Cardboard homebrew irising mechanism

More scenes from a book-tour: Boing Boing reader Jason Baker saw this morning's post on the homebrew irising peephole mechanism, so he banged up this awesome facsimile out of cardboard and hot glue and fishing line and pushpins and brought it to today's signing at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, NC (thanks to all the awesome folks who turned out!).

Tomorrow, I head to NYC: Books of Wonder (May 26, 6PM); Brooklyn's Powerhouse Books (May 27, 7:30); and McNally Jackson (May 28, 7PM). The tour wraps in Toronto on June 4 with an event at the Merril Collection at 7PM. ( Full tour schedule)

Reminder: There's plenty of libraries and schools and such that are hoping you'll donate a copy of For the Win to them!

Mechanical irising peephole mechanism

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Jason baker

The arms aren’t facing the direction I initially imagined them, but I found (probably because of sloppy cardboard cutting) that I was having more trouble with closing than opening. Reversing them meant the flaps would be pulled the “difficult” direction. The segments fail to open all the way, though, because I made the outer ring to be too small. (I should have traced a larger flowerpot!) Measuring properly rather than eyeballing everything would fix both of those issues – I guess I’ll have to do a build 2.0!
mr_h

Reminds me of the most awesome cardboard and hot glue artist I’ve ever seen – Patrick Joyce – check out his skills : http://picasaweb.google.com/coedcaemaenhir/CardboardSculpture#
Anonymous

Cory, during your talk in Chapel Hill you mentioned a piece of version control software you use when writing. What was it called?

Thanks for coming to the Triangle!
curiousepic

Thanks for coming out to Chapel Hill, Cory, I really enjoyed hearing you speak!
Anonymous

James Baker,I love that you made a cardboard version. However, I notice that the arms are facing the wrong direction to pull the iris segments open. I guess this remix works by pushing them, but the weak leverage doesn’t seem to push them all the way. Mirror flip the arms segment for greater win?