Leo Salemanns's HCDE 598 Digital Fabrication Page!

Why do I want to learn about digital fabrication?

When I was in elementary school, I was kinda good at writing funny stories, but didn't like doing it because we had to write by hand and sometimes (ugh!) manually copy our draft to make a final version. Maybe if I had a word processor in those days I could have become an author. The difficulty of editing and tedium of making letters look good was a barrier to entry for me. I'm attracted to digital fabrication for the same reason -- a means of creating and changing things quickly in "virtual space", then automaticaly realizing them in "physical space."

What do I hope to learn in class?

Some basic know-how for a suite of digital fabrication tools such as 3d printers, CNC routers, laser cuters, etc. Also the human side of the maker movement - the social, cultural, economic factors that brought it on and kept it going.

What do I want to teach my peers?

Probably the best topic I can contribute is GitKraken - a graphical front-end for git.

Other potential topics include ...

• Trello for task-tracking.
• Virtual Machines for storing mulitple insane tool chains on your laptop at once.