Moble Maker/Tinkering Cart

Main cart components assembled.

A few years ago my dad (a retired toy designer) made this cart for my niece to sell cupcakes from. Because of permitting issues, she ended up not using it, but I recently saw parts of it in storage at my sister's garage.  This is the perfect solution for the Maker/Tinkering cart I have been envisioning creating.

I'm going to take around this mobile cart and invite kids to creatively tinker. We will stock it with muffin tins of simple making tools: cell batteries, led lights, paper circuity projects, conductive clay, brushbot parts, hacked solar lights (from garden stakes), electrical wire, switches, and hacked toy parts, etc. I have been stewing on creating a mobile cart to take around Japantown, Mayfair and Alum Rock for two years now. Recently I saw this blog posting about  a mobile 3D printer cart, so obviously others are thinking of going mobile with Maker tools as well. I hope to get my cart and supplies ready to take out on the streets of San Jose in the spring and summer. This cupcake cart would fit right in with the other carts roaming the neighborhoods selling paletas, chicharrones (fried pig skins) and Mexican candies.

Below are some photos of the set up. I need to get a new cart to fit into the assembly as the original one was hacked for another project at my sister's work. I'll post new photos once I get the assembly complete and ready to go again. I am dreaming of getting a 3D hobby printer for it, too! Dreaming big! All the supplies on the mobile cart will be used in our Maryfair Art & Design Thinking Summer Camp at the Mayfair Community Center and at the Joseph George Community Center Lab. I'm partnering with the Alum Rock Educational Foundation to expand the Art & Design Thinking camp.

All components and accessories: basic 3 parts, cup cake display carousel, cup cake storage/

transportation trays, screened bug deterrent display screen domes.

Three components before assembly:  Container Store folding shopping cart, pink umbrella 

with extended umbrella shaft and fabricated cup cake shell with prime/gloss white painted.

Progression of cup cake shell design progress/ top views

1. Left: sizing model with cardboard discs and wood separators

2. Middle: intermediate all-cardboard model with experimental fluting hot-melted in position

3. Right: finished model with 1/4" plywood discs screwed to 15 wood stake separators, with scored

plastic strips hot-melted to both top and bottom discs and wood stakes.

Note that squarish hole in bottom disc slips over shopping cart basket, while the slot in the upper

disc enables the shell to capture the handle. The upper disc rests on the top of the basket, and

the cupcake shell is sufficiently locked to the basket form.

Progression of cup cake shell designs/ bottom views

"bikes" by 3dom on Flickr (cc By-NC 2.00) Image of bikes in Laos.

Looking further down the line, it would be cool to put the set-up on a bike and also have a 3D printer on the Mobile Maker Cart.

Reflecting on Summer Camp

I have been thinking about how we will expand the Art and Design Thinking Camp this coming summer in the Mayfair area of San Jose. A few things that really worked well were:

•  the use of scale figures
• the hacked solar light stakes ( we used the mini solar panels, switches and lights for bench designs)
• guest speakers from creative engineering and design professions 
• peer project reviewers 
• parent and community showcase. 

I will improve upon the pinwheel/turbine project and will allot each workshop session more time.  I will add in MakeyMakey, toy hacking and Squishy Circuits into to the mix of things to explore. One thing I really want to do is add blocks of tinkering time at the end of the day so that campers and revisit an activity or tool and explore an idea in a open ended way. We want this camp to make engineering and science fun. I will be building up this website for this summer: Art & Design Thinking Camp 2014.

I would like to also have them video document more of their learning. Here are two camper made videos that made it into the Next Vista for learning library: how to make a brush bot and how to draw a dragon. In the camp this summer we will have 4-6 weeks of camp and each week of camp will have a different overall theme: http://www.alumrockef.org/arts

Also, as I attempt to expand our resources and reach in Alum Rock and Mayfair, we are partnering with the Science Lab in the community center at Joseph George Middle School run by Dr. George Castro. We will bring the tools and engineering/design explorations to their after school program. 

mini scale models to set up with photography of model designs.

Hacked solar light components from solar light stakes on clearance from Target.

Triggering the light sensor in their bench envrionment.

Finishing touches.

MakeyMakey. Musical fruit (orange and passionfruit).

some of the plastic watches we will be hacking in this 2014 summer camp at Mayfair.

Paper turbines.

Exploring the blended use of 3D rendering applications

I have begun to experiment with the free downloadable application Sculptris. Using this application in conjunction with Tinkercad is a great way to incorporate more organically shaped forms into one's designs. Sculptris does not export to the required .stl files for 3D printing, but if you import the Sculptris .obj file into Blender, you can export it to a .stl file. Then in Tinkercad you can import that converted .stl file into your workspace.

Below is an image of a wasp I design by creating the head and body in Sculptris. I wanted to explore creating a netsuke-like object. The wings, legs and honeycomb were created in Tinkercad. The "c" symbol on the back of the wasp and the patterns on the wings were created in Illustrator and saved as .svg files which I imported into Tinkercad.

You can see the form in Thingiverse:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:165645
or in Tinkercad: https://tinkercad.com/things/5ewqJ0I4k2h

 

Above: envisioning a sugar egg. Just an exploration in Tinkercad. I would love to learn how import  a .dwg file into a 3D rendering program where it can be curved and extruded from another surface.