Nadya Peek

This webpage is an overview of the projects done in Neil Gershenfeld's class How to make almost anything at MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms in 2008.

Nadya Peek is a first year grad student in the Computing Culture group at the Media Lab.

How never to forget anything

First week: model a final project.

What if your clothes knew what you were carrying with you, and could tell you if you were forgetting something?

Press-fit Geodesic Dome

Second week: make a press-fit kit with the laser cutter

A cardboard geodesic dome

PCB Fabrication and board stuffing

Third week: make a simple PCB and stuff it.

This is a circuit of flexible copper traces cut on the sign cutting machine. It is stuck to a heat-enduring sticker, which I can put anywhere! Including my fridge.

Other methods for PCB fabrication are milling and sewing.

Microcontroller programming

Fourth and fifth week: microcontroller programming.

We programmed Atmel's tiny 44 and tiny 45 this week.

PCB Design

Sixth week: Design a PCB and fab it

I designed a breakout board for the Telit GE-863, which is basically a phone without a screen or keyboard. This is a vinyl cut version, but after several different attempts, I've settled on the Modela for this board.

3D scanning and printing

Seventh week: 3d scan an object and 3d print it.

I decided to scan a Dorrance hook, which is a very simple hand prosthesis. The scan was not super successful, this week the documentation is mostly about software and techniques I tried that did not work.

Input devices

Eighth week: play with input devices.

I built the boards for 5 of the input devices and played with the data they gave. I modified Neil's microphone visualization to count the number of times you scream at the device.

Make something big

Ninth week: make something really big.

I decided to try to build a small rowboat with the shopbot and half inch plywood. Designing a boat proved to be pretty time consuming though, and although this week was about making something really big, I mostly learned more about designing really big things.

Output devices

Tenth week: map an input device to an output device.

I connected a button to a linear actuator, powered by 9v batteries.

Molding and casting

Eleventh week: mold and cast a part.

This week I cast a new gasket for my cafetiere, using the cad.py to design the part and the modela to mill out the cast from wax.

Network devices

Twelfth week: build something that talks to something else.

This week I built two hello radio boards which can talk to each other. They use the IA4421 radio chip, and to fab them I used the laser cutter, the modela AND the vinyl cutter.

Final Project Planning

Final project planning for the last week.

For my final project I will try to integrate custom LC resonators into everyday objects to be able to do short-range recognition.