Some things I’ve figured out right at the start of learning something new. I’ve been learning bookbinding for a few weeks now. While I don’t claim any expert knowledge, I do claim inexpert knowledge. Sometimes when you’re starting out, it’s good to hear an inexpert point of view, as the experts often take things for…

Stream is a photo series published in zine form that I worked on July – October 2022. The photos were made over a few days around a small stream in the hills of Herefordshire, in the west of England, near the border with Wales. The zine is hand-bound in a limited series of 25. All…

From bits to atoms, screen to paper. This plotter is an part of an ongoing investigation into machine design that started with my camera slider. The slider is a one axis machine, the plotter has two. Both are simple machines, but in order to work, need to be good. So building this plotter has been an…

Procedural snowflakes generated in p5. I got my plotter working in time for Christmas, so I wanted to use it to make some cards for friends and family. I also thought it would be nice to build a GUI so other people could generate their own festive vectors – for their own plotter.

Working with soft materials in the fablab. I’m interested in how we can use digital and machine tools to work with a wider variety of materials. Those that allow for more varied forms and functions, or for less determined shapes, or for products with different aesthetics than those we’re used to seeing from digital fabrication…

Learning about motion control Fab Slider is one of a number of projects I’m working on that fall under the umbrella of ‘tools for learning’. The artefact itself is a camera slider, designed to enable smooth panning shots in video or time-lapses, and especially useful in making project demo videos. But my real reasons for…

As part of my digital fabrication teaching, I wanted to have a simple, cheap, and easy-to-fabricate Arduino board that students could make themselves, and use in their projects.

Perhaps the biggest maker project I’ve ever undertaken: converting an empty delivery van into a campervan to travel around Europe.

This is the wallet I carry with me every day. I want something as small and light as possible. I don’t carry much, just a few notes and cards, no change, keys or anything bulky. I also use it when hiking, so I want something pretty weatherproof.

I made this in May 2016, more or less following this design on Instructables. Having made lots of furniture projects out of softwoods and ply, I wanted to try something in a hardwood.

Making a design classic, one of Enzo Mari’s famous pieces of Autoprogettazione furniture. I came across Enzo Mari through talking with Will Holman about utopian designers. But once I learned of his work, it seemed as though every designer and architect I met nodded enthusiastically when I mentioned his name. So as a holiday project, I decided…

This LED lamp is a simple lighting project that reuses a three colour LED light and mounts it in a tube to create a colourful projection light that looks great when pointed against a wall. Following these principles, you could take the project in many directions. For me was an opportunity to try turning something…

Here’s a project still in prototyping stages, but it’s a simple one, and you can probably do a better job. It’s a mashup of Ticket to Ride and Star Wars: specifically the game-play of Ticket to Ride, but set in the Star Wars Universe.

The LM386 chip is a simple and cheap amplifier chip that is used in countless audio amplifier projects. I used one to make my own 0.5W amplifier. This is not a complete how-to guide, you can find plenty of those elsewhere. It’s just a write-up of some of the things I learned – and modifications…

A tarp – being essentially a rectangle of fabric with tie out points – is probably one of the simplest outdoor MYOG (Make Your Own Gear) projects you can attempt. But not all tarps are created equal, so here’s my version.

I recently made this pen(cil) case, for reasons outlined elsewhere, and decided to document the process. I think this would make a great first project for someone who is new to sewing and wants to make something useful and ‘technical’.

I’m running an experiment. Inspired by the open hardware movement, I decided to design a product, document the design process and parameters of the product, and share it, to encourage adaption and improvement by others. I’ve blogged about it here, and I’m posting the files on Thingiverse for others to use. Design considerations I’m sharing…

Back in March 2011, I went to Maker Faire UK in Newcastle, and learned how to make a pinhole camera. Here’s what I wrote about it at the time: Justin Quinnell gave an intriguing talk about pinhole photography and the beer can cameras he uses to take ultra-long exposures (i.e. six months) that track the…

Jay Ham has written an excellent series on Backpackinglight.com on how to make your own ultralight backpacking gear. He shows you how to make a tarp, backpack and stuff sack, using 5m of lightweight fabric. The series starts with the simple techniques needed to make the stuff sack, gradually introducing more complex constructions until you’re…

Sound files from circuit-bent instruments, sliced and diced for your sampler.

A lightweight backpack following the Backpackinglight.com design here. It’s made out of PU-coated ripstop nylon. The design is pretty faithful ot the original, with the addition of a few experimental features to try out other ideas I had.

Amy and I made this rocket for our friends’ sons who share a bunk-bed. There is a long curtain with a door that covers the long open side of the lower bunk, and a cockpit control panel that goes behind the pillow inside the lower bunk. Amy’s a pro, but this was my first sewing…

Note, September 2022: This is an old project – from 2010, but variants of this stove and pot stand still serve me well on overnight trips over 10 years later. I also taught people how to make this stove at the very first EMF Camp. This is one of my favourite projects. I’m archiving the…