Years ago, photographer Michael Wolf became fascinated with improvised, DIY, and haphazardly-repaired chairs that he encountered in China. He called them "bastard chairs" and compiled them into a 2002 book titled Sitting In China. You can see a selection of those chairs at his Web site. "Michael Wolf: Bastard Chairs" (via Accidental Mysteries)]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/10/15/bastard-chairs-of-china.html/feed 5 http://boingboing.net/2012/10/10/maker-education-project-let.html http://boingboing.net/2012/10/10/maker-education-project-let.html#comments Wed, 10 Oct 2012 15:20:11 +0000 David Pescovitz http://boingboing.net/?p=186343

Are you a teacher seeking a creative, fun, and compelling design/engineering/maker project? Try the WikiSeat Catalyst, a welded steel central structural support for a three-legged-stool! The stool seat and legs can be made out of almost anything you can imagine. (See above.) In 2011, I posted about WikiSeat Catalyst creator Nicolas Weidinger, my Institute for the Future colleague who created WikiSeat as a college project to develop a "platform for open source furniture design." Tenth grade teacher Sean Wheeler liked the WikiSeat idea so much that he turned it into a class project. Now, Nic and collaborator Alaric Moore want to offer a WikiSeat Catalyst to every teacher (and student) who would like to experiment with one. For free. In a couple weeks, they'll launch a Kickstarter to fund the project, but first, they needs to know how many WikiSeat Catalysts they need so they can calculate their Kickstarter funding goal! Want one? Email info (at) wikiseat (dot) org. Nic writes:

If you teach a class — any class — and you want to build WikiSeat into your curriculum, then let us know by (EDIT) Thursday, October 18th, 2012, by noon o’clock-ish…

We hope to get as many of these out to as many folks as possible for one very important reason; making things is awesome, and everyone deserves to have a fulfilling maker experience. To us, no other joy can surpass that of having successfully designed and created an object. Personally, I equate it to teaching a kid to ride a bike, or teaching a friend how to google for an answer to a question for the first time.

We are more than willing to work with you on curriculum ideas, or you can take the project and run with it. If this sounds like a thing you are interested in being a part of, don’t be shy. If you’re an educator, or a student, we aren’t asking for anything, no money, nothing like that. We just want your involvement. You will receive your Catalysts by spring break 2013.