Adaptive Technology Club

I wanted to share some images from this project I've been supervising. This student, Ilana, has been working in the special needs office in the Oakland Unified School District to adapt toys for students with special needs. Standard interfaces exist for folks with bodily mobility or motor-control differences who need adaptive tech, but the options are limited and very expensive. Ilana and this club of students have been shopping for toys that can be easily hacked to have a specific connector. Once that connecter is installed a variety of interfaces, from large buttons to breath-controlled actuators, can be attached to the toy. Ilana and the group have been helping Chantal, the assistive technology director, build a library of adapted toys for students and families to check out. Here are some images from an adaptive tech club workday in November, where we adapted about 40 toys.

New Pieces Summer 2024

Inspired by the product design section of SFMOMA's Art of Noise exhibition, I decided to get a little funky with my amplifier design skills. Decent Vibrations (yes, a nod to the Beach Boys ; )) is a small portable Bluetooth amplifier with a large on/off switch and a giant lumpy volume knob because why not? The base is cast concrete, and the body is texture-painted 3D-printed PLA. The piece is rechargeable, lasting many hours, longer than an unedited drone-metal double album––way longer.
https://www.extrasleepy.com/tangent#/decent-vibrations/

Sometimes, you need to lump around and take in a little abstract art. And what if that abstract art was a little lumpy, too? Even better, what if it changed every six hours so you could contemplate a new maze of lines and shapes? Lumpstraction provides all that. A CNC-cut wood texture-painted sculpture with an embedded black and white e-ink display, this piece will delight your abstraction appetite without keeping you awake at night (Literally, there's no illumination).
https://www.extrasleepy.com/connected#/lumpstraction/

New Pieces Spring 2024

More about Moon Sample: https://www.extrasleepy.com/#/moon-sample/

Sable Block

More about Sable Block: https://www.extrasleepy.com/#/stable-block

Inspired! Learning To Teach Creative Technologies with Generative AI

I just took a professional dev day to attend my 2nd "Learning to Teach Creative Technologies" conference, organized by De Angela L. Duff and hosted by NYU Tandon. If you teach creative technology, I can't recommend this conference enough. I was able to listen to over 25 different teachers talk about how they're using AI in their classrooms, curriculum, and ideation processes. I'm totally inspired, with loads of tools to sort through. While I'm already using some AI tools in my spring Device Invention class, I plan to expand my thinking on this subject across the board while developing my teaching. Here's a summary of the "unsymposium." #LTT2024

Student Work from the Fall 2023 Analog and Digital Class

A sampling of final projects from my fall Analog and Digital class at Lick-Wilmerding. The project is to design and build portable amplified Bluetooth speakers. Students design and build every part, from the printed circuit board to the custom enclosure. This set includes work by Emma, Kyra, Manu, Natalie, KaiL, KaiS, Nico, Olivia, KaiD, and Taran.

BIG BUNDLE!

These times are uncertain and full of reasons to band together and provide people with a little extra support. With the press of a switch, Big Bundle is a reminder to reach out to your crew when you have the capacity and hopefully find yourself at the center of the support bundle when you most need it. Huddle tight, keep growing, and keep glowing.

Big Bundle's light sequence, composed of 16 programmable LEDs, fades at random intervals, in a random order, through meditative warm and cool tones. This piece can operate plugged into a USB outlet or charged for four or more hours of untethered operation. 

Black-stained cherry, UV-coated SLS 3D printing, microcontroller, RGB LEDs, li-poly battery. 

You can have one: http://www.extrasleepy.com/#/big-bundle

Bid on Soft Thoughts!

This piece is available at this year's @rootdivision auction. It's called Soft Thoughts, but don't let your thoughts go soft when it comes to supporting one of the best art non-profits in the city. This friend lights up when you touch the conductive aluminum button on the front. After that, you just don't know what's going to happen. Bid, maybe win, and find out.

https://rootdivision.cbo.io

100% of the final price goes to supporting RD. Bidding ends October 26th 2023.

Black-stained cherry, milled aluminum, UV-coated SLS 3D printing, microcontroller, addressable LEDs.

Opening and installation images from the INTUITIVE NATURE:GEOMETRIC ROOTS & ORGANIC FOUNDATIONS

Opening and installation images from the INTUITIVE NATURE: GEOMETRIC ROOTS & ORGANIC FOUNDATIONS @schneidermoa in Ashland, Oregon. Curated by SMA Executive Director @scottmalbaurn.

On View: October 5 – December 9, 2023

Exhibiting artists:
Jason Stopa, Anna Fidler, Iván Carmona, Mark Sengbusch, Jan van der Ploeg, Heather Day, Courtney Puckett, and Andrew Kleindolph

Group Exhibition at the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland Oregon.

On View: October 5 – December 9, 2023

INTUITIVE NATURE: GEOMETRIC ROOTS & ORGANIC FOUNDATIONS

more information here

Soft Thoughts!

2023

Black-stained cherry, milled aluminum, UV-coated SLS 3D printing, microcontroller, addressable LEDs.

Need some Soft Thoughts? Touch this fellow's mouth, and the glowing object displays its delicate thought process in light. This tower of glop whispers through a random sequence of blues, purples, and whites projected in light onto its pillow-like mind. Slightly bigger than handheld, this bright friend nudges any space towards peace and, in the late hours of the day, might soften the thoughts of those around.

This piece slow-fades in or out by touching a rounded rectangle on the front. Its power comes from a USB outlet. The wood base and aluminum touch switch are milled with the Bantam Tools desktop mill. The controller runs on CircuitPython. The body is modeled using Rhino 3D.

A short video of the piece

Dimensions: 4”w x 7.5”h x 4”d (102 x 190 x 102mm)

Buy one!

AQI Funnies shows up on Hackster.io

https://www.hackster.io/news/air-quality-index-funnies-0f9ef64ebacf

Thank the gods for Modern Digestion

Modern Digestion is a nod to the intestinal tract and all the microbiota working in miraculous ways to perpetually break down, absorb, or pass the extraordinary collection of natural, synthetic, planned, and unintended items we put down our esophagus. From prehistoric to recently engineered foods, the gut keeps it all moving.

http://www.extrasleepy.com/#/modern-digestion/

The light sequence, composed of 26 programmable LEDs, fades at random intervals, in a random order, through meditative warm and cool tones. This piece can operate plugged into a USB outlet or charged for five or more hours of untethered operation. Programmed with CircuitPython.

Something New: AQI Funnies

AQI Funnies builds off the Internet of Things trend by combining live air quality data (in this case, from zip code 94114) with single-frame comics. Using an e-paper display and the Air Now air quality API, a ghost-like friend presents the viewer with a statement about the rating for the day. The character's mood, background, and messaging change to one of seven different scenes based on the particulate count at the current moment. From great to hazardous, the guiding figure encourages or warns you, with a random adjective, about what you might be exposing your lungs and body to that day.

See more about this piece here.

Elevated plant stand to keep the a plant from becoming cat food.

New Piece: Sidewinder

Sidewinder is an abstracted ode to the discovery of over 80 rattlesnakes living under a single Santa Rosa home. The snakes are now displaced, but the calmly changing light from this sculpture shines in their memory.

The wood CNC is milled using a Bantam Tools mill. The microcontroller is coded with CircuitPython, and the main shape is modeled using Rhino 3D and Fusion 360. This piece is rechargeable and lasts about seven hours per charge. more details

Time to skill up!

Starting this January I'll be teaching metal shop, for the first time, to 9th-grade students. Gotta skill-up. Here's my CNC-plasma / MIG welding warm-up project.

New Piece: King of Fruits

King of Fruits, inspired by the Southeast Asian durian, is a handheld sculpture that illuminates bulging protrusions with a calm and changing array of LED colors. Loved and loathed for its smell and taste, this polarizing fruit is often referred to as the "King of Fruits." This abstraction of the durian maintains the crown-like cap and replaces the odor with a glow. King of Fruits is rechargeable and portable, lasting six or more hours on a recharge.

The wood base is milled with the Bantam Tools desktop mill, and the controller is coded with CircuitPython. The main shape is modeled using Grasshopper and Rhino 3D.

see more information here

you can purchase one here

Work at Open Editions Shop!

Creator extraordinaire duo and friends @bradenwe and @laurendicioccio now have an @openeditions store at 788 Valencia Street! They asked me to put some light pieces in the store! Here are some shots alongside some other great works like the twisty-shaped necklaces of @laurendicioccio, a game/bandana by @katgeng, and some bracelets by #barbarakasten. There really are so many delectable items in the store. Please visit!

Jeff Linnell visits Device Invention Class

Jeff Linnell, CEO/founder of https://formant.io/ visited the Device Invention class to discuss his ecosystem for internet-controlled robots, cameras, and more. Students were able to drive the Boston Dynamics robot "Spot" around his studio remotely. Jeff's work ties together design, engineering, and business, with creativity and experimentation. There's so much vision, even on projects that don't have an obvious pathway. It was honestly a little overwhelming to think about the diversity of ambitious projects in which Jeff has participated. Nevertheless, this was a genuine end-of-semester treat! Now, back to controlling our relatively simple Raspberry Pi IoT projects. Gotta start somewhere.

New Piece: Double Up

Double Up is a desktop light sculpture with capacitive touch sense interactivity. The two 3D-printed conduits illuminate with differing coordinated LED strips that can transition or be turned off by touching a CNC-milled aluminum base plate.

The wood base is milled with the Bantam Tools desktop mill, the aluminum with a Tormach, and the controller is an Adafruit QT-Py programmed with CircuitPython.

The light operates via 5v USB-C and saves the chosen color scheme indefinitely, on or off, while plugged in.

Dimensions: 5.25”w x 6.25”h x 3”d

http://www.extrasleepy.com/#/doubleup/