Liverpool Art & Design Academy (ADA)

Archive for the ‘made’ Category

The Art and Design Pod and Carole Potter from Graphic Arts have just finished a 2 day workshop a group of teenagers working with The Aim Higher programme. The organisation aims to

make more people aware of what higher education is all about by providing workshops that schoolchildren can access, making them aware of career pathways they might never have known existed.

The ADA held two different  workshops for aspiring participants over the two days, giving them the chance to have a taste of techniques they would not usually use. Graphic Arts lecturer Carole Potter and a team of students and graduates led an animation session, while the POD led a practical session that aimed to show the benefits of laser cutting and branding.to sample a

The animation group had the chance to sample a whole array of different stop motion techniques,  developing their own ideas with the help of Graphic Arts graduates.

The second group had the task of creating their own model airplane which would be fabricated using the ADA’s laser cutting facilities. Each team were asked to brand their plane in the style of a famous celebrity The choices ranged from a  Mr.T branded plane for terrorists to a ‘plane of rock’ branded using the figurehead of comedian Jack Black.

Great fun was had by both groups, who came together to show their work on the final day. We hope to work with Aim Higher again during the coming year on a variety of projects.

Open to all creatives in the area. Meetings occur every second Wednesday 7pm-9pm. Just turn up.

AutoDesk has extended its free educational licencing agreements for students and faculty staff. There is now over 30 AutoDesk software packages available to download and use, 35 to be exact.

Software from Alias to 3ds Max, Inventor, Revit and Sketchbook are all available for download including a version of Autodesk for Mac

Details can be found at the Autodesk Student Center

Something that struck me as truly inspirational is the pioneering work of Jon Hiller and Hod Lipson of Cornell University who are researching new ways of manufacturing.

The concept of making 3D object using Voxels, the building blocks for making things. A rapid assembler will select and organize these Voxels and build them layer by layer into an object. Because you can select different Voxels you can give your object lots of different material properties, even properties that have been impossible. Voxels will then be true digital materials.

It’s not the final frontier of digital manufacturing but it is the next one…

The age old quandary; Just how to make a tropical bird from laser cut ply? Fret no more; ‘Instructables’ have published a handy guide for you to populate your home with as many ply parakeets as you wish!

Great fun was had at last nights Maker Night in the ADA. This months pitches included an ambitious journey into space, an inflatable blimp and using DIY electronics kit Arduino for anything and everything. This month we had some visitors from FACT, who were working on some personal projects, using a traditional telephone to record peoples thoughts and memories for an upcoming exhibition as well as Martin from Uniform who came to do some mingling. Maker Night pioneer, Adrian, who had just returned from Maker Faire, was on hand for any new attendees, showing them the wonders of Arduino creations.

The Cupcake Makerbot made some great advances, with hopes to get this guerrilla 3D printer up and running before too long! We had our first visitor from Cambridge; software whizz, Alistair who helped assemble the Makerbot and offered some advice on creating a laser cutting file screening software for the ADA.

We are keen to attract more designers and artists to the event, so spread the word!

Next Maker night will be in April. Watch this space!

Christine Toh graduated  from the School of Art and Design (ADA)  with a BA (Hons. 1st Class) in Fashion and Textile Design in 2008. She grew up in the north of France and moved to England in 1992, where she discovered her love of printmaking. She works with a mix of medium and techniques; paper, textile, photography, printing, painting, drawing, stitching and cutting to create collages, wearable pieces as well as her own photography.

Christine has recently taken a space at Liverpool’s Bluecoat gallery, where she is working on an exquisite range of jewellery fashioned from leather and screenprinted with metallic inks. Her work takes its inspiration from nature, landscapes, the urban environment and its ideas from the concept of memory. She is particularly fascinated by the disintegration by the elements surrounding us as our memory is fading slowly as we are moving on through our life.

Christine is hoping to collaborate with the ADA to use some of our laser cutting facililities in creating her new range of jewellery. We look forward to seeing what she comes up with!

The second Maker night was held in the ADA on the 16th January. The group is growing rapidly, with the latest event attracting over 40 visitors! The group aims to create a platform for anyone to network, share ideas and collaborate on projects using digital fabrication. Some of the attendees were familiar faces from the latest Fab Camp events and some are entirely new to the night.
The group discussed potential projects, including one from FACT.

This month saw the arrival of the ADA Maker Bot, a small 3D printer that can create 3D dimensional objects from virtual files. Over the next few weeks, we will be taking the group through the process of building the machine and then using it to create some files!

Highly successful contemporary design retailer, Utility currently have great opportunity for ADA students.

The group, who run three Liverpool based stores and a highly successful online store would like to expand their Liverpool product range to include a product that encapsulates the spirit of the Liverpool. The product, or series of products could be a witty observation, a practical toolkit or a beautiful and stylish representation of the city that appeals to their market.

The final three designs will be featured on the Utility website to allow their public to choose their favourite and may feature in a window display in one of their outlets. For a full copy of the brief. please contact Elaine McNeill or Caroline White for further details.

Last weekend saw the ADA host Fab Camp Liverpool – a weekend of digital fabrication talks and activities for local industry and creatives.

Around 50 delegates attended the two day event where they engaged with learning workshops about laser cutting and 3D printing (delivered by the POD team), attended talks by fabricators Soner Ozenc (RazorLab), Hayden Insley (Fab Lab Manchester), Ilsa Parry (reThink Things) and Jason Nelson (Dundee University) and created ideas and assets as part of a competition and open working strand.See for yourselves via the Flickr and Twitter streams and download the freebie laser cut box here at thingiverse!

The weekend highlighted the growing culture of rapid prototyping and manufacture via a number of digital routes and the opportunities it can provide for the small business and creative individual. It links into the maker communities of the region and hopes to support them through future opportunities and events. The next happening is ‘Maker Night’ , a monthly Hack Space occurrence for makers at the ADA, which takes place on the 16th Feb 6.30pm – just turn up!

If you’re interested in anything regarding making and the technical facilities at the ADA then please contact the POD team.

The event was co-ordinated by LJMU’s Open Labs in conjunction with the ADA.

The kind people at  scraperwiki have kindly donated a Makerbot cupcake cnc 3D printer to MADE (Make and Design Everthing )@ ADA.  The kit comes with all the bits and atoms to build a 3D printer and uses ABS plastic to make the 3D parts from virtual models created on a computing machine.

It will be one of the many projects happening @ the Maker Night a space to learn more about physical computing, Arduino, 3D printing, laser-cutting or electronics?

In partnership with Liverpool Hackspace and the LJMU Art and Design Academy the first Make Night will be Wednesday 19th January, 6:30pm for a 7pm start, at the Art and Design Academy

More info to follow……

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

Arduino The Documentary (2010) English HD from gnd on Vimeo.

In December, the Art and Design Pod collaborated with Open Labs to host preFAB; an informal evening of creative collaboration with a group of creative enthusiasts, designers, makers from the Merseyside area, who were interested in gaining exposure to the ADA fabrication equipment with potential opportunities arising throughout the evening to use laser cutters and 3D printers.

During the course of the evening, three teams had access to both the fabrication equipment at the ADA and assistance from the Design Pod staff to help them flesh out their ideas. The event was also a great opportunity for participants to meet, work and mingle with like-minded creative people.

The evening’s activity was centered around a brief provided by the Design Pod team to reinvent the Christmas Cracker for the 21st century.

A range of imaginative and insightful ideas were developed over the course of the evening, ranging from a gingerbread tree structure created from laser cut ginger snap biscuits to a Russian Roulette table centerpiece.

The winning project, Crack.r foresaw a virtual based cracker which allowed users to share personal information and items from smartphones with each other by slotting them into a cracker device

IIsa Parry of Rethinkthings commented,

“preFAB offered me the opportunity to meet new contacts, as well as participate in an unusual creative evening. It was also great to understand what ADA@LJMU offer in terms of facilities and services. I’m now really looking forward to FAB Camp in January.”

Jason Taylor (Operations Manager at Open Labs) said,

“preFAB is one of a series of activities focused on making local companies aware of emerging technology and market opportunities. Events such as this are an ideal platform to raise awareness and encourage collaborations between the University and the Creative Industries. A further more in depth event, FAB Camp Liverpool, is planned for January of next year.”

A weekend long Fab Camp Liverpool event is planned for the ADA on the 29th-30th January. Watch this space for more details!

Manufacture And Design Everything!

A new section coming soon to the ADA blog which showcases the possibilities of digital and physical manufacture, and it’s surrounding activities, here at the ADA.