Gordon Kirkwood selected as Artist in Residence at Autodesk’s Pier-9 Dream-lab.

November 29, 2014 Gordon

“Giddy” cannot begin to describe my feelings upon learning, on Thanksgiving, that I have been selected to be an Artist In Residence at Autodesk’s Pier-9 dream-lab in San-Francisco.

The concentration of brains, initiative, creativity, and capability in that space is stunning. In close approximation to Tony Stark’s workshop (from the movie Iron-Man) — a dream-shop with some of the most capable robotic fabrication equipment and tooling in existence including 3D printers, water-jets, lasers engravers powerful enough to work with metal, multi-axis milling machines, and more — it goes far beyond simple awesome tooling to be, from what I gather, a collegiate atmosphere where everyone is extraordinarily motivated to learn, make, and do things that push the limits of creativity, and in a context where the expected norm is to share and disseminate knowledge through the Instructables knowledge sharing website platform. Buzz Aldrin (Astronaut of Apollo XI moon-landing fame and the second person to walk on the moon after Neil Armstrong) was hanging out there testing a functioning magnetic repulsion hoverboard a few weeks ago, for instance. To be included in the cohort of selected artists for 2015 is a huge honor and inspires me to the grandest ambitions. Thank you, universe. Thank you, Noah. Thank you, Vanessa. Thank you, Mary. Thank you, Karen.

PIER 9 AiR PROGRAM from Pier 9 on Vimeo.

art, engineering

Computer Controlled Variable Aperture Soap Film Iris – First Bubbles!

November 24, 2014 Gordon Leave a comment

I’m fascinated with ephemeral phenomena, and the most recent manifestation of this has led me to invent some elaborate technical apparatus to make photographs of huge bubbles doing interesting things. Here are two videos of it working for the first time- the first with a series of close-up views of different components, the second as a wide-view of the whole system in operation.

Giant bubbles are uniquely able to engage and delight people of all types. Who can resist feeling wonder and awe at giant, floating, opalescent, undulating transparent orbs and the salience they give to normally invisible 3-dimensional flows? After my first experience blowing bubbles from a moving bicycle (the wind past the bicycle removes any requirement to blow or move the wand, you just adjust your speed to get the right wind), I was hooked.

I’ve organized a number of bubble blowing events, especially the “Bubbles on Bikes Jamboree Ride” for Bike Pittsburgh’s Bikefest and the first ever “Giant Bubbles Flash Mob”. For the latter, I manufactured 45 giant bubble wands, and about 25 gallons of giant bubble juice, and coordinated a synchronized release of ridiculously many insanely huge giant bubbles. Beyond the pre-arranged 45 bubble blowers, we had the fully invested attention and participation of somewhere between 300 and 500 people for several solid hours. All for about two days prep and maybe $200 in materials (including the pizza for the wand-making party). See the nicely polished video made by Ben Saks of Float Pictures here, or the great single-take cellphone video clip from Jason Kirin here.

For some things I’d like to do, I required a highly repeatable way of producing bubbles, and controlling aspects like timing and size and speed and direction. I also love a good engineering challenge, and so I invented a cable iris aperture mechanism and set out to use it to make a uniquely flexible and useful bubble machine. A CNC bubble machine.

There’s a few very sophisticated things I’d like to do with this which I’ll write about later, but for the first project I’m looking forward to making playful occupational portraits of some friends, mentors, and elders I feel lucky to know and learn from. I’m fortunate to have a few such in my life, in their sixties, seventies and eighties, and who in addition to great technical accomplishments, embody wonderful spirits of playfulness and creativity in their golden years that it’d be my pleasure to honor and record with such portraits.

Uncategorized

Computer Controlled Giant Bubble Blower Progress Update 11/14/04

November 15, 2014 Gordon Leave a comment

Today I got the cables laced with a new, more robust-seeming cable than the cotton yarn I’d been using. I also plumbed up the fluid delivery needle valve and solenoid, so it’s ready to go.

I let the system cycle open and closed a few thousand times while I worked, once every second or two.

A hiccup occurred when the stepper motor was accidentally overdriven due to a mis-setting of the “run current” on the Vexta stepper driver. This overheated the motor and caused a motor fault, most likely a shorted coil. Thankfully I’ve got a bin of stepper motors from various past projects and all that’s required to fix it is to 3D print a new adapter cog, which links the new motors 0.233″ diameter shaft, to the existing bicycle sprocket gear. The old adapter was a 0.25″ diameter shaft. Thankfully, modifying the CAD file, exporting a new STL model, and 3-D printing a new pulley adapter requires only about 15 minutes of my time (with the print then occurring in the background for maybe 30 minutes). Wiring in the new motor (identifying the color code of the stepper’s wires and soldering it to the cable connector) will take perhaps 45 minutes.

press, Uncategorized

“The Human Scale” to show at 3RFF, Panel Discussion to Follow with Notables of City Bike-Ped Initiatives

November 12, 2014 Gordon

The Human Scale is a gorgeous film about the ways in which the organization of our infrastructure shapes our lives. Much of the last 50 years has seen cities organized around cars, with tragic consequences for common spaces and face-to-face human interaction. The human scale documents some of the best efforts at bringing cities back to life as places for human, not automotive, interaction.

I am honored to get to introduce the film and, following the showing, moderate a panel discussion with notable figures from the mayor’s office of community development, the mayor’s office Bicycle/Pedestrian Coordinator, and Bike Pittsburgh.

The Human Scale shows at the Harris Theater downtown, 809 Liberty Avenue, on Thursday November 13th at 7:00 pm. Panel Discussion to follow. Tickets are $9, and can be bought online or in person.

engineering, press, Uncategorized

Where will you say you were when, at 10:40 EST, humanity first landed a probe gently onto the surface of a comet in deep space?

November 12, 2014 Gordon Leave a comment

Can you fathom what it must feel like to be one of the astronomers who, 45 years ago, discovered a comet, and is here today watching as we as a species are rendezvousing with that comet, gently landing a 200 pound Philae probe onto the surface, while we watch from the orbiting Rosetta spacecraft 19 miles above?

This is so humbling and inspiring to witness. Congratulations to everyone involved, especially the engineers which, by the various slingshot maneuvers, accelerated this spacecraft so deep into space on such a perfectly accurate trajectory to hit a bullseye hundreds of millions of miles away!!

Watch this amazing animation of the incredible 12 year long, half-a-billion-mile, bullseye we will see stick it’s landing here in less than one hour!!

engineering, fabrication

May your life be as smooth as Silicon-Bronze TIG brazing.

November 7, 2014 Gordon

A tale of how I learned to weld

welding meme — A succinct summary of how learning to weld affects your ability to think outside the box. Forgive the language please, it spices the point.

I frequently describe learning to weld as one of the most empowering breakthroughs in my growth as a designer. All new fabrication skills open new opportunities to dream a little (or a lot) bigger, and welding suddenly let me see much more of the sorts of things around me as achievable by my own hand.

In general, I like to work on a principle that if I can find a way to enjoy the practice, the result will be both better and more authentic. (This is key not only to welding, but any skill). So I set out to find fun little excercises to practice welding on.

One of these excercises was making rings from square and round tubing. If you have a saw that can cut accurate angles repeatably, it’s easy to turn out a set of parts that will fit into a nice ring, with lots of seams to practice welding together. Below are the first such rings I undertook, when practicing TIG-brazing mild steel rings with silicon bronze filler metal. Along the way, I realized with delight that here was a great excuse to destructively test something, too. Thus, the video at the bottom, which shows one frame per hydraulic-pump-stroke, as I crushed the first ring and observed its failure modes.