Vincent Pidone is an artist particularly interested in Moire patterns, making the AxiDraw a tool well suited to him. You can find him on instagram, and he has a show opening this week. I have a show of my recent...

The Punjabi truck stops of America Bitcoin mining on an Apollo Guidance Computer NeverSSL: A surprisingly useful non-SSL web site Crashed plane located in a pub Doc Pop hired writers and artists on Fiverr to play a game of telephone...

For the past couple of years we have been working towards a public launch of the MOnSter 6502, our working transistor-scale replica of the famous MOS 6502 microprocessor. One of the biggest pieces of the puzzle has been how to...

Our friend and collaborator Eric Schlaepfer has been posting closeup photos of cross sections of familiar components in his twitter stream and they were recently highlighted in IEEE Spectrum. The photos are both beautiful and educational.

Technical support can be a challenge, and often a successful outcome is one where you don’t hear back because everything is working. Sometimes, though, you get an extra special confirmation that you’ve fixed the issue. Thank you to Nick Z....

I’m the subject of today’s issue of the What’s in my bag? newsletter! I enjoy this newsletter, which peeks into the kinds of things people carry around and use on a regular basis.

We are pleased to announce a major revision for the EggBot software with several significant improvements. It is now updated to support Inkscape 0.92. We have also streamlined the EggBot menu within Inkscape and updated the example set. We have...

During our Summer Sale, use checkout coupon code SUMMER to save 10% storewide. Save on popular items like the AxiDraw SE/A3, on soldering kits, EggBot, and everything else too! It’s a great time to get a shiny new AxiDraw, check...

How to make a faux-neon sign with EL wire What can you learn from a school of fossilized fish? First ever solar eclipse film brought back to life Open source, 3D-printed Croissant Machine (well, dough sheeter) Babylonians Were Using Geometry...

One of the features in our new Hershey Text v 3.0 software is the ability to extend it with new fonts. One company, Quantum Enterprises, is already selling high quality stroke fonts that are compatible with the new Hershey Text, and ideal...

Following the release of our new AxiDraw software this week, we are pleased to announce the release of two additional software components that greatly extend the capability of the machine. The AxiDraw software is now available in two alternate versions that...

Some years ago we wrote a neat little Inkscape extension called Hershey Text. Hershey text could take a little bit of text that you would type and render it into stroke fonts, also known as engraving fonts. We are very...

We’re pleased to announce the release of the latest version of the AxiDraw software, 2.5. which includes a number of frequently-requested features that we’ve been working on over the last year. An expanded user guide Perhaps foremost, we have updated...

Sash Zats is a designer and generative artist working with AxiDraw. You can find him on instagram and twitter. One of the things about Sash’s work that I enjoy is his choices of materials. He often uses bold papers and...

Not long ago, I posted about roasting coffee. As a follow up, I’d like to share about the various coffee tools we use. I talked about some of these tools when I was a guest on Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools...

It has been reported that Maker Media is shutting down and that Maker Faire is at its end. Evil Mad Scientist has its roots in Maker Faire, and has been presenting there from the very beginning, so it seems fitting...

June 3 is National Egg Day so we’re having a sale on EggBot Pro. Save 20% this week with checkout coupon code EGGDAY. Happy Egg Day!

For the last year and a half, we’ve been volunteering with the Fremont Peak Observatory Association (FPOA). It is located in Fremont Peak State Park, just above the mission town of San Juan Bautista, which is where Hitchcock’s Vertigo was...

During our Memorial Day sale, use checkout coupon code MEMORIAL to save 10% storewide. Save on popular items like the AxiDraw V3/A3, on soldering kits, the EggBot Pro, and everything else too! Sale runs today through Saturday June 1.

Unraveling the JPEG When Measles Arrives: Breaking Down the Anatomy of Containment The Rube Goldberg of Skateboarding: Matt Tomasello (YouTube, via Rusty’s Electric Dreams) Gareth’s Tips, Tools & Shop Tales a newsletter from Gareth Branwyn Project Phaedra is digitizing and...

Mike from Hackaday came to visit our Uncovering the Silicon project at Maker Faire and got a great video explanation of our project with Windell. He also wrote it up for Hackaday.

At the 2018 Bay Area Maker Faire, our project Uncovering the Silicon showed off a number of simple and complex integrated circuits (with rather large feature size) under the microscope. We had a great time helping visitors look at the...

There is a lively community of plotter enthusiasts in the drawingbots discord channel. One of those is Sam Norton, who goes by hurtle there. Sam has been using the AxiDraw to paint with acrylics using WaterColorBot software. a useful, but...

When we first started roasting coffee, we used the air popcorn popper method. We learned about it from Sweet Maria’s, which in addition to selling green coffee beans, has a wealth of resources for home coffee roasters. We gradually refined...

Bleeptrack is a generative artist who works in a variety of media, but we are of course particularly fond of her plotter work with AxiDraw. We were privileged to see her work displayed at the Plotter People meetup in San...