Slashdot Mirror
DIY Projects, Communities and Cultures
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University share the results of a year-long survey studying DIY projects, communities, and cultures. The first ever large-scale survey of six DIY communities (Instructables, Etsy, Dorkbot, Ravelry, Adafruit and Craftster) explores the motivations and practices of 2600+ respondents. In addition to an academic paper, results are appropriately posted on Instructables — one of the studied DIY sites. Findings highlight creativity, learning and open sharing as key values embedded in modern DIY culture."
2600
Oh so now i know what xkcd's circut diagram is for. (xkcd.com/730/) It was used for collecting the data for this!
Perhaps the recent unexplained "missle launch" off of LA is a DYI project?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
"To Download the PDF or View All Steps,
Become a Pro Member"
Need I say more?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I found the results odd w/ respect to instructables and comments. I like instructables articles, but I actively avoid reading the comments because they are stuffed with morons.
Generally a couple kids asking for homework help, a bunch of negative trollers whining about safety or how the author is ignorant (worship me for I am fire marshal bill and someone with a room temperature IQ could be hurt, and also you are completely wrong in all your conclusions because I say so! Look at me! Look at me!), or utterly illiterate "mee 2 I agre w u" text talk that is still meaningless when converted to English.
Another thing I've noticed about instructables is I've gotten all kinds of ideas from making what amounts to homemade water park sprayers for the kids out of PVC pipe to a tasty sandwich made out of apples, cheddar, bacon, and sourdough bread. But real hard core stuff, things that takes more than a day and real work and skill, is never discussed. The guys whom make their own legal limit ham radio linear amps. Theres like two articles on electric car/bike conversions, but there should be more. It tends to be a site of talkers rather than doers.
Surprisingly community interaction did better than I'd have expected and no one mentioned the comment trolling team at instructables being a good reason not to upload and share.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
There were only six DIY sites listed. You couldn't put a link to ANY of them?
Actually, I only knew about instructables... Good to know! Winter is a-comin'
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
embedded in modern DIY culture.
One minor correction is those sites are mostly about talking vs doing with respect to DIY.
Much like listening to Leo Laporte on This Week in Tech gives you a pretty good insight into the culture of tech journalism, but make no mistake those guys are not reflective of tech culture itself.
Actual do-ers don't sound nearly as good on the radio nor read nearly as well on a website.
The culture of the local newspaper's business section newsroom, is not necessarily an accurate reflection of the actual business culture they are discussing.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Arcade Controls. Don't let the front page give you a bad impression, the interesting parts are in the forums.
First the survey of DIY is very limited. It is a robots and computer hackery biased. There's a ton of very vibrant DIY sites out there, Take for example DIYAudio.com, that place has hundreds or thousands of posts per day. And there are industry giants contributing.
There's a ton of restoration sites like OWWM.com (Old Wood Working Machines, but also does metalworking machines). Along the lines of the CMU computer geekery is places like CNCZone.com. Then there's the more web1.0 sorts of places like the bicycle frambuilders list (http://www.phred.org/mailman/listinfo/framebuilders). DIY is very vibrant on the interwebs and there's a whole lot more of it going on than this survey takes into account.
Also Instructables is pretty weak. Instructables is to DIY as McDonalds is to fine dining.
Sheldon
www.fusor.net
And many of the members of both also have their own sites where real science is done in collaberation with others, many of whom don't know real names and will probably never meet face to face. It's not all "big science". With open source methodology, we can do the same things for science that have been done for software -- teams, but by agreement, and far more flexible and faster.
So hose me for slashvertising -- none of us are selling anything whatever except a chance to play the game with us -- it's not free -- you have to do your share to be interesting.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
In my experience, Instructables is much more of a Craft site than a DIY or hardhack community. By and large the content and the community were geared towards sharing cheap, 5 minute jury rigs of the type you would see in a Home & Garden magazine. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Crafts and around the house tips are bad (they're great) but in no way would I associate the community with the statement "Findings highlight creativity, learning and open sharing as key values embedded in modern DIY culture".
Maybe I have a different idea of hardhacks and DIY, but when I'm looking for DIY info it's usually of the "tips for replacing my doorframe", "resources for circuit board etching" or "homemade agar solution recipes" variety.
And now an analogy: Martha Stewart provides tips on putting up plastic over windows to keep cold air out; Ask This Old House provides info on the tools and procedures one would need to replace that window with a new double-paned, insulated window. They're both awesome pieces of information, but only one (imo) represents a facet of the "modern DIY culture".
""creation, modification or repair of objects without the aid of paid professionals.""
That;s the stupidest definition of DIY I have every read, and simple not true.
For example, I may be building a specific audio board, and a professional may suggest a specific component to use based on their engineering experience. Someone who is a professional machinist might give me advice on how to machine a part, or a welder on how to weld different metals together.
Why you think everyone needs to rebuild the wheel to make a different car is beyond me.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Instructables has a lot of good DIY projects. How to build a hidden door book case, how to build a solar heater out of soda pop cans, all kinds of stuff.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
How to build a freaking pimp kayak.
Some of the instructables are of seriously high quality. Most are not, but there are some absolute gems in there. A lot of it is great just for neat ideas. Like an arduino based RFID door lock or an automated home garden. You aren't going to be building it step by step from their design, but you can use them as a good jumping point, and it's easy to find a very wide range of projects on these sites.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Following Barak Hussain Obama's deceleration of the right to kill any living human being for his enjoyment, his Presidential Order covers his Agencies in the Federal Govenment who ack in his place.
When agents of the FBI accost you at an international airport ... be cool. Say nothing.
Fan Chung-yen said, not pleased, not to have compassion. [url=http://www.uggsbootssole.com/ugg-and-jimmy-choo.html]ugg boots and jimmy choo[/url]Chinese society from the Song to 2000, is now fast, I dare not say all of China not as ancient, but at least we have to learn self-cultivation of Fan Tao,[url=http://www.uggsbootssole.com/ugg-and-jimmy-choo.html]ugg boots casual[/url] Dankan win or lose, live happily, or someday you for China which teams they lost to weak teams in Asia and the terminal one of a branch, [url=http://www.uggsbootssole.com/ugg-and-jimmy-choo.html]ugg boots ebay[/url]who would give you the Medal of it?
Which has been up-and-down for years.
Wheeler's _Woodworking for Beginners_ complains that boys are too likely to buy things which their fathers would've made --- and this was published in 1899 or so.
I took up archery again a couple of years ago, making my own tackle --- started w/ bows, then strings, made a case for a takedown, working on arrows, points and nocks, and just sorted out my leatherworking tools, so gloves, armguard and quiver are next.
One thing I've found striking is the number of people who turn to the 'net forums for basic questions of technique which would've been covered in year one of shop class, or in any basic text, and who jump in w/o first studying some basic overview text even when such are readily available in a library, or public domain and on-line.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
I think DIY has become the 'organic' of this decade, a term overused. Now people call it DIY if you do anything remotely clever. "DIY bagel heating using a toaster!".
And there are the "more DIY than thou" arguments. One person chided me that using PCB fabricators wasn't DIY because I didn't swirl my own templates in an acid bath (at satellite diaries)... I had to point out I was making a DIY satellite, not a DIY PCB. Besides, I asked him if he'd actually smelted the copper ore for his boards, because if not, you know, it's not really DIY.
That said, I love the DIY movement. It's as if Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin had a (legal) lovechildmovementlaunch.
(And that last word is DIY, I made it myself!)
A.
They will come.. and whine about you not doing it properly.
There are plenty of excellent DIY sites out there. I have a couple of projects featured on Instructables -- their interface makes is really easy to share your projects step-by-step.
Strange that Make Magazine is missing. Or Hack-A-Day.
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
The ultimate of DIY has to be openfarmtech with their global village construction set aiming to produce a range of equipment, all cheap, easily maintainable open sourced, from tractors to metal melting to solar power generators. Everything you need for food production to fabrication basicly.
And they are well on their way too!
Cool stuff =)