“First, what do we mean by the DIY and Maker Movements? We think of movements as the organized action of a group of people following a common ideological or cultural path. The DIY and Maker Movements certainly fit that description. They are filled with people who want to figure out how to make or do stuff on their own, rather than purchasing pre-packaged goods or services. Are the two movements different things? I don’t think so. I think they’re two circles on a Venn diagram that overlap almost completely. Perhaps there’s a bit more art and design in the Maker Movement circle (what we might call the “Burning Man Influence”), and a bit more changing-your-car’s-oil-in-the-driveway in the DIY circle, but otherwise the passions for creating, building, and sharing are the same. The funny thing is that people have been doing this forever, but now it’s a movement. Why is that?” –Ken Denmead
Think Free as in FREEDOM and Liberty
My perspective has always seen the personal freedom, creativity, exploration, and discoveries from carpenters, designers, artists, inventors, hobbyists, and tinkerers at home, in their garage, basement, back yard, or workbench; and I have past memberships to clubs and groups of inventive hobbyists with the DIY/maker enthusiasm.
I recall the circuit boards to build a PC or other logic devices and I also have enjoyed the making of RC nitro-gas powered engine planes.
Also lets mention the fads of car/engine modifications (funny cars, dragsters, pimped up cars, etc.).
The old Popular Mechanics and Popular Science mags had DIY projects and fan submitted demos that were wonderful.
Thus the DIY and Maker community has always existed and the new terminology only obfuscates that fact.Perhaps some decades has seen the popularity or visibility more or less in the public’s consciousness, entertainment, and conversations peak and wane.
However, the current global crisis (call it centralization or globalization but institutions are limiting individuals’ personal freedom as) increasing poverty mandates everyone employed to earn more money to survive and copyright legislation protects corporate monopolistic practices.
Where once a father earned enough to support a family now has both spouses employed.
Also note GMOs, corporate-factory farming and processed-foods calls for growing your own food simply because you can’t trust the institutions with your family’s health; survival necessitates the resurgence in popularity of the DIY/maker ethos.
The Free Energy and Free Software movements are only two of countless grassroots-projects embodying this trend. ~ Ron
Public Lab “is a community where you can learn how to investigate environmental concerns” using inexpensive DIY techniques. Their projects range from a DIY near-infrared camera and spectrometer to monitoring a nuclear power plant in Pilgrim, MA.
Published on Apr 6, 2013
The Raspberry Pi at $25 – $35 is cheap enough to be used in every light switch and wall socket of a house as a distributed home automation system. In this episode, we look at using Node.js as the basis for such a system and the hardware necessary to make it happen.
This represents the very beginnings of a larger project but I thought I’d make it available in case others are interested in developing the idea.
The software used in this project is available for free from GitHub at:
https://github.com/anders94/raspberry-pi-home-automation
Here’s a PDF datasheet on the solid state relays I’m using: http://sharp-world.com/products/device/lineup/data/pdf/datasheet/s116s02_e.pdf
Knitting/quilting/sewing/cooking/community farming clubs, user groups and many female hobbyists was not mentioned, but not forgotten…
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RELATED:
https://ronmamita.wordpress.com/2012/06/30/phone-upgrade-wanted/
https://ronmamita.wordpress.com/the-one-peoples-public-trust/libreplanet/
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/android-and-users-freedom.html
http://makezine.com/2013/09/15/explore-grassroots-science-at-maker-faire-new-york/
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Closed Loop Urban Farming: Brother Nature Produce
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So You Have a Raspberry Pi… Now What?
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Raspberry Pi – Getting Started – Electronics Basics
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