I have to preface these post with a shout out: the images are from Kyle Roth, a local photographer who does beautiful work and who is a big champion of Cleveland, be sure to read his blog at North Coast Lifestyle and Epstein Design Partners.
Chris Yanc was one of the speakers at the TEDxCLE event. Before entering the event for the day, there sat upstairs an interactive light table. you could draw or write with your fingers, make waves in a pool of water, and a host of other cool things. It looked familiar to me, as I had seen something similar at Ingenuity Fest. There is was being used to control a selection of videos that were played in order of votes, and you could vote on the videos by touching this giant touch screen. The reason it seemed so eerily similar was that it was the same table. What made it such a great project is that it was built and made by Chris Yanc for pennies on the dollar, compared to similar products on the market. Even better, he told us how he did it. Being a techno geek deep at heart, I loved hearing him speak. He was witty and fun. Of course he did not go into too much depth about his table, but he did share the basics. Why? He spoke of open source. Open source means that developers and creators share their work with the world, not for the almighty dollar, but in order to collaborate and create and make things better. You can find out more about him at cyancdesigns, where he even has a host of tutorials to inspire and educate. THAT is a page I am bookmarking!
I don’t know what else to tell you about this talk, except that Chris is a cool guy, with cool ideas, and he likes to share. Imagine a world where everyone were willing to share. What could each person accomplish if he could rely on his cohorts to help him figure out the hard stuff and have his fellow sharers inspire his ideas. What a world that could be! You don’t have to imagine it, you can see what open source can mean to the world with this video that was shown at the TEDxCLE event. This was one of the most inspiring things that I have seen in long time.
I agree that Chris’ talk – and of course his DIY multi-touch table – were highlights of the day. Anyone who hasn’t see the table in action can see a short video here: http://www.awdsgn.com/dailyjournal/feb10/html/dailypg_022710.htm
I’d like to make my own but may need to work on my soldering skills first.