GabrielMathews.com | Biological Log

This past weekend, I went up to Seattle to play with my good friend iLan and his amazing fiance Vanessa. I love them both and would murder you if you ever wronged them.

I came in at about 915ish in the evening. Sheila, iLan’s space heater, greeted me with a hot blow. I was instantly relaxed. After V went to bed iLan and I went to Safeway for energy drinks, a habanero pepper,  random sale items, and Yoohoo. He informed me that he is the proud owner of a carbonizer. Needless to say, we immediately carbonated the Yoohoo. Not exactly the best, but still a little bit of tingles. We sat and talked on his couch till four in the morning about life, love, and all things in between. It was wonderful.

In the morning, after the best sleep I’ve had in a couple months, we went to Costco to visit V at work, drop some stuff off, and then roam the food aisles for samples and price ogling. After a bit we came back to the house and chilled out. Soon enough, V was off work, and we went to 5 Spot for brunch. I had a great forest scramble and some coffee. I really recommend that place to anyone visiting to the Pacific north-west. During brunch, iLan asked me if I would officiate the wedding. I was really flattered and accepted the duties immediately. I’m going to have to spit-polish the little Hebrew I know as iLan requested I sing some traditional Jewish songs. Oy vey.

In the evening, we wound up meeting up with my good friend Joerael Elliot and surprising him with me. He didn’t know I was in town and we haven’t talked/seen each other in about 3 years. Crazy. I love that guy. So we caught up, at Shorty’s bar…another awesome spot. I met his wonderful girlfriend and spent a large chunk of time talking to this cellist Nancy. (EEK…I hope I got that right! Memory is a little fuzzy)…anywho very cool peep. I tried talking her into moving to Portland and being my friend. She lives in Jerome, AZ…my condolences.

After a great night of chatting, we came home, I passed out, and the day was over. Sunday, iLan made breakfast bagels, we ate at Red Mill Burgers. Holy shit you have to try the onion rings. I got a sandwich for my trek home too. At a certain point, as the day’s timeline was a little convoluted, iLan and I ate the habanero…who need drugs? That thing was crazy hot…I felt it move through my digestive system, only to wind up making porcelain violence later in the day…whew. I drove home after a quick couple stops downtown. I got home around 6, did some laundry and enjoyed the rest of my evening before the week started again.

Tomorrow I am going to see Roger Martin at Ziba talk about his book The Design of Business. That should make for some great brain candy.

Nighty taters.

~G

In March 2009 Gray Holland of Alchemy Labs wrote an article for Core77.com that describes the differences in form and their geometrical breakdown based on Fig. 1 citing specific examples ranging from the F-22 Raptor to the MacBook Pro.

Fig. 1

Now while I do agree that this study of form is important, I also do believe it is flawed. Not based on the set of pretty renderings above in Fig. 1 but in the distinct divide that is created in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2

Here Mr. Holland has divided design and engineering. To agree or even suggest that design is separate from engineering  undermines the entire field of industrial design. It immediately places design in a surface styling role as opposed to offering legitimacy to the process of design/research/etc. Are we saying that designers just make pretty pictures all day? Yeah, and account managers just jet-set, right? No, of course not. I have modified the above into Fig. 3.

Fig. 3

Cited in “Design For The Real World”, Victor Papanek illustrated what he called the Function Complex (Fig. 4) In such, all other variables are contained through engineering to aesthetics. We need to be careful, as designers, when calling out these roles. I know that, myself personally, I don’t want to be considered a stylist, nor an engineer. I’d love to have both worlds. As I spend a large part of my day doing tangible qualitative research  and rational explorations of form.

Fig. 4

With the evolution of failures through specialization, generalists are always right behind; sweeping up and re-innovating what is a need in order to refine the problems. This process is seemingly indefinite. As Henry Petroski illustrated in “The Evolution of Useful Things”, the hammer is a wonderful case study of how form does not follow function, but rather failure. Where one hammer fails to specialize, another is right there ready to pick up the slack. In “The Hammer: The King of Tools” there are “…over a hundred pages of photographs, typically showing ten or twelve different styles per page, of odd and unusual hammers and hammer heads.” Indicating directly that aesthetics, use, method, etc., are all at play together, not separate.

I’m hoping this connection adds a little more respect to the field. I do, my off time, enjoy making overly large swooping speed forms and clumsy robots, but this is more technical exercise and personal satisfaction rather than exploration of function. And on the other side, I spend bulk loads of time researching the expansion percentages of plastics, powder-coating technologies, and so forth; further expanding the other side of that road. Both are important and balanced. Please do not illustrate a separation of design and engineering as they are one in the same. The only difference is one lives on the surface and one underneath.

~Gabe

The thought struck me to start drawing, designing, modeling, and eventually rendering robots. I am working on a set of deconstruction robots through a fake company called Ebag Co.

The reoccurring theme throughout the designs is that the machines are used for reclaiming raw materials.

First one up is the NCU 1020. NCU (Nimble Construction Unit) Model 1020-Used for purifying construction materials back into a liquid raw state. This is then taken back by a RMT (Raw Material Transporter) 200 back to forges and refineries for re-manufacturing of new components for other construction sites.

NCU 1020

About the render-

Took a few panoramic shots of some of the SE industrial areas of town. Looked for a good spot to set up. After some sketching, I modeled up the robot frame and shells; adding a few prebuilt components for extra detail. Using an environment map of the area that I photographed, the render was composite  into the scene in Photoshop. Including the site photography, the whole project took about 10 solid work hours + sketching time. Not bad.

Next up will be the nano-bot dispenser and gelatin exploration. Stay tuned.

~G