Modern Designers are thinking with their hands

Think with your Hands!

There is a great article on the New York Times site about how some of today’s top designers are being encouraged to work on physical projects as a way of encouraging their creativity. Adobe is in on the action, providing designers opportunities to build devices and projects. They believe that it helps foster creativity and give insight into the needs of Adobe’s applications and systems.

New York Times Article: Link

Mentioned in the article:

How to Make (Almost) Anything: Link

Sketching in Hardware: Link

Adobe: Link

Make Magazine: Link

Tinkering School: Link

Learn 2 Teach Project Exposition, August 15, 2008

For a full size file of image, follow link below

The project Exposition is a significant event in the Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn program. This event is free and open to the public.

If you would like to know more about the program, please view the project wiki at: http://learn2teach.pbwiki.com/ This wiki has been written by the participants of the program, inner city youth from many of the neighborhoods of Boston. In it, they explain their projects, and use the wiki to store information about how to work with computer programming, music composition, digital imagery, alternative energy and digital fabrication.

For three weeks at the start of the summer, returning youth teachers and first year youth teachers trained each other in each of the above learning modules, a continuation of the training process begun during the Spring during Saturday learning sessions.

For the second three weeks of the Summer, all the youth teachers work on two complimentary projects: The first is teaching elementary and middle school aged youth in 18 community centers in Boston. The second is a group project in which four or five youth leaders work to create a solution employing many of the learning modules listed above to demonstrate how the community could benefit from their design research.

If you would like to know more about the Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn program, please visit the following links:

Full size image of the invitation – Link

Wiki – http://learn2teach.pbwiki.com/
Blog – https://l2ttl2.wordpress.com/
Flickr account – http://www.flickr.com/photos/28629285@N02/
Flickr group – http://www.flickr.com/groups/721032@N24/pool/
Facebook Event Page – Link

Design Presentations for IDDS

Several of the participants of this international conference at MIT have come to the Fab Lab for assistance in fabricating parts of their designs.  Their work is very interesting, and the presentations would be worth checking out.

Please join us on Wednesday, August 6, from 4-6pm in the Bartos Theater and
the lower-level of the Media Lab for the final celebration of the
International Development Design Summit (IDDS) at MIT.
(Bartos is located here: http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?mapterms=e15)

The summit has brought more than fifty participants from over
twenty countries to MIT to spend a month learning about design and creating
technologies to improve the lives of people in the developing world.  The
participants will present their projects in Bartos Theater from 4 – 5  and
then display their prototypes at the reception that follows. This year’s
projects include:

a device for decreasing the transmission rate of HIV/AIDS from mothers to
their babies
a charcoal crushing machine to help make charcoal briquettes from carbonized
corn cobs
a rope way system to help craftswomen in the Himalayas get their products to
market
a pearl millet thresher
an incubator for low birth weight babies in the developing world
a super low-cost computer for educational programs
an interlocking stabilized soil block maker
a pico-hydro electric generator
a hand-held tool for isolating DNA for improving diagnostic capability
a device for generating electricity from a treadle pump

Please spread the word about this final event and feel free to invite
friends and colleagues whom you think would enjoy the gathering!

IDDS is hosted by MIT, Olin College and Cooper-Perkins, and is sponsored by
the Rockefeller Foundation and the National Collegiate Inventors and
Innovators Alliance.  The Final Celebration is located in Building E15 and
is sponsored by the MIT Public Service Center — http://web.mit.edu/mitpsc/

Hope to see you there!

IDDS website- Link

D-Lab website – Link

Amy Smith is in charge of D-Lab – Link

This is a good video of one of her presentations – Link