I know things have been very quiet here – I am quite a bit busier with musical activities at the moment and am otherwise chasing paid work, which sadly has meant that Openthing is taking a back seat currently.
I have however been meeting up with fellow freelancer and Open Design advocate Brian Loudon of Loud1 [...]

One of the first things I referenced when I started this project was the ‘Maker’s Bill of Rights’ document that Make Magazine published some time ago – a kind of set of standards for makers of open objects such that said objects can be sure to be repairable and hackable. As with most things to [...]

Here is my first model of Niftymitter Mic – a cordless mic vresion of niftymitter in response to Nathaniel’s testing.

My initial sketches, done at some point during the symposium.

The mic would be behind that dotty bit in the top left, so you can hold the thing like a dictaphone. I guess it might be good [...]

For those of you who can’t make it.

There are three tables, one on the theme of Download, one on Make & Adapt, and one on Share.

And a nice big vinyl cut on the wall.

Malcolm’s beautiful promo photo blown up.

The Share table. There are now the A5 cards with the testers’ results on them here, and [...]

Before I came up for the exhibition I did a bit of quick layout development on Niftymitter Home in the hope that it might be ready for the exhibition. It wasn’t, but things are in a good place I think:

It sits quite well in either horizontal orientation – which is how the 0.24 versions seemed [...]

Hello. I am in the exhibition space in the Dalhousie building at Dundee University from 9-5 today and tomorrow, do pop in and say hello. This morning I have been mainly re-broadcasting Solid Steel in the exhibition space and working up a version of niftymitter with a built in mic in response to Nathaniel’s [...]

Have just come across this Open Design event happening in Berlin this week, from the Open Design Berlin blog:

The DMY Maker Lab will be a celebration of Open Design through practice, presentations, and collaborative action, created by instigators and participants alike. It’ll be held at the DMY International Design Festival from 9-13 June 2010.
Berlin seems [...]

I’ve been busy preparing stuff for the exhibition in Dundee this week that ties up my Arts Council funded residency with DJCAD. The exhibition is called Innovation and Creative Development in Craft and runs from Thursday 10th June to Saturday 26th June in the Dalhousie Building, University of Dundee, Old Hawkhill, Balfour Street, Dundee, DD1 [...]

Have made some progress today with the two next versions of Niftymitter:  The plan is to update the general PCB layout from 0.24/0.25, add the volume attenuator feature and improve the tuning interaction, and call this Niftymitter Guts, which will be v0.3.
Then am working on two new sleeve designs: one for the home, called Home,  [...]

Gone for a taped construction on this one, while its still in development. Quite pleased with the form, would be good as a household radio for a kitchen or bathroom, but not so good portability wise. Will post up the layouts asap.
As I said before, have had real trouble getting a decent board for the [...]