Geekery, lasers and robots at Web 2.0 Expo in San Fran

I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco this past week. One of the coolest things there was a laser etching machine, brought by folks from a DIY website: Instructables.

Who could resist having a robot laser-etched onto their iphone? Not me.

It was a slightly frightening yet amazing process. Here's a video of someone else etching their iPhone.

Here's my phone post-etching. Awesome.

Great free robot pattern

I found this great pattern for a knitted Marvin the paranoid android (from the movie Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) written by a knitter named 'miss-cute-boots'

Wow. Too cool.

"Freeze? I'm a robot. I'm not a refrigerator. "

Discovery of knitted robots on planet Earth

It all started when I stumbled upon Craft Magazine this past December. I picked up issue #5 from my favorite bookstore (Brookline Booksmith) and saw an ad for a boxed set of the first four issues which I had missed. I was struggling with what to knit for my husband's cousin's newborn baby. And then I saw it. A knitted robot on the cover of issue one. So hip. So cool! I immediately ordered the box set from Amazon.

So how foolish did I feel to discover (one year after the rest of the world) that the pattern for Jess Hutchison's robot was not included in the book. Mad web searching for the pattern commenced, followed by a half-hearted search for her pattern book on eBay.

No luck.

If I wanted this robot, I was going to have to come up with the pattern myself. So I did. I have never been comfortable with doing things without a pattern – partially due to my natural laziness I'm sure – so it was a great stretch for me to try to do this without my training wheels.

The first robot went well and came out pretty close to the real deal. It went so well that a friend quickly signed up for the second one. I am working on the third one for my husband now.

The next step, of course, is to come up with my own pattern…..

Here's a picture of bot #2:


If I can do it, so can you......

Geek knitter learns to blog

Knitting.... blogging.... robots. I am on a quest. A quest to learn how to blog. A quest to design knitted robots. The world needs more knitted robots. People need knitted robots. Cats need knitted robots with a little string dangling off the end. And maybe a bell.

This blog is dedicated to my mother who taught me how to knit oh so many years ago. Plus she is likely the only one who will read it.

How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop? The world may never know...