Working with Chance - Shifted Perspective

After thinking about what we have been discussing indeterminacy and working in chance in my conceptual strategies class, I decided to apply it to my independent studies class as well.

In 3D printing, a lot of variables are left to chance. There is no guarantee that your print will be successful. If you print the same object 1,000 times, there are any number of things that will effect the outcome. Ambient temperature, material, hot end temperatures, computer issues, hardware issues, and more can change the outcome of your print.

Case in point:

This is an 18 gallon tote filled with failed prints (going back about a year - there are more that have been thrown away or are in other boxes as well). Some failed due to equipment failure. Some failed due to material failure. Some of them we have no clue as to why they failed. 

This box is intended to be run through a "filabot" style machine to reclaim the expended filament. Mind-2-Matter and LaserGnomes try to be as green as possible, so reclaiming spent filament is inline with our  business plans. I figured in the meantime, I could do a bit of reclamation myself. 

I spent some time digging through the box to create a sculpture from failed and discarded prints. Since we design and print a myriad of things from engineering parts to organic shapes, it was an interesting melange of components to choose from. 

We had a number of MegaFire and SlugFire shells that failed for various reasons or were made prior to additional revisions that lead to our finished retail ready products for NERF blasters.  We also had a number of failed flowers from another project that we undertook for Valentines Day. 

Obviously it's time to get a larger photo tent :)

Shifted Perspective

Shifted Perspective

Shifted Perspective

Everyone needs a day off.

I was all super ready to do a run down of Matter Control today. Well, life happens and it was a beautiful day at the beach with my family.

We go to Blind Beach as a family on Jan. 20th to remember my brother, Jesse, each year. It is a place filled with great family memories, I got married there and it's the beach from the end of the Goonies.

Does the arch look familiar?!

It definitely does NOT feel like January. In the least. It was like 70 degrees and sunny with barely a breeze. You can't even get that weather in July around here (we had overcast and cool weather for our June wedding).

I'll be home in the morning (it's about 12:30 a.m. and I'm at the Gnomery) so I will do the video walk through of MatterControl set up on Desky. I've got Screencast-O-Matic installed on Desky and makes recording video/audio a snap. It's also a bit better than just posting some pictures of screen shots.

I have to say that I've done the set up, played around with it and Matter Control should be a breeze for novices. Considering we have only had one printer at home (well, there was a bit of time we had 2 printers at home) and it was being used for making $$$$, I never really got a chance to play around with some of the other controller software out there. I can tell you from watching Justin spend countless hours figuring it all out, none of them are as straight forward as Matter Control.

Matter Control introduced me to the Airwolf line of printers. While we exclusively use Type A Machines Series 1 printers, I'm slightly obsessed with the Airwolf printer. Really only because it has such a badass name. I've had the Airwolf theme song stuck in my head since I saw the printer.

I can't attest to how Airwolf printers work (though if the makers want us to test head to head on a commercial level versus the Type A Machines, we'll gladly test it for you!), and I know they currently come with a much larger diameter hot end (.5 is their standard with a .35 hot end available sometime in the spring), so it's comparing apples to oranges.

So Many Ideas!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And a bit of time to do them.

I started working on my to do list for projects tonight when I got home. It's long. But I'm totally stoked.

I took a drive to the coast today while Justin was working. Pi and I drove through Sebastapol. I had hoped to get apples so I could test my pie crust as an apple pie. While they grow apples in Sebastapol, it's not quite Apple Hill. There aren't a ton of farm stands. There isn't a lot of variety. I stopped at one place and they only had one variety of apples. ONE!

We continued on and went to Duncan Mills to get coffee and over to Blind Beach. I was happy to see that the "pews" from our wedding were still sort of there!

The last row of our "pews" was still in place. One "pew" has been partially buried. 

I wasn't going to to today, but Justin really encouraged me to do it. And it was awesome. The weather was great. Pi and I walked on the beach and just sat for a while. It gave me some time to disconnect (no phones/internet/etc) out there and to actually talk with people as Pi played with their dogs.

I have a billiondy ideas going through my head right now and started a new to do list. (each component of my to do list has to do lists, but hey, I don't want to lose the good ideas!)

I'm pretty stoked about Thanksgiving. We're getting together with Justin's family the weekend before and my family on thanksgiving. I'm in charge of pie and biscuits. I'm making my super delicious pumpkin pie and sweet potato biscuits. It's kind of cool that my family is trying new things for Thanksgiving this year (it's a gluten free Thanksgiving for the most part). 

One thing I'm going to test this week for sure is trying a real food version of my mom's cranberry salad. The version we've been making forever uses Jell-O but in an attempt to ditch the artificial colors and flavors, I'm going to rework it with raspberry juice and gelatin. I'm really excited because it is one of the best parts of the holidays that we started making the year we had an "Amish" Thanksgiving with the Gauthier family when I was a kid. 

The Mini Figs Have Landed

I did not get around to making my videos this weekend illustrating the issues with M0rt1m3r.

I spent some time in my garden. I made real cupcakes for my husband. I made a spice cake for myself (with eggs and that was NOT the best idea).

I broke down and bought LED light bulbs for the kitchen ceiling fan (and of course, the hardware store had 2 standard and 2 candelabra bulbs on the same rack - Get home and only 2 will work for our fixture.   BLAH). I have to say even having just the 2 is great (though we have only had 1 of 4 bulbs working for lord knows how long).

Put up some shelves yesterday:

And organized our Lego Minifigs today:

I also organized the bookcase. We finally have books on most of our bookcase instead of stuffs. 

I totally had something I wanted to write about earlier but for the life of me can't remember what it was. 

For now, enjoy the assortment of mini figs. Items to note:Gnome, Spongebob (x2), Sandy Cheeks, The Flying Dutchman, some robots, skeletons, and a hippie. 

Golden........

I threw in some silver AND gold tonight.

I can't say I'm thrilled with the time change though. I don't like walking home in the dark. Or walking the dog in the dark when I get home. Point being, I like it when it's light out. The early darkness makes me feel like I should be in bed.

Made the awesome Puerto Rican Pulled Pork recipe that I found in a Costco Magazine of all places (I totally put it in my llama recipe journal). Speaking of Costco, I picked up meat there last week and have been good to go all week!  Yay me. I made a pork roast last Saturday and another today. Did some meals with ground beef (burgers and sauteed veggies with an avocado are my quick go to meal on school nights).

I accidentally over cooked my cauliflower yesterday (it was pretty brown, not quite blackened though) and it was delicious!

I'm settling into a better routine when it comes to cooking and working and making art. While I didn't keep doing a tangle EVERY day after the initial 36 days, I come home and work on SOMETHING just about every day. And I don't beat myself up if I want to go to bed early or read a book.

So I finally heard back from Craftwell yesterday and the conclusion they came up with is "you have your pressure settings too high" so it's your fault your paper is snagging. My pressure was set at 4. My paper was a very heavyweight card stock. I've tried going lower than 4 and it barely even presses in to the paper and does not cut. So it looks like I will be preparing more videos outlining the outcome of EVERY pressure setting, starting at 1.

It's pretty weak when a company makes excuses for their product. The eCraft should be able to cut 40 circles on a single page. It should also have some sort of speed control, be it on the machine itself or a speed control in the software. Everything shouldn't be blamed on the user. I have photos of paper snagging back when I first got it and it was doing it even when I was attempting to cut 5*7 rounded rectangles (I definitely would NOT call that a complex cut!).

Insert something witty here......

I decided to change things up a bit today and add some gold into the mix.

Had class tonight and missed out on company bowling night. Booo. And for what? So I could sit in a lecture about how to use the computer and do research at the library.

I guess sometimes I forget that people aren't necessarily willing to "figure it out" themselves (I forget this at work as well). Apparently curiosity is not natural and most people need step by step instruction for everything. Personally, I would rather just be let go with something and figure it out. The way someone tells me how to do something may not be the most efficient way.

I guess my desire to "figure it out" helps me in the workplace as well. I have to look at photos of products that I have never touched and answer some insane questions some of the time. I also have to figure out how to explain assembly instructions over the phone for products I've never seen. I'd like to think I'm pretty good at it.

I've got to provide MMR vaccination records to SFSU. Really?! I can only assume I had the MMR vaccination in Placerville somewhere, so I will have to ask my mom.

I'm working on some ideas and will have some cool projects coming up. I'll share them as I get them together.

Making things for fun..... and profit?

I'm continuing my Day of the Dead project. I have some great ideas and I am going to try a few new materials added into the mix.

One of which is wire. I'm using a Thing-a-Ma-JIG to do a bit of wire design. I really like the effect, but it is not going to work completely with the current layout (I only have copper wire on hand and it wasn't really creating enough contrast to be visible.

But it allowed me to see how it would work and inspired me to try something different.

Up next PLA. We'll see how that works out!

The paper stack I'm using for this project is ridiculously cute:

It's 70% post consumer recycled material (which we here at LaserGnomes love) and features some cute animals (I'm not one for some of the super cutesy or way girly stuff that a lot of scrapbookers are using but I love a cute owl, bear or skunk). 

I'm also using cardboard scrap that I have laying about for these projects as well. I'm sure I have some great found objects I could add to the mix. 

My problem is finding a good source for shadowbox frames at the moment. I found some amazingly cute paper at Oriental Trading Post's site, but no wholesale frames. The search continues. 

I still haven't received a response from Craftwell regarding M0rt's problems after sending video. I should run another test and use their preselected shapes from the SD card that came with it. I'll try that this week and see if I have the same results. They're always super responsive with canned answers but now that I challenged them with video, I haven't heard a peep. 

We had dinner with Justin's mom and Mark tonight at Lulu, which is fantastic. I think I really love the place because of their open flame rotisserie and pizza oven. It makes it so homey. And the food is delicious. Seriously. Had the prime rib and brussels sprouts. SO GOOD. 

My MIL gave me a book, I Just Like to Make Things by Lilla Rogers. 

It's got some good advice about making things and making a profit as well as some good ideas for stimulating creativity and setting goals. 

When it comes down to it, is there anyone that doesn't like to make things?  It doesn't matter if it's art, craft, food, etc., I think most people have the desire to "make" something, even if they don't act on it. 

Photo time!

I worked on a photo project today (I bought 2 photo collage frames on super discount at Blick for like $11 each. They were clearance and the cashier still applied a 40% off coupon). Scissors and the xacto knife are hell on my arm. I wasn't even using either for very long, but now I'm in pain. 

I was going through photos looking for stuff to print and place in the frames. Really though, I think I spent more time reading today. I went to the bookstore. God I miss bookstores. (and coffee houses. Not a flipping starbucks or peet's. Actual coffee houses.)

I also had a moment of thinking to myself that I hate music. I never thought those thoughts would enter my mind, but between all of the noise coming from all sides of me at all times, I think I hate bass. I almost think the relentless beat that sounds the same for hours on end is what has driven me to listen to short, fast and loud punk songs again. 3 minutes tops. on to the next. (oh and probably Jess's Joey Ramona Quimby costume on New Girl). When I listen to music while working it is largely bass free but then I'm faced with the constant ripping noise of packing tape. I've recorded audio because no one seems to realize how annoying that sound is. 

Here are some of the photos I'm going to use. (and a few that I'm not going to use - but I like them anyway. 

The very olden times. 2007