the courage to screw up

this morning i found a great article on the huffington post by Mark Frauenfelder the editor-in-chief at make magazine. he was making the case for diy and listing the benefits of having the courage to screw up. i thought he made a great argument for diy, and certainly more eloquent than my list. here's his:

1. A deeper connection to the things that keep us alive and well. The human-made world is mostly beyond our comprehension. Our daily survival depends on seemingly magical gizmos that provide our food, water, clothing, comfort, transportation, education, well-being, and amusement. But you can make your world a little less confounding by sewing your own clothes, raising chickens, growing vegetables, teaching your children, and doing other activities that put you in touch with the processes of life. In addition, the things you make reflect your personality and have a special meaning. You share a connection with them every time you use them, and you appreciate them in a different way than you do store-bought things. This is why gifts of hand-made preserves, blankets, and furniture are so cherished. You are sharing a part of yourself with the recipient of your gift; they will value the time and effort you put into making something for them with your own hands far more than what it would have took to pick up a gift card at the mall.

2. An appreciation for the things you have and the systems that make it possible.The flip side to enjoying the things you make yourself is discovering how challenging and time-consuming it can be to make them. It takes me hours to whittle one cooking spoon, and while it's enjoyable, I can't imagine making all of our family's cooking implements this way. Now, I pay more attention to the things I buy, and I appreciate them more than before. Because I've become an active participant in the human-made world, I'm more observant of it. I care more about how things are made, paying close attention to each object for lessons in craftsmanship I can apply to my own projects.

3. An opportunity to use your hands and your brain. Human beings evolved opposable thumbs for a reason. The sense of reward you get from making something with your hands can't be earned any other way. It's obvious that people learn faster from "hands-on" experience than they do watching someone else do something. (No wonder kids ask, "Can I try?" when they see their parents using a tool or appliance.) And when people engage in DIY activities like knitting, their heart rate and blood pressure go down. We are tool-using animals and our bodies feel better when we've got tools in our hands.

4. A connection to other people. When I started making cigar box guitars, I stumbled onto a group of DIYers at a website called Cigar Box Nation. These amateur luthiers log in from around the world to share plans, photos, and videos of their home-made stringed instruments. They are happy to share ideas and advice about building guitars, banjoes, and ukuleles with newcomers. I've found this same spirit of generosity at other online hangouts devoted to building electric vehicles, autonomous aerial vehicles, and raising chickens. Even though time is our most precious resource, I've discovered that DIYers are happy to give their own time to people who seek their knowledge. (At Make, we are exploring this admirable quality of DIYers as a way to rethink traditional educational systems.)

5. A path to freedom. A number of DIYers I've met have succeeded in turning their passion for making things from a hobby into a business. In this era of economic uncertainty, DIYers have learned not to rely as much on governments and corporations to take care of them. They seek a more direct way to support themselves by becoming producers of high-quality, short-run products. For instance, Limor Fried transformed her passion for electronics into a full-time business called Ada Fruit that sells mail-order kits to hobbyists. Mitch Altman made a little remote control that could turn off any TV set, and it was so popular he started a company that sells electronic gadgets. Sites like Etsy.com and the Makers Market give DIYers a place to sell their handmade creations, ranging from hollow "spy coins" to silkscreened posters to revolving bookcases to chaotic pendulums. Even if you have no desire to become a full-time maker, DIY can provide a certain degree of freedom from depending on others for everything you need.

he also has a new book that i'm excited to check out.

in other news, i was bummed when my ipod touch screen cracked a few weeks ago. the good news is that it still works despite looking like hell. i was resigned to having an ugly ipod until my friend cameron sent me this link. apparently this can be fixed without paying apple $200. i've ordered some supplies and i'll let you know how it turns out. in the meantime, i'm trying to keep my moped from burning through brake lights every 10 minutes. my shunt resistor isn't working.

road trips and mix tapes

so, i'm living in a friends basement and traveling a lot, which is not conducive to making and doing. someone seriously needs to start a diy workshop that i can go to... seriously. well, until i get around to opening a workshop i've been busy with other passions (the aforementioned traveling, public transit, and coffee shops). i just got back from a road trip from colorado to toronto, ottawa, and montreal. there is already a plan in the works for a trip to california at the end of june and perhaps another journey to the northwest in july. how am i paying for all this? well, i've been doing some freelance design work, which has actually been really enjoyable and lets me travel or sit in a coffee shop all day. i eventually need to get around to actually finding more work, but for now i'm happy to make some money and work on something that i like. by the way, there are some super secret screen printing projects in the works, but i am keeping a lid on it for now. in the meantime, check out some of these records, these are my favourite albums of 2010 so far:

1. Broken Bells - Broken Bells
2. Surfer Blood - Astro Coast
3. Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record
4. The Tallest Man on Earth - The Wild Hunt
5. The New Pornographers - Together
6. Portugal. The Man - American Ghetto
7. The Apples In Stereo - Travelers in Space and Time
8. Basia Bulat - Heart of My Own
9. Four Tet - There is Love in You
10. Shearwater - The Golden Archipelago

making spotlight: nathalie in freiburg

my friend nathalie has been busy making stuff between university classes in freiburg, germany. the little guy was a birthday gift for her boyfriend and presumably the magnets were for a refrigerator somewhere. i'm always happy to see my amazing friends being creative.







i was going to link back to a post with nathalie the day we made bowls and stuff out of vinyl records, but apparently i never made a post. anyway, here are some pics from last year when nathalie and i melted some old records and bent/cut them into different stuff. this was followed by her famous crepes.

moped shop update

well the garage (aka "the shop") is now 5 mopeds deep. anthony and i have been busy scrounging up junky mopeds from all around boulder/denver. in order to reduce confusion we've named the bikes (as opposed to saying "the red ciao" or "the blue ciao" all the time). naturally they are getting female names that are native to the country of manufacture. here are our current projects:

"elise"
1979 puch magnum (made in austria)
about: this is the only bike we bought in running condition. the engine was in great shape, but the bike had been wrecked a couple of times, so there was a bit of body damage. there was also a fair amount of cosmetic rust. so, we took everything off the frame, scrubbed off the light rust with scotch-brite, attacked the worst of the rust with naval jelly, and degreased the engine. we cleaned the carb, but the float valve was damaged, so we found a 14mm bing carburetor at a motorcycle junk yard in longmont. because this a bigger than the 12mm stock carb i had to order some larger jets because the engine was running a little on the lean side. i'm hoping this will increase the low-end power as she's a bit slow off the line. the good news is she tops off at around 35mph on level terrain, which is great for a stock ped with only a single gear. basically she just needs a little detailing and tuning and she'll be ready to sell, which is going to be a sad day as top tank mopeds are few and far between.





"annika"
1974 batavus va (made in the netherlands)
about: we bought annika off a nice guy in south denver. he said he had it running the summer before, but it hadn't run since and he hadn't figured out why. batavus are a bit maligned in the moped world, but she is a beautiful bike. i have never seen one that old with mint paint and chrome. anyway, i hate electical problems and annika drove me nuts for a few days. the plug was sparking, but i later found out that it wasn't firing consistently. because the condenser and the ignition coil are attached to the stator plate, they are tricky to test with a multimeter as they are hiding behind the flywheel. eventually i decided to bypass the ignition coil and i strapped ingornada's (see below) ignition coil to the outside of the engine. despite the frankenstein nest of wires and components, she kicked over on the first try. it is such a good feeling to get an engine running again. anyway, i threw on the exhaust and back wheel and took her around the neighborhood. now i just have to put it all back together. my only big decision is whether or not to buy a new internal ignition coil or find a clever place to mount the external one i stole off ingornada.


"ingornada"
1981 vespa piaggio ciao (made in italy)
about: ingornada is in rough shape and we got her for real cheap. she is basically a parts bike as we have another ciao (giada) and a vespa piaggio grande (francesca). maybe she'll run someday.

"giada"
1977 vespa piaggio ciao
about: giada has been anthony's pet project. they are a bit annoying as the engines are not easy to access, so you have to take them off the bike to do much with them. we believe giada has compression issues, which may mean swapping out the engine (or at least the cylinder) from ingornada. unlike annika and elise, the vespa piaggios will need to be painted in order to make them presentable. this will be a giant pain, but a good learning experience.


"francesca"
1979 vespa piaggio grande deluxe
about: francesca is in pretty good mechanical shape, but when we bought her the front variator assembly was missing (fyi: a "variator" is a type of transmission where the diameter of the drive pulley and driven pulley change based on the speed of the bike. this gives it a smooth transition from low to high gear. see explanation). so, there is a new variator on the way. once the drive train is hooked up i can start dealing with the engine.

what i've been up to...

lately all my making and doing energy has gone into mopeds... in fact, nearly all of my energy has gone into mopeds.

so, i'm currently transition between being an engineer and not being an engineer. thus far i've been working on the transition for about 8 months. first step: quit job... check. next step: do something else. well, i'm thinking about applying for industrial design programs, as ID was the only part of my last job that i actually liked. plus this helps me move towards the eventual make stuff/do stuff community workshop i want to start (opening date: TBD). so, that brings us to the meantime. i thought about/tried to get an engineering job, but that wasn't what i wanted, plus the economy sucks. then my buddy anthony came back from india and this was the conversation we had:

anthony: dude (he probably didn't say "dude), we should start a company where we buy up old shitty mopeds, fix them up, and sell them.
geoff: *thinks for a bit* dude (i very likely said "dude"), that is a terrible idea. we'll never make money.
geoff and anthony: *debate followed by some napkin calculations to figure out theoretical business model*
geoff: i still don't think this is a good idea.
anthony: look, the worst thing that can happen is we buy a couple of mopeds, fix them up, and we can't sell them for a profit. then we'll have a couple of sweet mopeds.
geoff: i'm in.

and so that is how yet-to-be-named motorwerks was formed. so far we have 4 mopeds and are checking out another one tomorrow. currently we have two vespa piaggio ciaos, one vespa piaggio grande deluxe, and the crown jewel, a puch magnum xk. i've spent the last week tearing apart the grande deluxe. there has been a lot of good progress and board meetings over coffee. i'll keep everyone updated with the progress. in the meantime here are reasons, other than mopeds are awesome, that we're starting this business:

- we want to build a local community of people driving high mileage personal vehicles
- we want to teach people how to fix and maintain their bikes with periodical workshops (maintain the d.i.y. ethos). this has the potential to morph/expand into the d.i.y. workshop.
- we are both entrepreneurially minded and any business experience is good experience
- we can also sell parts from cannibalized mopeds for additional cash. actually this is the smart business, but defeats the purpose of some of the above reasons, so we'll only do this when we have to.
- we can justify road trips to buy/sell bikes and then write them off as company expenses.
- this is way more fun than an office job... although i think i'm going to start looking for barista jobs this week.

look for a spinoff blog associated with this venture soon

update

i am alive, although there isn't much making and doing going on as i'm currently a nomad. stay tuned for upcoming make/do projects.

my favorite albums of 2009

1. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart - The Pains of Being Pure At Heart
2. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
3. Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career
4. Blind Pilot - 3 Rounds and a Sound
5. The Veils - Sun Gangs
6. The xx - xx
7. The Avett Brothers - I And Love And You
8. Japandroids - Post-Nothing
9. Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band - Outer South
10. Jonathan Johansson - En Hand i Himlen