MAD Quickies 9.21 – The Maker Faire Edition

We visited Maker Faire New York on the campus of the New York Hall of SCIENCE and we had a blast! We’re going to write more about it, but for the time being, we have some quickies for you. Now go out and get yourself something nice.

• The USBTypewriter™ — manual typewriters used as keyboards! Jack Zylkin, the inventor (it says so on his business card!), offers both a DIY kit and actual tricked-out typewriters.
• Thingiverse is the place to share digital designs for fabricating real, physical objects. The site is owned by MakerBot Industries, the home of awesome desktop 3D printers, and run by its founders, Zach “Hoeken” Smith and Bre Pettis in Brooklyn, New York.
• Cyberoptix Tie Lab – Hand-silkscreened works of art. How do you choose just one? We had trouble deciding. Their site is a cacophonous hot mess but you’ll have fun visiting.
• We all fell for Unusual Cards — super-cool cards, pin-ups and posters by the lovely and delightfully warped Francesca Berrini. We totally want to have drinks with her! (Also, how long has Francesca owned the domain unusualcards.com? Like wow.)

• Rebecca Coagan designs delicate Morse-coded jewelry at Coatt.
• Martha Rotten’s lead-free pewter jewelry is the best of this genre and her aesthetic is consistent. And, really, who doesn’t want a snake vertebrae bracelet?
• Sean McIntyre created The Choscillator, a game using an EEG hack and a welded chair. Frankly, we were a little apprehensive of this. Didn’t we see Ralph Fiennes do something like this in Strange Days? But it was cool, nonetheless.
• Solidoodle 3D Printers — Upload a 3D computer file and this magical cube creates a real plastic part!

The Solidoodle creates a bottle opener. Zippy!