“I stepped in front of my own projector and the picture landed on my body”
August 2024. I was testing a projector I'd made, with the iPhone still in camera mode, and I stepped in front of it. The image landed on my body. I was the camera, the hand holding the phone, the projector and the screen, all at once. It took me a minute.
Same Method
That was when I saw the link. For twenty years I'd been doing the same thing at work and in the workshop without noticing: find what gets put on top, find what it's pushing down, and see what happens when you flip it. At work it was algorithms. At home it was plywood. Same method.
“It showed me something I'd been doing for 20 years without seeing it.”"
Build First
I didn't plan it. A wooden speaker, twelve counting marbles from my kid's old busy board, a pico projector and an iPhone sat on the bench for weeks. One day I started putting them together without knowing why.
I don't work out what something means first and then build it. I build it and the meaning shows up later.
Modular housing with visible construction
Counting marbles from salvaged busy board
Complete portable projection system
Ryobi ONE+ 18V battery, 4 to 6 hour runtime
Materials: Plywood housing, wooden Bluetooth speaker, pico projector, iPhone, twelve wooden counting marbles from my kid's old busy board, gorilla tripod, Ryobi ONE+ 18V battery
Size: 58 × 22 × 18 cm folded up. It opens out when you use it.
Power: Ryobi ONE+ 18V battery, 4 to 6 hours
Built: August 2024
Status: Works. It already did its main job. Now it's a portable projector, a workshop music player and it tells me the time.
Context in Series
First of twelve. This is where Cornered Optimism started. Twelve things that all work, each one measuring the gap between what we get told and what actually happens. It's how I see it from where I'm standing, nothing more.