Monday, October 26, 2009

Fireplace

I have been meaning to post this for sometime but....
such is life.


I did not design the fireplace surrounding but did the metal work around it. I had the Chemetal cut to size and cut and painted the accent bars. The hard part was getting it on the wall but contact cement and a second set of hands, done and done.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

The Wrong Garden

So I have not posted in a while.

I came across this.
James Dyson and Jim Honey designed a garden for for the Chelsea Garden show 2003.
James Dyson designed the water feature for the gard
en inspired by M.C. Escher.



"One of these is an optical illusion that shows water going uphill and round and round the four sides of a square perpetually. I wanted to create a series of cascades that are all on the same level - an everlasting waterfall."

I don't know how this has not made it to my radar until now. It is one of the best water pieces I have seen. The way it works is even better, make it look like the water is flowing up hill.


I always thought that working for Dyson would be sweet, because it strikes me as a place that there is no bad idea. This work by Dyson proves to me that, he thinks that there is no bad idea.

Here is the Telegraph article and the BBC story.

The official site.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Sea of Tranquility




The Moon Landing forty years ago.

and
Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage on CNN this morning talking about the "Moon Myths"

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Monday, June 8, 2009

Minnesota Wins

UMNSVP - Centaurus

The University of Minnesota won the 2009 Formula Sun Grand Prix, in both amount of laps and fastest lap. The U's Solar Vehicle Centaurus did 487 laps over the three days as well as the fastest lap time 0:02:20 on a 1.7 mile track. Check the full results here.
The Star Tribune has an article here.
The University of Minnesota Solar Vehicle Project web page, twitter, and flicker.
The team has started work on Centaurus II.
Solar cars always seem to look like something out of the future a weird UFO or something.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Work Space

New Saw Table


Old Saw Table

I always seem to be building or rebuilding the table for my radial arm saw and I got my hands on some narrow cabinets, you can never have to many drawers. As soon as I get my work space all set up something else gets build or rebuilt. Workshops are the never ending projects all to them selves.

Anyway free stuff rocks.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

... and be the striking hammer of god.

As I stated in the last post I made a hammer for the MN Thunder home games and that is the finished product.
See pics of it in progress here.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

the week in re-view

I haven't posted in a while but I have been working on a fue of projects while darting off to the campground to help get ready for the spring.

I have been working on two main projects one is "Thor's Hammer" and project B is a bicycle that is being retro fitted with an electric scooter motor an EV of sorts.

May 2nd @ 7:05PM is the MN Thunder home opener at the NSC in Blaine MN. I decided that we need more then banners and flags. Enter the God of Thunder's Hammer.


I made it all from scrap wood and pvc I had floating around and made a shell and filled it with spray foam for structure.

Bondo, lots of Bondo over the plywood to fill the grain.


It is about 5 feet all (ish) the handle is mare from 1-1/4 pvc pipe with caps and fittings on it to close up the pipe and what not.


I just like this picture.

I am currently working on the paint job for the hammer and it will be done for match day. I will post pics of the finished product on the 2nd, come see it in person I will have it for tail gating and he game.

Note: Bruce is back, check out duNord.

OK covered sport.

I was working on some projects this week and my drill crapped out on me and that put a damper on all the things that I wanted to to, but my new one just got here so a break just as the weather turns sour. So I could not get what I wanted done on the bicycle.

I am bolting a scooter motor to an old Schwinn mt bike. The frame is steel so i have just welded new parts to and there is not much left to do but mount the motor and make the seat. Unlike other motorized bicycles that I have seen, I am removing the peddles and am using pulleys to drive it in replacement of feet to that I can use the transmission. All the other projects that I have seen are all direct drive.
Sorry I don't have pics, but I will soon.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Monday, April 6, 2009

The Shameless Plugs Edition.

All the web sites are of friends of mine and they all do great work. They are in the order that i think of them (read in to it how you want).

Brian Quarstad writes the Inside Minnesota Soccer blog. It has everything that any soccer fan living here in the land of 10,000 lakes needs to know. He also writes for Craven Cottage Newsround, about Fulhum FC in the EPL. (Fulhum has had many americans playing for them including Brian McBride (former) and Clint Dempsy (currently). He also contributes over at Blue Sky Soccer a site decated to the MN Thunder.
So go See BQ at insidemnsoccer.com, cravencottagenewsround.wordpress.com, and blueskysoccer.com. (He does a lot.)

Gene authors the site Bananas 4 Apples site all about the tips and tricks for Mac users. Gene used to work for apple, he knows the in's and out's of everything Mac.

Although officially on hiatus (hopefully not permanently), Du Nord is the best (once again the best) scroce for US soccer news. He has also been know to share his in site with us at Blue Sky Soccer.

Looking for a place to get a way try Lost Falls Campground (it's owned and operated by my Grandparents Rose and Ed Schaper). "the best kept secret in Jackson County, wisconsin."

Colin Kopp has to be the laziest, worst photographer ever and a Jerome Grant recipient . Ok now that I got that out of my system Colin is one of the best photographers that I know (if not the best). Check out his work at colinkopp.com.

Joel Vollmer keeps us all up to date with what he is working on at Finger Twitchings along with From the Desk of Joel Vollmer. Joel is a great illustrator and you should definitely go check out his work. (I recommend him for any freelance illustration that comes up.)

The Vocab is a site that my brother and his friends edit about hip-hop culture and other musings, a part of the Good Push Co-op.

I went to school with Kate Casanova and she is always up to something new and interesting. Her Sculptures always amaze me go now and see her work at katecasanova.com.

Art Storage is the online gallery. I haven't been featured yet but then again I haven't submitted anything yet. (When I am I'll post more than is necessary.)

In the Chicago land area there is my good friend Sarah Rhemer and her site anthemsofempty.com. She does collage and assemblage work as well as photography, another great artist.

If you got left off my list drop me a line and I'll add you or maybe give you your own post, maybe.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

It's Like A Train Wreck, You Just Can't Look Away.

Make Television has to be one of the most disappointing shows that I have ever come across. Now to be fair the most of the segments aren't bad. The segments featuring artists, inventors, and other sorts of "Makers" are usually pretty good. But there are two things that have to change first the Maker Workshop and Maker to Maker.

The Maker Workshop segment has one main problem and that is John Park, I don't believe for one second that knows what he is doing or that he has ever made something on is own. He comes across as just doing the scripts line by line nothing more. There are plenty of examples of the how-to on tv, now I'm not saying be like other shows but learn what makes them work and use that.

The other segment that needs help is Maker to Maker, I like the concept of the segment but the people sometimes come across as stiff and flat. They are in traced by the camera.

The show comes across as trying to reproduce the web site on tv, and that can't work it needs a host or some other way to tie everything together.

I want this show to be good and it is almost there.

I keep watching every week hoping that it will better but every time it ends I am frustrated and have to walk away. I have even cut back on going to the makezine web site because of the association. The show is produced by Twin City's Public Television my local public tv station, the home town crew needs to pull it together, in my humble opinion.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Hoaxtel


The hotelicopter a flying cruise like experience with queen size beds a jacuzzi, sauna and the SkySpa all rapped up in the largist helicopter ever made, the Soviet Mil V-12. Dave Demerjian over at Wired gave the full run down of the hoax. If it was supposed to be an April fools gag, nothing like getting a head of your self, notice the time stamp on the wired storyMarch 30, 2009 | 3:46:34 PM.

The only surviving Mil V-12 is the top photo and the modified V-12 for the Hotelicopter. That is almost double the the size of the original.
www.hotelicopter.com

As an idea I think its a great one a nice comfortable way to travel that goes back to to the zeppelins of the pre-WWII and the Hindenburg. The folks over at Lockheed Martin have developed an airship, that reminds me of the USS Los Angeles, developed for the us army's project Walrus, the P-791 zeppelin that can hull between 500-1000 tons with a range of 12,000 nautical miles. It could be redesigned to be a cruise ship in the sky.

A small test prototype is set to be tested some time in the near future about the cargo space of a C-130, about a quarter scale test. Once again I have to tip my hat to those that work in the coolest place that I will never get to visit the Skunk Works.



The Hotelicopter - The World's First Flying Hotel! from Alvin Farley on Vimeo.
After watching that clip how could you believe that that was a test flight.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Evasion Urbaine (Urban Escape)



"With the advent of the mobile telephone, telephone booths lie unused. We rediscover this glass cage transformed into an aquarium, full of exotically coloured fish; an invitation to escape and travel."

The Artist
Benedetto Bufalino designed this work for the Lyon Light Festival with help from lighting designer Benoit Deseille.




I think this one of the best public artworks I have seen in a long time. Although I might not use the word exotic to describe goldfish even if it is used to describe the color. It is a great example of using an existing object and transforming it into something different without changing it from it from its original context.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Mark Your Calendar

Make Day @ the Science Museum of Minnesota.



Make TV is hosting an event at the science museum here in St. Paul. The line up looks good check it out here or here.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

New Work

I have come across many variations a shopping cart chair. Those works do not move me. I have seen many images thought out time of people riding in, sitting in and steeling shopping carts. It seems to me that a shopping cart chair is old hat.

When re-purposing something and changing it's function, I find that it is most effective when the re-purposed object is taken out of its original context. Changing it in to something that makes you stop and look at it.

The grill was on the back porch when I moved in, it only had two legs and where the third was supposed to be it was propped up on a wicker chair. Already having my own grill that was in much better shape I left it out there, knowing that I would find a use for it later, Then one night I thought a chair. Now that is something that you don't see every day a grill used as a chair.

I have not decided what to call it,
either "The Hot Seat" or "The GrillMaster."



Thursday, January 22, 2009

Words to Live By.



"(Well believe me, Mike,)

I calculated the odds of this succeeding versus the odds I was doing something incredibly stupid...
and I went ahead anyway."
-Crow T. Robot
MST3K the Movie




Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Theo Jansen







I'm not sure what else I have to add.
I do like watching them move.
See what Wired said here and Theo's site.

Monday, January 12, 2009

It's like Sea Lab... kinda

The Sea Orbiter was designed by Jacques Rougerie, a French architect, to be a floating laboratory to help gain a better understanding of the oceans. The almost 3/4 of the planet is water/ the ocean and we have very little understanding of that vast chunk of this blue ball.



"True mobile oceanographical base, this vertical vessel drifts in the currents hosting 18 oceanautes who will observe the life of the oceans on a permanent basis.
Marine life will naturally agregates under its hull."- Jacques Rougerie


It stands about 170 ft tall with about 2/3 under the water line. It is designed to house a crew of 18 and has acesses to the ocean under the water line and is power solely by the ocean currents.

The design was tested in Norway by Marintek and the design was sound and will stay up right even in bad weather. (See the video on the site.) It reminds me of a bobber sitting on a lake when I go fishing.


The Sea Orbiter is a great example of form meeting function.
Check out the project web site.

Jacques Rougerie's designs have a great retro futurism feel, the Sea Orbiter intended to be put to use by 2010.
Check out his work here.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Honda


Honda The Power of Dreams from micheledauria on Vimeo.

Michele D'Auria beautiful animation and story telling about the founding of the Honda Motor Company. I have to say that I am a fan of Honda. I have a '78 Honda CB400, great bike.