Paper cutting artwork I made from a dear friend. Other examples and process.

Building a laser! Started with a k40 base unit and added temperature-controlled cooling, roof-top ventilation, compressed air and a height-adjustable honey-comb bed.

Prototype 2 of the solar battery charger bag had a wireless coil so I could drop my phone in to let it charge.

I yanked out 3D models from Tomb Raider by using Ninja Ripper to pull them from the DirectX cache while the game was running. Had to sort them out in 3DS Max but got some pretty awesome ruins models from the process!

My partner used to complain that whenever I'd bump into her classes they'd need calibration again. So 3D printed a pair that could withstand bumps, drops and whatever else.

Over the years this sweater billowed out and didn't fit my body anymore so I tightened it up by adding a seam along the back.

University of Illinois runs on a proprietary certificate system for their wireless. While it's powerful and secure this causes problems in three ways (1) non-students who visit places like the Fab Lab can't connect to the wireless, (2) IoT devices and systems like Linux may not be able to use the right certificates and connect to the wireless for prototyping and (3) this system is isolated from our file-sharing server, making it hard for classes to work on network drives and retrieve files from any station. I decided to hack on to it. We got the lab the same class of Aruba routers (but for $50 each instead of $800), wired them into the same domain controller and tested coverage so we could make sure 40+ laptops could be online at the same time during classes and camps. Solved all of the other problems too! Just don't tell Technology Services, they don't like problems being solved like this :o

Turned a recipe box into a spell card treasure chest!

Some hack projects fail. Click to see what happened.

An early prototype of a DIY slider-cart for dolly-movement timelapse photography.

The conductivity on these wore off so I stitched some silver-lined thread into them. Worked again but my stitching was pretty terrible and the looked pretty ugly afterwards :o

Prototype 1 of the solar panel battery charger laptop bag. I tied in a bank of 18650 cells I harvested from recycled laptop batteries.

A vent to go under the fume tent for our large TAZ 3D printer allowing it to vent toxics out easily.

3D printing with wood fiber filament at small scale (under 2")

Simulate the weight of a device, how far your thumbs can reach for buttons and how it will look or work differently with aspect ratios or accelerometer input with these simple acrylic paper prototype frames.

Replacing a laptop processor back in 2012

Early external GPU testing on a laptop, you can buy enclosures for these now.

Replacing batteries to save iPads on their way to the recycler