About this course, what we’ll cover, how we’ll learn, and how it will be assessed.

Prep for this week

1. Prepare a presentation

To help us get to know one another, and to help me tailor content on the course to your interests, I would like each of you to prepare a short (2-3 minute) presentation about yourselves.

  • Tell us who you are, and what you’re interested in making (in this module or more broadly)
  • Bring something you’ve made (on your course, or not), and talk about how and why you made it
  • I’d like to know what you think you might be able to do with ‘digital fabrication’ if you have any ideas!

You don’t need to make slides or show anything on screen.

2. Find out something about digital fabrication or fab labs

This course will all make a lot more sense if you know something about fab labs. Start by watching this video: https://www.ted.com/talks/neil_gershenfeld_unleash_your_creativity_in_a_fab_lab

If the first bit is too bewildering, you could start at about 6 minutes in: https://www.ted.com/talks/neil_gershenfeld_unleash_your_creativity_in_a_fab_lab/transcript?language=en#t-351107 Don’t worry, we will not be “functionalizing nanoclusters”!

There are some more suggestions on reading/watching here: https://fablabbrighton.github.io/digital-fabrication-module/course-notes-lm225-2020/handbook#other-useful-resources

Setup

:speech_balloon: Register, name badges

Digital Fabrication

What is it?

  • Small batch production
  • Rapid prototyping
  • Customisation
  • Distributed manufacturing

Examples: https://fablabbrighton.github.io/digital-fabrication-module/course-notes-lm225-2020/examples

The lab

Tour!

  • Machines
  • Materials
  • What you can make
  • Safety

Introductions

Max 3 mins each.
:speech_balloon: Timer

  • Tell us who you are, and what you’re interested in making (in this module or more broadly)
  • Show something you’ve made (on your course, or not), and talk about how and why you made it

:speech_balloon: Including me!

The course

:speech_balloon: These docs and how to use them

Review the handbook: https://fablabbrighton.github.io/digital-fabrication-module/course-notes-lm225-2020/handbook

Notes:

  • Difficulty
  • Time/Project management
  • Assessment vs documentation (more later)
  • Machine time (slow, not magic)
  • Catch-up weeks
  • Your access - do you have computing labs at GP you can use?

Questions?

Content overview

See: https://fablabbrighton.github.io/digital-fabrication-module/course-notes-lm225-2020/handbook#overall-course-structure
And: https://fablabbrighton.github.io/digital-fabrication-module/course-notes-lm225-2020/readme

Skills baseline

Exercise: Place yourselves on a spectrum for all the core skills

(Never heard of it — Beginner — Some experience — Expert!)

  • Documentation – Project photography
  • Documentation – Blogs, CMSs (Wix, Wordpress)
  • 2D Fabrication – Laser cutter
  • 2D Design – Software (e.g. Illustrator)
  • 3D Fabrication – 3D Printer
  • 3D Design – Software (e.g. Sketchup, Fusion, Solidworks)
  • 3D Fabrication – Milling Machine
  • Interactivity/Programming – Microbit
  • Electronics design – e.g. Tinkercad or Eagle
  • Interactivity - Soldering and electronics
  • Interactivity/Programming – Arduino

This week: Documenting your work

An overview to documentation and websites, and where to find out more.

Why?

Craft is a science

  • Got to keep notes (when you do it, and when you come back to repeat it)
  • Offload your brain – you will forget

Helps you learn (Lifelong Kindergarten Creative Learning Spiral)

  • Shows how learners construct knowledge through making
  • Sharing is an important part of that spiral
    • forces you to look at it from another angle - someone else
    • verifies that you actually understand it and helps you identify the bits you don’t
    • Feynman: “If you can’t explain it simply…”

Get noticed (Laura Kampf)

  • Other people use your work, building on it
  • Projects with good documentation get take-up from others
  • Projects that invite people in help cultivate a community around your work
  • (And if you’re daunted by these successful people, look at their early work.)

How?

Good documentation

Examples:

Project documentation sites:

(We’ll review weekly)

Website architectures

Software

A/V media

  • Product photography
  • Compression / formats
  • Video / hosting

Find out more

Assignment

Build a website for the module using Edublogs or another platform of your choice

  • Make sure the name of the site and URL includes your name – so we know who’s site is who’s (e.g. don’t call it lm225!)
  • Include a page about yourself that covers the material of your presentation
  • Include a photo of yourself and the thing you’ve already made
  • Add a page for this week and cover what you’ve learned about publishing on the web: show what you did, what went wrong, and how you fixed it.

Submit the URL to Student Central through Turnitin.

What do I need to do to pass? (40%)

:speech_balloon: Explain these grade boundaries.

  • A working website with:
    • An ‘about’ page
    • A page for this week covering how you made your site, problems you encountered and how you overcame them

Extra credit (50-100%)

  • If you’re using Edublogs, customise the site design
  • Review and test alternative platforms/architectures: document how you choose a platform to use
  • Use an external hosting service that will serve you throughout your studies (and perhaps into professional life)
  • Register a domain and point it to your site

For next week

We’ll be using the laser cutter.

  • Read the course notes
  • Install and try out some 2D vector software (handbook)
  • Learn about vectors vs pixels and bezier curves (no links provided!)