LASS PAGE

How To Make Almost Anything

Hi there. Welcome to my How-To-Make-Almost-Anything class webpage. I'm a former science documentary television producer, writer, director who decided she wanted to become a part of the story, rather than just telling other people's stories. To that end, I changed careers about 3 1/2 years ago (after 18 years in the TV biz) coming to MIT and working at the Media Lab with Prof. Gershenfeld. I was fortunate to see the personal fabrication movement in its nascent form, and watched it evolve over the years. Though hired as a manager, I followed personal fabrication from the Media Lab into the Fab Labs, finding that there was a secret tinkerer hidden in my psyche. Since that time I have become a passionate fab labber, believing in the idea and the zeitgeist. I spend a good part of my time now fabricating, spreading the fab gospel, and running the international fab lab network. I'm taking this course in order to hone more fab skills. With zero technical background, I have a lot to learn!

A younger Lass in production mode.


WEEK 1 Assignment: Final Project Description plus animation
9/26 laser, vinyl cutters

WEEK 2 Assignment: Make a Construction Kit
10/3waterjet, plasma, router, excimer machining

WEEK 3 Assignment: Make a press fit object using two tools and more than one material
10/10 no class: Columbus Day holiday 

WEEK 4 Assignment: Detailed Final Project description
10/17 PCB fab, board stuffing

WEEK 5 Assignment: Mill, stuff and program a "hello world" circuit board
10/24 sensors, instrumentation

WEEK 6 Assignment: Design, layout, mill, stuff
and program a new board based on hello world plus echo and blinking.
Make Programming cables.
10/31 3D scanning and printing WEEK 7 Assignment: Make a fab labbable part of test instrument
that will sense current and will "beep" when there is current present.
Modify hello5 plus speaker and change the wave pulse modulation.
11/7 actuation, displays WEEK 8 Assignment:Make a game that utilizes 1 or 2 of the
hello world boards, making some changes to those boards.
11/14 molding and forming WEEK 9 Assignment:Fabricate a mold for the injection moulding system, create an object from the mold. Also try vacuum wrapping an object. Layout your final project in detail. 11/21 networking and communications WEEK 10 Assignment: 11/28 materials and joining WEEK 11 Assignment: 12/5 project prep WEEK 12 Assignment: 12/12 project prep WEEK 13 Assignment: 12/19 projects Contact Info: Sherry Lassiter Program Manager Center for Bits and Atoms MIT Media Lab 20 Ames Street, E15-404 Cambridge, MA 02139 Tel.#617-253-4651 Fax#617-253-7035 lass@media.mit.edu http://cba.mit.edu http://fab.cba.mit.edu

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