Video of Kohler Residency for the new Tendr Pods!

Kohler was wonderful! Thanks to the Kohler Art Center and the Arts and Industry Program for the opportunity to use their facilities for this project. I've learned so much from my time there. The video from Kohler about the project is part ad part documentation. Let me know what you think!

Something wonderful is at the Exploratorium through September 5th. StrandBeests: the Dream Machines of Theo Jansen are up and running for you to experience for the first time in North America. Jansen is a physicist-turned-artist who has been designing self-propelled machines since 1990. His lifelike complex contraptions, called beests, have evolved to survive harsh beach environments. Jansen's Strandbeests have inspired artists to create their own beest versions and the Exploratorium has invited these artists to share their works on Thursday July 7th from 6pm-10pm at the After Dark BYOBeest night. The TE+ND Rover will be there along with Corey McGuire's collaboration Automata Equis, Adam Savage's Pedal Powered Beest and Scott Parenteau's TinSpider. If you're in town I hope to see you there.

The Mark VI is up at the Portland Museum of Contemporary Craft until it closes in April. The museum is one of the oldest of its kind in the US and it's closing is a real blow to Portland and the craft community. I love this museum and am honored that my work will is showing there with the rest of the work created by craft artists at the CARPA, Joshua Tree residency. If you didn't have enough of a reason to visit, now you have a deadline.

Marnia Johnston giving a demo at CARPA, Joshua Tree 2013

• Dept. of Art and Art History Lecture at San Jose State

  I've been invited to give a lecture at San Jose State's Department of Art and Art History on Sept. 29th from 5-6pm. The lectures are usually held in Art #133. I'll be talking about the conceptual history of my current work and the processes used to create a ceramic robot. For more information about the lecture or San Jose State's lecture series check out their schedule. In case you couldn't tell, I'm excited about talking at my alma mater!

• AICAD2015 Symposium

  I've been selected to participate in the AICAD 2015 Symposium at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, Nov. 5-7th. I'll be giving a talk in association with theExploring Science in the Studio program on Friday November 6th. Looks like there will be an amazing lineup of artists and Natalie Jeremijenko is the keynote speaker. Donald Day, Nathan Lynch and Susan Anker will be there as well! I'm so honored to be invited to be a part of this. For other speakers, times and locations check our their website.

Where are the rovers now? Well, the ceramic version is currently at the Richmond Art Center for the California Now exhibition. It's a showcase of contemporary and innovative works in clay, glass and enamel created today in California. The jurors chose the works that they felt melded technical excellence and content and pushed the boundaries of their prospective craft. The reception is Saturday June 13th from 5 to 7pm and the show runs through August 23rd. Hope to see you there. 

Update: The ceramic rover one first place for clay in California Now!

New rover field test, this time with a new planted platform. This platform is all ceramic, some soil and all native plants. The test took place at Briones Park in the East Bay.  You can see the rover slowly making it over a hill. As I've discussed before, the rover moves slowly (because it only has to keep up with the sun) but it has a lot of torque. There is no sound as I am going to use it in a presentation at NCECA (The National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts) and didn't want to mute it or talk over it. Enjoy!

Here are photos of the ceramic version of the rover I was working on during my Anderson Ranch residency. Special thanks to Doug Casebeer for suggestions on how to formulate my slip to get the shrinkage I needed for the parts. The legs are all slip cast ceramic.

Corey took some video of the rover walking that looks at how the gears move. If' you're into gears, these videos are for you!

Changed out some gears, added larger motors with more torque and we have a beautifully walking rover. It's supposed to be slow but the rover in the video is at less than 50% power.

Took some time to decompress from Camp CARPA. Living in the desert with some amazing artists for a week was a little like visiting another planet. I'm posting a few photos of the event and some amazing animals we got to spend time with while doing the rover field test.

Photos in order: surveillance of the Afghan training village for the US military via Josh's telescope, photos of the village at night, breakfast at Camp CARPA (KChung radio is mostly in the photo along with Besty Greer), me giving a talk and demo of the rover in my TE+ND Rover uniform (thanks Stephanie Syjuco for the pix!), found a leopard gecko!, rover field test, female tarantula wasp resting, tarantula in the setting sun.

Corey and I have been keeping quiet about the latest rover deployment because CARPA requested it. Its kinda like DARPA but the 'c' stands for craft. Had a great time, met some amazing people and did some field research for the project. We collected local plants, insects and soil samples to learn about what to plant on the growing station. Thanks everyone for an amazing week in the desert, some amazing projects and great new friends!

Maddi just posted some awesome photos of the show at the MOP Gallery in Australia! Dr. Eben Kirksey harvested local flora and planted them in the growing platform for the install. Thanks again Maddi and every one for all o your hard work! For more images of the gallery check out Maddi's flicker page.

TE+ND @ MOP!

The rover made it safely to Australia! If you are in Sidney this week, please check out MOP Project Gallery for special gallery related events. There will be demonstrations, lectures and of course, a few parties! Special Thanks to Maddie for all of her hard work getting the rover to the show.

Pictured below is the latest model (named Creamsicle) before it headed down under.

Corey and I have been working on a new rover model. If you are going to this year's Maker Faire in  San Mateo, CA, check it out at the Type A Machines booth! Ask to take it for a spin! It will be fully drive-able with RC controls. 

The TE+ND working model is going to Australia! It will be shown at the MOP Projects Gallery in Sydney as part of the Intra-Action Exhibition presented as part of the Australian Animal Studies Group Conference at the University of Sydney, July 8-10, 2013. It will be shown along with works from Kathy High and Beatrice de Costa (among many others). Special thanks to the University of New South Wales, University of Sydney, and MOP for hosting. A very special thanks to Madeleine Boyd and Dr. Eben Kirksey for putting it all together. Check out the Intra-Action Exhibition website here.

7 Ladies of Maker Faire

My buddy Denise H. just texted me about the 7 Ladies of Maker Faire! Apparently I'm one of them.
Thanks Maker Faire!
http://blog.makezine.com/2013/03/26/chatting-with-7-ladies-of-maker-faire/

Gigantic gears!

Corey and I have been using the Tormach CNC mill at Techshop SF to mill out some very big gears. These gears take about eight hours to mill and we need at least four (but we're probably going to make six). We've taken lots of time in figuring out a better (and maybe a little faster) way to make them. Did I mention there're big?

The square blanks at the top of the last image are for some internal gears we are also going to mill.

Bones!

Bones! In Nov. and Dec. we milled out all of the bones (linkages) we need using the Tormach CNC mill at Techshop SF. What a fabulous tool!

Water jet cutting rover parts! Thanks TechShop SF!

Thanks to the TechShop in San Francisco, Corey and I have been cutting out parts for the TE+ND rover. I've taken some video of how the water jet cuts out our aluminum feet and hips. Thanks TechShop for donating three months of membership!

Corey and I have teamed up with Jenn (an ME) and Ray (a structural engineer) to double check the awesomeness of the Rover! Snapshot of the team meeting below (provided by Josh Stanley).