Immaterials: the ghost in the field from Timo on Vimeo.

This video is about exploring the spatial qualities of RFID, visualised through an RFID probe, long exposure photography and animation. It features Timo Arnall of the Touch project and Jack Schulze of BERG.

I know this video is from 2009, but this is the same project that did the WiFi Light Painting. I use Proximity Readers everyday and it’s always fascinating to see the unseen.

I recently stumbled on the Elctrofoxy blog and this great resource list of wearable technology…

Digital media designer-artist, theorist and curator Valérie Lamontagne has an incredible wearable technology resources page that lists the who’s who and who’s upcoming in the wearable technology and eTextile field. She has even grouped designers and organizations into very interesting categories such as “Context as Prerequisite”, “The Garment as Amplifier of Fantasy”, and “Material Witness”.

I have personally reached out to some of the manufactures and found them to be very helpful.

As I’ve gotten more and more into machining, I’ve found that I often require information about metals and alloys. I’ve collected a few resources which I’ve found helpful, and which I’d like to share with you.

There are several places where you can find decent metal information — by “information”, I don’t just mean density or history of human use — I’m referring to information about working with a metal, such as machinability, weldability, heat treatment, and so forth.

The standard reference for most alloys used in manufacturing is the Metals Handbook, published by ASM International (formerly the American Society for Metals). This is the Unabridged OED of metal info. The upside is that it contains pretty much all the extant information about metals and alloys, the downside is that it spans over a dozen volumes and costs $$. If you have access to these books at school or at work, you should definitely take a look at them. Sometimes you can find older editions on auction sites or powells, too.

ASM also offers subject guides on their website, which are free. These guides cover various types of metals, as well as processes and other info, and they are written in non-expert language which makes them good for folks who don’t have a PhD in metallurgy. Though they don’t really cover much about working or machining, they still make for interesting reads and provide valuable background from an authoritative source.

The second resource I’d recommend is Machinery’s Handbook. Often referred to as “The Handbook”, it’s actually kind of disgusting just how much information is packed into this book. If you can afford it, skip the “Toolbox Edition” and get the regular version. It has some great stuff in it about metalworking (20 pages just about lathe tool bit geometry, for example), and a fair amount of metal+alloy information.

The third (and most obvious) resource is A Personal Appeal from Jimmy Wales Wikipedia. I’m not even going to link to it, because I already know it’s in your bookmarks toolbar (just kidding, here’s a link). Wikipedia has all sorts of general info about metals but, like the ASM subject guides, doesn’t really go into data specifics.

Metal suppliers can be a good resource as well. They will provide alloy data sheets if you request them. Online Metals provides different “guides” for alloys that they sell, though these are brief and I’ve often found that they are lacking information I need when deciding what to buy.

A final resource, and one which I’ve found myself using with increasing frequency, is suppliersonline.com. They have a great research section which provides a lot of info about different types of metals and alloys, including heat treatment, weldability, workability, etc. They are in the business of connecting suppliers with customers, so bear this in mind. However, their material data properties search can yield some great data about a wide variety of metals. Something to keep in mind when searching is that querying for specific tempers won’t yield much information, whereas if you choose the alloy only (Al 6061, for example, as opposed to 6061-T6511) you’ll get a lot more to work with.

Hopefully you’ll find these resources helpful in your quest for metal data. If you feel I’ve left something out, or you’ve got something you’d like to add, feel free to post it up in the comments.

Now, get your opposable-thumb on, and go cut some metal!

UPDATE: A number of readers have suggested matweb.com as a good resource. I will admit that it does contain a LOT of raw data about metals (and plastics, ceramics, etc.) That said, I think it’s of limited practical use to a hobby machinist or toolmaker, who needs to know SFM for an HSS cutter, or how long and how hot to cook aluminum to take it from a T6 temper to fully annealed. I also find it difficult to navigate, though I guess that’s really my own personal hangup.

John Baichtal has done a terrific interview with our friend Akiba (freaklabs) over on the MAKE blog. Among the topics discussed were the Earthquake and Tsunami and their aftermath, and how the Tokyo Hackerspace began to mobilize in order to help:

JB: How did you get other hackerspace members involved?

A: At the Tuesday hackerspace meeting after the earthquake, things were very tense. We had to figure out what needed to be done and we just put together a list. After that, we jumped on whichever project we thought we could be most effective in. Once we had the list going, we got to work on it and afterwards figured out what the priorities were. But the important thing was that we had to take some kind of action. Sitting around was the worst thing we could do because then you just get stuck in all the armageddon news that was being floated around.

…

Once we got the projects going, people would spontaneously jump on them. For the geiger project, we had multiple volunteers saying they’d donate time on the software side. A few days later, SEEED studio let us know there was a collaborative project for OSHW geiger counters. After that, Pachube informed us that they were upgrading the accounts of people making radiation-related feeds in Japan, allowing us to have a large amount of feeds and unlimited history. Things just started working out and evolved with the situation.

The long range WiFi project also had multiple volunteering time and effort. We had a workday and we configured routers in repeater mode and tested out high gain directional antennas. One of the members set up an Asterisk server so we could test out VoIP data. We had a conference call with one of the member’s wife who was a survivor of the Kobe earthquake. She said that it was a great effort but when she was in that situation, what mattered were immediate needs. Based on her feedback, we decided to postpone the long range WiFi project for the time being to focus on whatever we could get out immediately.

Lauren started the Tohoku Smiles project with the art supplies for kids. She’s heavily involved with the Democrats Abroad community in Asia and solicited a lot of donations from them for the supplies. This project is also on hold temporarily though to focus on immediate needs.

Chris Harrington started up a shelter in Kamogawa. He was part of our rice farm sensor network project and also started a farm out there. He’s an active member of the local community and they’ve been trying to decide what to do with an abandoned public school.

…

The lantern project took on a life of its own. We had lots of hackerspaces offering help to assemble them, sending us parts, and also sending us donations for it. We also have lots of volunteers in Tokyo to help us with the assembly.

So as you can see, all of the projects were independently started and basically originated spontaneously. They’re also evolving spontaneously. Eventually, more organization will be built in, but its beautiful to see something like this.

It’s really neat to see how the hackerspace model responds in a situation like this. I think the hackerspace idea — independent, creative individuals working on their own but within common organization and sharing resources — really works well in such endeavors. Being smaller, such a group can respond more quickly and adapt better to what is going on, without losing cohesion.

It’s great to see all the amazing work Akiba and the Tokyo Hackerspace has done — here’s wishing them best of luck in the future as well!

Whoa! NASA has released the first image of Mercury taken by the Messenger probe in orbit, and will be releasing more in the near future. You can keep up with the new data at the Messenger page, or follow it on twitter (@messenger2011). In case you’re wondering, the large crater in the image above is called Debussy. More from the NYT:

On Tuesday morning, NASA’s Mercury Messenger took this photograph of the surface of Mercury. The bright pockmark in the upper half of the image is a 50-mile-wide crater called Debussy. (Craters on Mercury are named after artists, musicians and writers.)

The spacecraft then took 363 more photographs before sending the images to Earth; more will be released to the public on Wednesday, when NASA will hold a news conference about what it sees on Mercury.

The Messenger began its trip through the inner solar system six and a half years ago, and it entered orbit around Mercury on March 18. Since then, engineers have been checking out the spacecraft before turning on the instruments, including the camera. During the mission, expected to last at least a year, the Messenger is to take 75,000 more photographs, allowing scientists to map out the planet’s entire surface and study its geology and atmosphere in detail.

You can check out streaming audio from the press conference today at 2pm. I’m kinda disappointed it’s only audio, though — maybe we need to send Mosfet down there to help them set up a webcasting suite.