The Edge

~Plus Jake Reed on making modular and reconfigurable CNC machines~

In this episode, we speak with Will Langford, an engineer and researcher at the Center for Bits and Atoms. CBA – a part of MIT — is an interdisciplinary initiative exploring the boundary between computer science and physical science. The researchers at CBA study how to turn data into things and things into data. Recursion and abstraction are common themes. And even though all of this is a mouthful, there’s a more straightforward initiative behind all of their work. It’s one that we can all get behind: engineering a more universal set of tools and lowering the barrier of entry to making.

Links and show notes at bantamtools.com/theedge

~Plus luthier Michael King on using 100-year-old wood to build custom guitars

In this episode, Bre and Zach visit with Aaron Panone in his studio in Boston, Massachusetts. Aaron is a self-producing designer and engineer who focuses on making acetate eyewear and custom bicycle components. In one of his behind-the-scenes videos, Aaron describes writing down all of the detailed steps to produce a pair of cellulose acetate glasses. Even though he’s the only employee, this manufacturing documentation is essential for repeatability. As he puts it, “It’s the code or DNA of the finished object.”

If you listened to last week’s interview with watchmaker Ian Schon, we’re picking up where we left off in discussing what it means to be a one-person operation. When it comes to something as high touch as handmade eyewear, you have to be clear on what your values and goals are and, frankly, love what you do.

Links and show notes at bantamtools.com/theedge

~Plus Nick Manousos on the state of watchmaking~

In this episode, we sit down with mechanical engineer and designer turned self-taught machinist and watchmaker, Ian Schon. Ian is in love with watches and the craft of horology. He also makes and sells a beautiful collection of pens, but really for him, the drive is much more basic: It’s about making. Full stop. He feeds off the challenge of machining complex parts and designing objects that reflect his love of craft, as well as stand the test of time. We visited Ian in his shop in Allston, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston.

Links and show notes at bantamtools.com/theedge

In this last episode of Season One, Bre Pettis, co-host of The Edge, talks about the early days of MakerBot. As co-founder and former CEO of MakerBot, Bre played a huge role in popularizing 3D printing and making it accessible to students, educators, and makers. What many people don’t know, however, is where some of the early ideas for MakerBot originally came from.

In this founder story, Bre also shares memories of some influential people from the early 2000s maker days, like Phil Torrone of Adafruit, Mitch Altman of Noisebridge, and the folks behind the Hackerspace Design Patterns at Chaos Computer Club.

Links and show notes at bantamtools.com/theedge

~Plus Matt Lenox on tips for milling topographic maps~

In this episode, we speak with Tiffany Tseng, a mechanical engineer turned UX/UI designer who, among many things, worked on the Autodesk update to EAGLE, and its integration with Fusion 360. As fabrication tools make their way from the factory floor to our desktops, designers like Tiffany have spent a lot of time thinking about how to create powerful yet intuitive and modern interfaces for makers like us to use. And, as we’ll hear from Tiffany, a lot of her work and discoveries stem from just curiosity about the file formats that we use regularly, like SVGs. Being familiar with code and allowing yourself this curiosity are skills she thinks will be “more and more important for people in digital fabrication” in the future.

Show notes and additional links at: www.bantamtools.com/theedge

~Plus Ed Kramer on running a CNC farm at home in Texas~

The desktop machine category has expanded to include industrial machinery that’s sometimes hard to imagine actually putting on a desk. One recent addition is Wazer, a desktop waterjet cutter. Bre and Zach headed to the Brooklyn Navy Yard to see the machine in action, as well learn how it’s made, and ended up confirming their hunch about who the audience for these machines really is, which is not who you might think.

Links and show notes at bantamtools.com/theedge

~Plus James Thompson on working with Fordite, aka Detroit Agate~

It’s not every day that you meet a materials scientist. These people work in a field that’s seemingly so complex as to be inaccessible to most of us, but Liz Corbin is working to challenge this assumption. Liz has a doctorate in design and has spent the last four years inside a university materials science department researching material culture, open design, and redistributed manufacturing. She co-founded the site and organization Materiom, through which she aims to not only demystify materials science, but to make it part of the normal practice of us makers, designers, and fabricators.

Links and show notes at bantamtools.com/theedge

~ Plus Stefania Druga on MIT's class "How to Make Almost Anything" ~

You’ve probably found yourself walking along an airport causeway or another public space and have seen a wall that once may have been covered in a billboard now playing host to an interactive array of glowing LEDs that change color as you walk past or wave your hand. Surprisingly, such installations usually aren’t the work of large companies, but rather of small studios made up of designers, hackers, and ersatz engineers.

Projects like these require rapid testing and quick turnaround times to stay on budget and are proving grounds for new technologies. In December, we caught up with the founders of one such studio, Breakfast, whose name alone is a hat-tip towards the speed at which they work.

Links and show notes at bantamtools.com/theedge

~Plus Jordan Husney on working with GE and running a 3D Hub~

If you owned a 3D printer back in 2013, you probably remember hearing about 3D Hubs for the first time. Desktop 3D printing was still in its early days, and a community of people were coming together on their site to share knowledge and experiences while building out a distributed manufacturing network. And, as we’ll hear in this episode, it worked. Fast forward to today, and 3D Hubs describes themselves as the “world’s largest manufacturing network.” Today they offer not just 3D printing services, but CNC and injection molding as well. We caught up with the Director of Supply Chain at 3D Hubs, Ben Redwood, to learn about some of the recent transitions the company has gone through and what it means to automate human interactions in manufacturing.

Links and show notes at bantamtools.com/theedge

~Plus Devin Cooper on making music with stepper motors~

In this episode, we speak with John Saunders about how he initially got into machining and what the current landscape looks like for educating the next generation. He’s the host of the popular CNC YouTube channel NYCCNC and owner and founder of Saunders Machine Works in Zanesville, Ohio, where he spoke with us this past November.

Links and show notes at bantamtools.com/theedge