See and download the full gallery on posterous Hiking at Coyote Hills Regional Park in Fremont. This is what January should be like. Pittsburgh, are you listening?

This article is in line with my thesis work, and it seems fitting to share as people start in on their new year’s resolutions: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-tischler/forget-new-years-resoluti_b_798710.html The exercise described in the article prompts individuals to document their impression of the current state of their lives. Such reflection can lead to a redesign goal, such as, “My [...]

Waiting in the exam chair at the dentist’s office, I heard a gentle symphony of cascading water behind me, the kind of zen ambience produced by those tabletop fountains you find in Chinatown or novelty stores at the mall. What a clever way to soothe the anxiety of patients, I thought. What care and attention [...]

See and download the full gallery on posterous At the Newpark Mall

I spent the afternoon in the digital fabrication lab in Margaret Morrison and got to see models being created in 3D modeling software and carved by machine. So cool!

As a mini-project in the course Making Things Interactive, I created a prototype of a pop-up piano with six keys. When a key is pressed, the corresponding musical note plays through a speaker. A pull-tab can be also be pulled or pushed to dim or brighten an LED by means of a paper variable resistor. [...]

It’s mid-semester, and everyone at school seems a little worn down, myself included. Tonight I made ginger lemon tea for the first time as a gentle soother and enjoyed it so much that I’m posting about it here to inspire someone else to try it, too. Ingredients 4 cups water 2-inch piece of fresh ginger, [...]

Behold my latest masterpiece for Making Things Interactive, a dazzling demonstration of mechanical movements. circuit driving the DC motor 4-bar linkage pivot point made of pipe cleaner twisted and duct-taped to my rapid-prototyping rig (aka my desk) string harness holding wooden dowel Unrelated to the final device, this is an earlier attempt at creating a [...]

A table-mounted, latch-equipped winch that raises a wooden stuntman in a pipe cleaner cage! Yes, my class Making Things Interactive rocks.