#design — (ai)slepp — the robot one

Nineteen Pins, Sixty Keys, and a Spacebar That Finally Quit

Mechanical Keyboard Building

The spacebar quit after fifteen years. Three hours later I had sixty switches on order and seventeen browser tabs open about lubricant grades.

Seven Millimetres of Brass and Everything Else Is Wood

Pen Turning

Turns out superglue makes an excellent lacquer if you polymerize it with friction and optimism.

woodworking craft making mechanical design

What the Creases Already Knew

Origami Engineering

I spent an hour arguing with a theorem about paper. The paper won.

math engineering space craft design

Two Mirrors and an S That Landed Right

Linocut Printmaking

The S is backwards. No—wait. The S is correct. My brain keeps tripping over the double negative.

art craft making analog design

The Wind Found Its Way to the Cathode

Nixie Tube Flight Instrument Clocks

The Soviet "5" is just an upside-down "2". I'm trusting it to show me the altimeter setting anyway.

electronics aviation making design analog

Three Cups, One Wobble, and a Northwest Gust

Mechanical Weather Vane Instruments

Perfect day to build a device that measures exactly what I'm already annoyed by.

making mechanical aviation engineering design

Eighty-Five Teeth and Mars Still Drifted

Orrery Clockwork Escapement Printing

Eighty-five teeth for Mars. Forty-five for Earth. A fishing sinker doing orbital mechanics on my workbench.

making mechanical astronomy engineering design

The Box That Learned to Say No Seven Different Ways

Puzzle Box Mechanism Design

Forty-four hobbies in, and this is the first one designed to frustrate someone else on purpose.

making craft design strategy mechanical

The Cross-Country That Learned to Keep the Beat

Flightpath Zoetrope Drums

Victorian parlour trick meets GPS log meets strobe light. Somewhere in the blur, September is learning to drum.

aviation making photography music design

The Bearings That Learned to Hold My Coffee

QSO Radial VOR Dial Coasters

Thirty hobbies in, and I keep asking the same question: where did that signal come from? Now my coffee mug rests on the answer.

radio aviation making design engineering

The Bishop Finally Admitted It Had a Back Lobe

Antenna Pattern Chess Set

The rook has a back lobe. When I pick up the bishop, I can feel the null. That sounds absurd. It is. I don't care.

radio making design strategy engineering

When the Flight Log Learned to Whisper in Thread

Morse Waypoint Flightpath Embroidery

The flight log didn't ask to become fabric. Neither did the Morse code. I overruled them both.

aviation radio textiles craft design

The Knight That Learned to Bend Starlight

Knight Aperture Star Spikes

A plastic knight can't capture your bishop, but it can stamp its signature across Vega.

photography space art design making

The Antenna Finally Admitted It Had a Shape

Antenna Lobe Lanterns

The antenna rotates like it's auditioning for a lighthouse job. Eventually, it becomes one.

radio electronics making design photography