keep this blog for history and comments on old posts.
I have another blog for Pittsburgh, nerdiness, and stuff that isn’t design thinking at flatline.net.
posted by jet at 20:13
Last fall I taught Intro to Physical Computing and this spring I’m teaching Making Things Interactive, a class I helped develop when I was earning the first Master of Tangible Interaction Design. The TID program is being shut down and I have the last candidate in my class, but I’m glad that CMU developed IDeATe. I think TID could have evolved in to something like IDeATe, but not being a career academic I have no idea how that would work.
Teaching a class of mixed undergrad and graduate students is interesting. I have undergrads who’ve only taken the pre-req (Intro to Phys Comp) and considering an IDeATe minor along side graduate students who have engineering or software backgrounds looking to learn more about making interactive things.
posted by jet at 13:59
Another new thing, a music clip for holding your book open.
posted by jet at 23:27
More designing things as a favor or for fun then putting them on the Etsy store. These are stencils for beehives, a handy tool if you are in a community apiary or spread your hives across other people’s properties.
posted by jet at 16:26
I’m focused on contracting right now (and lining up work for March and April if you have anything) and considering a couple of f/t jobs that might open up this Summer.
I’m also doing some design work for my portfolio.  One is a software project for a x-y table interface to help people who need to crank out work and optimize time. It’s almost feature complete for testing on the Lasersaur project, but I’ll probably redesign/recode every screen at least once before it hits Alpha. That’s just how new software projects work, write what you think you should write, evaluate, then plan on writing most of it again now that you know what you want.
The other thing I’m doing is furniture and fixtures.  For decades I’ve used toolboxes for storage and it’s not so bad in the shop where I can hang walls of pegboard then store rarely used tools in a toolbox. But in my studio where there is no room on the walls? I’ve had a toolbox on my studio bench for 10 years and am constantly trying to find the right wrench or widget. I made a rotating tool stand on a whim and it’s so damn useful I put it for sale on Etsy and made a demo video:
posted by jet at 11:53