Fork 2: Cardboard Robots, Kids Hacking, & Evil Biosensors

Shaun looking particularly dashing

Our second edition of FORK was a blast! It was truly a coming together of peeps in the community who believe in making things out of curiosity, and love. And about creating something in a safe space, where you can tinker with unfinished ideas, and infect someone else in that same space with the same passion for the $h*t you love.

Many came for the event alone, but by the end of the night, something about the vibe (with the help of some beer) had strangers were chatting away like old friends. 

Abuzz with anticipation

Some of you folks asked what FORK means: it's a reference to open source software coding, where hackers might "fork" some code and branch out to make something else. It's about building upon, and a kind of creativity that is… combinatorial. 

For those curious about FORK1: check this out. Also, 2 of our pitchers from FORK1 - Yen the fine artist and Hanyang the 3D printing geek - are now collaborating in this project!

Hanyang showing off the product of their collaboration: merchandise to support the art project!
They made tiny houses! With windows!

Also, we heard you: Yup, we gottit (from FORK1) - you want a more tangible way of connecting (apart from the obvious mingling). So here is the rudimentary "sign-up sheet" we tried out so people could connect with pitchers they found interesting! 

William appeared to be quite popular!

Without further ado, our pitchers for the evening!:

William with volunteers showing how, with a bit of technology, you can have human presentation clickers

William Hooi | Hackidemia

William was an engineer by training, and a teacher by profession at the Singapore Science Center. He combines the two in Hackidemia, workshops which allow children to try out sophisticated technology and make stuff. The eventual dream is for children to have a change in world view: from being helpless in the world to adopting a tinkerer’s disposition, a belief that the world can be acted upon, that they can do stuff.

Plug: William is looking for venue hosts, volunteers to help in facilitation and sponsors to keep the program free for all participants! 

Get involved here. 

Bartholomew Ting | Cardboard Playground

Bart has only one slide with his name and a photo of a huge cardboard robot assembled outside Artistry  (which was taken that very afternoon). He gets onstage and sheepishly admits that the massive robot, put together with cardboard lego blocks, was his creation. We are impressed, and are collectively peering out the window at the nearly two-story tall giant.

He tells us his story: it all started from his time in NUS, when he built sculptures with recycled materials for the charity event Rag & Flag. He then worked at a cardboard packaging factory, where he got the idea to work with cardboard in more creative ways (and started learning how to navigate 3D software).

His cardboard lego blocks are visualized and turned into templates with the help of 3D rendering software. He then manually cuts out the pieces, and puts them together using hot glue or cable ties.

Plug: Bart is looking for volunteers to help with putting together a cardboard playground in the National Library from 13th May to its opening on 31st May. Shaun had at a go at assembling the giant robot, and swears it was the most fun he’s had in years. You can too.

See past projects, gifs and Bart’s contact at www.butternmilk.com!

Sahasrangshu Sinha | Sreejan

Saha is a change maker working on rural development in eastern India. After a trek to the Saïd Business School at Oxford, He’s back in the village of his boyhood to effect some very real changes to poverty, sanitation and environmental issues.

While at B school, he realized that these issues were all inter-related, and unlike the silo-ed nature of many government agencies, he developed a holistic approach to successfully tackle several problems all at once. Through the synergy, he effects greater social impact with less resources.

He calls his approach “livelihood convergence”, and has been running programs for several years. 24,000 households have benefited thus far.

His second project, a non-profit collaboration between Spandan and  Sreejan, is another brilliant example of synergy. The project expands the micro-finance model to include micro-insurance, micro-loans, market  access and capability building. Each would not work individually, but together, they make sense. There is immense potential to revolutionize current “bottom of the pyramid” (BOP) models here. 

Plug: Saha invites you to check out the website, have a think about what they’re doing, and email him if you'd like to know more.

Brandon Leong | Interfsce

Brandon started a curated online journal on design after being fed up with the enormous amount of unfiltered stuff floating around on the interwebs.

He spends about three hours a day working on his blog, filtering cool stuff to share with other people. When asked if he loved what he did, with absolutely zero hesitation Brandon replied “Yes I do”. The best takeaway from Brandon’s sharing was his personal philosophy “Do what matters to you, the rest, so what” (add casual shrug for effect).

Follow his blog here.

Shanmugam Mpl, EvilBioSensors

Shan comes up on stage, and asks for a volunteer. When his presentation has the word ‘evil’ in it, you want to be wary of volunteering for this sort of thing. “I wanted to wear this tshirt but it’s too small”, he explains.

A girl comes up, dons the tshirt and we watch as she gets hooked up to a whole bunch of wires. What follows is an interesting commentary on the dualism of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ that accompanies any kind of creation.

Shan demonstrates how the tshirt, with a big graphic heart on it, lights up in rhythm to the volunteer’s heart rate thanks to a biosensor clipped onto her finger that measures her pulse. We all go ohhh on cue.

Makes you think.

Then things get serious. The project was born out of a hackathon “Future Jamming”, on the future of governance (incidentally, co-founders Shaun and Bernise were part of the organising team behind that).

Shan paints a pessimistic picture for us: “imagine a world where everything you are feeling could be on display. Anyone would know when you were nervous, or angry, just from your displayed heart rate. Or if you had AIDS, or diabetes, and the government forced you to wear a tshirt that showed this from other bio data”.

Hmm..... ahh!!

ABOUT FORK: The whole idea behind FORK is to create a space for a creative vat of randomness and fun. People working on interesting side projects out of curiosity and passion pitch, or simply share, what they’re doing. In the spirit of the Creative Commons, they can run with the idea in their own way, or say “hey I love your idea and I want to work with you!” The folks who pitch often aren’t famous - a big part of FORK is pulling people out of the woodwork - but they’ve always got something cool to share. 

StartingBloc: Musings, Insights and Takeaways

I recently had the privilege of attending the StartingBloc Conference this year in Santa Monica, LA. Imagine an amazing group of change-makers, each with their unique interests - some finding their way, some well on their way - all in a beach house together for 5 days. Listening, learning and most importantly, being vulnerable together. That is essentially StartingBloc. 

 

Here are a couple of things I took away when I was there.

 

Vulnerability is power. People often have the impression that social entrepreneurs have to be tough, tenacious and temerarious. We are supposed to define our own reality. But that isn't easy. It's like putting a marshmallow over a fire; soon you get this hardened, slightly charred, crisp outer layer. But really - we are all soft and squishy on the inside. Allowing oneself to be vulnerable though seems more daunting than facing the world at times. Yet, the greatest conversations sometimes happen when one simply takes a leap and allows themself to open up - and gives permission to others to do so, too. And by sharing how you feel, it is amazing just how many people have gone through similar situations or are in the same situation as you are. And because you asked - because you had the courage to be vulnerable - everyone can then learn from each other. 

 

Resilience is a skill. Perseverance is not this innate ability that only some possess. Each experience we go through introduces us to new levels of stress, and challenges us to push ahead. There were so many speakers and even participants who spoke of the tribulations they went through - internal emotional struggles and external societal barriers - and how overcoming these obstacles spurred them on. So, take each difficult experience as a sort of training - a training for your resilience.

 

Find your ubuntu. It is a powerful feeling to know that at whatever stage you are at, no matter what you are doing - there will always be a community of people that you belong to. The connections I made at StartingBloc are my greatest takeaway; now, 3 weeks after the conference is over, we are still constantly learning from one another through FB, through phone calls, through text messages etc. We teach each other and share with one another. It is the idea of Ubuntu. Not the operating system (though that was probably so-named with the same intentions), but as Archbishop Desmond Tutu describes it:

 

'A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, based from a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.'

 

Don't underestimate the power of community - not just for the mutual support one can get, but also because in a community that shares openly, the possibility of learning and making new discoveries is so much greater. Find such a community for oneself, or yet greater - be bold enough to try to create your own community.

 

And here's another reason why community is important: because we, the human race as a whole, whether we want to accept it or not, are a community. And how we choose to respond, react and interact with this community will shape how our future will be.

FORK Wrapup: Recaps, Photos, Reactions, and More!

Can't believe that FORK is over. It's taken this long to really *get* what we did at Artistry last Thursday: our collective hopeful uncynical creativity made tangible. FORK seemed to strike *something* – hanging your "work" out there at it's most raw point, and trusting that no one would tear it apart, but to aid in putting it together. Brutal criticism is too easy, but so too is a casual "that's nice" too. Finding that creative middle-ground is what FORK is all about. So thanks to all our terrific speakers: you guys really did insanely great – giving raw, heartfelt, innovative, and irreverent presentations.

Shaun referring to his speaker notes. Hey, "it's a work-in-progress"!

Hanyang from Funbie Studioes shared stories from their 3D printing adventures – yes, they have a makerbot folks! – building stuff like a Mario Cube Side-Light, just for funsies. As people found out when they touched it, it does indeed light up, and make that da-ta noise we're all familiar with. No magic flower power yet though. Something for the todo list Hanyang!

If you're interested in knowing more about 3D printing, or getting someone to make something, Hanyang's your guy.

He was also the reason why we were so lucky to have the giant red robot. More on that later.

*Update: *Just 3 days later, Hanyang's already created a 3D printed model of Yen's Social Art Project at 13 Wilkie Terrace. Creative collaboration woot woot!

Norvin's starting a movement – to rid the world of rote learning, and build one where students really grok what they're learning. That's easy to say, especially when you've been doing it the "right" way all along. But Norvin wasn't: for much of his student life, he excelled at memorising stuff – so much so that he went on to compete in national memory championships (memory palaces FTW). Yeap. He was the model for rote learning.

In fact, he demonstrated his abilities with a feat of memory daring do – asking the audience to pick out any of the first 1000 digits of Pi (kindly providing us mortals with a pre-calculated list), and with furrowed brows, recalling the accurate number sequence at will.

"Not magic, just memory association techniques. Remember TOA/CAH/SOH?"

This changed when something obvious occured to him – why do I spend so much effort on creating artificial associations between concepts, when I could try to deduce what I need from understanding the fundamental underlying concepts. He illustrated by blowing through puckered lips in contrast to an open mouth exhalation. One feels warm, the other cool. Why? HINT: speed. Bonus HINT: email him!

His plan to turn this into a movement involves bringing together successful professionals on Facebook to share what's really needed in the real world. I'm imagining a Pixar type "It gets better" video now.

At a semi-secret location in Singapore, Yen Phang is transforming an old bungalow into a temporary collaborative art space ("Displacements") challenge artists to engage with the world around them (their immediate physical space and surrounding geography), and encourage them to actively embrace and shape our local cultural identity.

And that's all we're allowed to say :x

ideed.gd by Ling Fu

Ling Fu introduced us to ideed.gd, an online creative craft marketplace dedicated to raising funds for good causes (with crazy, spunky creativity). Gorgeously designed, we're definitely putting some of our work there, if we ever get into making "stuff". She's looking for cool stuff to bring on ideed.gd, so if you know anyone who's made something cool, get in touch!

Also, we really really love that domain name. I mean seriously, ideed.gd?!

Yang from Swarm Studios

Yang (Swarm Studios) blew our minds with a real-time data visualisation of mobile phone gyroscope tracking. That means that he asked everyone to log on to a website, and in real-time, coloured dots started to appear on the black screen in front of us – which moved as we waved our phones around. Neat!

He also explained that he hadn't figured out "the point" to the visulisation yet, just that it was for fun. Which is entirely the point of FORK. Thanks Yang, for explaining FORK better than Shaun did!

Also, we've got a few ideas to use that tech – collaborative art project anyone?

Sid with QuirkCycle

Quirk Quirk Cycle! We're super proud of these guys. Born at UP Singapore's Environment Hackerthon, QuirkCycle was a group of hackerthon misfits (castoffs from their original teams) that found common cause – in enlisting hipster chic in making recyling not just cool, but artistically fun too. It matches people's unwanted "junk" to artists that repurpose them into fantastic works of art. We've got a close eye on them, and you should too ;)

And that's our very first FORK line up. We'll be back in April! Sign up on our mailing list+FB to get notifications.

Thanks to everyone that came, and special props to everyone that helped make FORK a big success!

*Speakers: *Hanyang, Norvin, Yen, Ling, Yang, and Sid

*Venue: *Artistry's Prash, Sam and Marcel (who were incredibly gracious in letting us use their space)

*FORK Team: *Pinji, Shree, Bern, and Shaun

*Photographers: *Eddie, and Josh (gorgeous photos no?)

And special thanks: *NYC for their kind support, *Bart for his (big red robot!) and Hanyang again for helping assemble it!

STUFF PEOPLE SAID ABOUT FORK

Amin from Qiscus:

It was really awesome. The crowd’s amazing. The pitches are really cool.

And spotted on STOMP (yeah, we know...):

S'pore's got talent: Meet the giant red transformer of Victoria Street

STRAY NOTES & OBSERVATIONS

– BIG RED ROBOT. The breakout star of the night, who ended up staying over at Artistry over the weekend. T'was designed by Bart, and painstakingly put together under the hot sun by Bart and Hanyang. FUN FACT: We didn't plan to have a big red robot! Hanyang showed us a picture the day before FORK – and after we saw how it dwarfed Bart (who was standing next to it) we just HAD to have him here!

– MORE Q&A time! Yup, we heard you – there will be some group Q&A time at the next FORK. We wanted to spend as little time as possible with FORKers on-stage, and more time with mingling discussion. But we noticed that there wasn't large enough crowds around FORKers as we thought. So more group Q&A time! Also, we're gonna try to nurture discussion clusters – more on that soon.

– WANNA BE A FORKer? Inspired by what you saw, or know anyone working on something cool too? Tell us – we'd love to have them in our next lineup!

– As you can tell, we could use some people help! If you're into marketing/graphic-design/presentation-management/helping-hands, drop us an email. We're super friendly crazy people who love making nice things happen.