SLQ Wiki workshops:public

101 - Intro to 3D Modelling

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 16:22:10 +0000

101 - Intro to 3D Modelling

Acknowledgement

We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their continuing connection to land and as custodians of stories for millennia. We respectfully acknowledge the land on which we all meet today, and pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging.

Workshop presentation

The 3D modelling workshop has been created into a slide show for presentation and documentation purposes. Please feel free to download and use the guide and files as per our CC license in the footnote.

Some pages may link to other online workshops, tutorials or guides created at The Edge, you may require the internet to connect and view links.

Admin view

Public slides

Summary

Using the State Library 3D printers you can turn a digital 3D model into a solid plastic object.

In this workshop you will learn the basics of 3D design with Tinkercad and how to print your own model, including how to load it into the printer and cleaning up the product. You will also get a look at the basics of Blender.

101 skill development workshops give you the basic skills you need to start your new creative journey. Each workshop is delivered by an experienced facilitator and no prior experience is required, just basic computer skills, a willingness to learn and a bit of ambition.

Skills Introduced

In this workshop we'll be

learning about the Prusa i3Mk3s (the 3D printers we currenly have for booking at The Edge - safety considerations, its major components and the workflow to take 3D model and prepare it for printing.
learning about Tinkercad the entry level Computer Aided Design (CAD) software teach people to get started in 3D printing. In this we'll look at nagivating a virtual 3D space on a 2D screen, the tools in TinkerCad and some of the things you should consider when deigning for 3D printing
discussing finishing other ways 3D printing can be used Some of the things you can to achieve a better finish your 3D prints and some of the ways 3D printing can be used in other processes including casting, vacuum forming and injection moulding.
Induction - participants will complete the 3D printing Induction during this session.

Materials, Tools and Software

Participants will print in The Edge's standard PLA+ and may want to use some hand tools to remove support and clean up their finished print. PLA particles present an inhalation risk so we won't be using any abrasive tools for finishing in the workshop.

Computers used for this workshop require:

Web browser for TinkerCad and Inductions.slq.qld.gov.au
Prusa Slicer
USB port/SD card slot

Health & Safety

Running this workshop at The Edge?.. You should familiarise yourself and your participants with:

DML Risk Assessment
Innovation Lab Risk assessment
3D Printer (FDM) SOP
Print bed cleanse with isopropyl SOP

Preparation

Before the workshop you will need to check that

you have a set of sample prints for participants to take away ( see files at the bottom of the page)
have prints set up, established and paused to show participants at Part 4 of the workshop
have an example SVG file ready to demonstrate “import and extrude SVG” function in tinkerCAD
* the 3D printers are functional and available for use
Enough filament is loaded on the machines for everyone to print
you have enough SD card and Card readers

References

PDF of Powerpoint presentation inc facilitator notes Powerpoint Presentation

3d_printing_101_tinkercad_prusaslicer.pdf

Blender Vase

Paint on supports in PrusaSlicer

Support breakdown with Makers Muse

Smooth flat surfaces

Downloads

Sample Prints from Thingiverse

Description	Files	Image
Demo of compliant mechanisms - handy for designing 3D printed switches and latches	compliant_mechanisms_rotational_joint_planar_translator_5872685.zip
Vase Mode stretchy bracelet	stretchy_bracelet_13505.zip
Print-in-Place flexible chainmail	hex_chain_scale_mail_255924.zip
Print-in-Place dumptruck	print-in-place_dump_truck_5697698.zip
Print-in-Place digger	print-in-place_excavator_5449036.zip
Parametric butt hinge generator on Thingiverse	my_customized_parametric_hinge_5869950.zip
Incredibly strong (considering) screw clamp	hand-screw_clamp_2403756.zip
Articulated Lizard	articulated_lizard_v2_3505006_2.zip

Sample Prints from from Mick

Description	File	Source Material
Articulated turtle	turtle.stl
Articulated Dragon	dragon_2_.stl
Articulated Fishy	fishy.stl
Articulated Dragonfly	dragonfly_3_.stl
Record Player	record_player_1_.stl

Vases

Blender Vase 01

Blender Vase 02

Tinkercad Vase 01

101 - Intro to 3D Printing

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 16:31:03 +0000

101 - Intro to 3D Printing

In this workshop we will guide you through the process of preparing 3D models for printing using Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF). After running through this session, you should have a better understanding of the various issues that influence printing success, print speed, strength, and surface quality.

This workshop follows a similar format with different content outcomes, our most recent is focused on cards to coincide with the Driven exhibition.

Acknowledgement

Workshop presentation

The Introduction to 3D printing workshop has been created into a slide show for presentation and documentation purposes. Please feel free to download and use the guide and files as per our CC license in the footnote.

Some pages may link to other online workshops, tutorials or guides created at The Edge, you may require the internet to connect and view links.

Public view - Slides

Admin view - Slides

Admin view - Session Plan

Resources

Links

Printables VW model download

Downloads

Holden HQ Wagon STL file

For Escort STL file

Porsche STL file

13 Ways to Start a Fire

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 05 Jun 2020 15:20:40 +0000

13 Ways to Start a Fire

External

Summary

This workshop was developed by Peter Musk for delivery at The Planting Festival (Woodford) in 2017. It acts as a vehicle for engagement and learning about science and safety related to fire, and provides demonstrations, experiential activities and some construction challenges.
The venue was a tent (earth floor), and this workshop may need revision if staged in an indoor environment.

Safety

Fire is a dangerous thing. Avoid pain, disfigurement, property loss and potential bankrupting lawsuits by

Making sure you workspace is uncluttered and free from unexpected accelerants
Prepare a hearth by scraping a hole in the ground or making a circle of rocks
Have your fuel ready, but not too close
Have a handy means of smothering the fire if things get out of control – a shovel, blanket, water or green branches.

Activity Summary

Participants are introduced to the deep history of fire in human development and basic safety considerations related to the immediate environment. The workshop begins with an introduction to the making and use of tinder (cotton wool, charcloth, unpicked sisal rope), and then moves to a few guaranteed methods of fire starting (lighter flint and cotton wool, 9V battery and steel wool).

Different methods of fire starting are covered, grouped by the form of energy used to generate the ignition conditions (kinetic, electrical, light, chemical). Beginning with easy, proven fire starting techniques that participants can implement with little practice and effort, increasingly difficult methods are described and demonstrated, with the final 30-40 min of the workshop given over to individual attempts at these challenging techniques.

Materials

Each participant kit contains the following (see Production Notes below for preparation of these items):

1 emptied disposable cigarette lighter (used as a flint)
1 cotton ball
100mm of about 3mm diameter sisal or hemp rope
1m of 3-4mm paracord (with sealed end), or similar thin rope
1 100mm x 30mm swatch of steel wool (medium grade is fine)
1 A6 piece of paper
1 9V battery (with both terminals on the top)
1 approx 300 mm length of 12mm pine dowel, shaped as a bow drill stick
1 small block (about 75 x 50mm) of scrap wood or MDF, prepared as a bow drill socket
1 300mm length of approx 100 x 24mm pine, prepared as a hearth board
1 1.2m bamboo stake (at least 1cm diameter if possible), prepared as a drill bow
1 workshop booklet

Each Workshop group also requires the following:

1 250 x 250mm fibre cement fireproof mat for each participant
a shallow tin with a close fitting lid that has a small hole punched in the top as a container for maikng charcloth
a few handfuls of 50mm square pieces of 100% cotton fabric for making into charcloth (knitted material is best)
a few old steel files
a selection of broken quartz, granite or other hard stone, in pieces comfortable to hold in the hand
a few torches (min 50mm diameter reflector, larger is better)
roll of cling wrap
a few clear plastic disposable water bottles (and water to fill them)
aluminium polishing compound, and rags or chux
several clean, empty aluminium drink cans
a cordless electric drill
fire safety equipment (fire blanket, extinguisher)

Optional accessories:

demonstration example of a fire piston
demonstration model of fire drill
samples (a few m) of ethically sourced grass tree (Xanthorrhoea spp.) dead flower stem (20mm diameter or more if possible)

Tools

Cordless drill
gas camping stove for making charcloth

The following are handy to have on hand for repairs and adjustments:

craft knife
extra batteries for the cordless drill
matches or lighter to seal the ends of the bow drill cord

Instructions

Each participant receives a workshop kit which contains a booklet with instructions for all the common activities they will attempt, and a few that will be available as optional activities for those keen enough.

This workshop is best when activities begin with guaranteed success for the participant, and therefore the sequence of activities below does not follow the historical sequence in the booklet (which can be found as an editable word doc here: 13_ways_final.docx and in a printable pdf form here: 13_ways_to_start_a_fire_booklet_v3_singles.pdf)

Step One: Anthropology

Begin with a discussion of the archaeological and anthropological evidence of human fire management (see booklet). Additional information can be found at http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/1696/20150164 and https://www.thoughtco.com/the-discovery-of-fire-169517.

Step Two: Tinder

The preparation and use of tinder is essential to all the methods described. Participant kits include cotton wool, natural fibre twine and charcloth as examples of useful tinder, and a demonstration of making charcloth is a good initial activity.

prepare raw material by cutting 100% cotton fabric into squares of about 50mm. Knitted cotton (t-shirt material) works well, and avoid black if possible
prepare a small, shallow tin with a close fitting lid by punching a small hole in the top with a nail
place several squares of material in the tin, push the lid on, and place it on a gas burner (or in a nest of hot coals).
white smoke will soon begin to emerge from the hole (this is mainly steam and some ash from the material inside)
when the smoke has ceased (5-7min), remove from heat (or turn off the gas flame)
allow to cool completely
remove the lid, and the material inside should be black, dry and brittle: this is the charcloth.
teasing the charcloth into threads or small pieces makes it more flammable.

Charcloth has a low ignition temperature, and burns slowly. Usually no flame is produced, and the material burns as a glowing ember. The burning charcloth needs to be placed on another tinder layer (cotton wool, unraveled twine) to create flames. Blow on the glowing ember, or better yet, fan air onto the parcel to make a burning bundle that can then be used to light a fire. Note that blowing onto a glowing coal has the disadvantage of the moisture present in expelled breath reducing ignition (which is why fanning works better).

Step Three: Flint and Steel

Using a lighter flint to ignite cotton wool.

tear off a small piece of the cotton ball, and tease it apart to make a nest of tinder
place the cotton wool on the heatproof mat, and direct sparks from the lighter flint onto the tinder
eventually, ignition will occur
placing another heatproof mat on top of the burning tinder will extinguish the flames if required

The cotton wool can be enclosed in a tangle of untwisted twine to make a larger tinder pile.

The 'flint' in the lighter is actually an alloy called ferrocerium, which contains iron, cerium and other rare earth metals. This material has an ignition temperature of about 170C, which is reached when small fragments are physically shaved from the 'flint' by the striker. More information can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrocerium.
Traditional methods using natural stone and hard steel are much more difficult, but this is a technique that participants can try using the files and rocks.

Step Four: Electricity

Using a battery and steel wool.

tease apart a piece of medium grade steel wool, about 150 x 15mm, (smaller pieces will work, but may burn out faster)
remove protective caps from the terminals of a 9V battery (easiest to use a battery with both terminals on the same side)
prepare a nest of teased cotton wool or twine on the heatproof mat, and poke the steel wool into it
apply both terminals of the battery to the steel wool, and it will glow and burn, setting the tinder alight

Electricity passing through the thin wires of the steel wool encounters resistance, and this causes the wire to heat up. Note that the thicker the wire, the less resistance, so steel wool works best. Copper wire conducts with little resistance, and so is not suitable for this experiment.

An extension of this technique uses paper covered alfoil (such as found wrapped around sticks of chewing gum, or other confectionery). The wrapper is twisted once or twice in the middle, and the exposed foil ends placed in contact with the terminals. Beware of the paper catching alight while in the hand.

Step Five: Sunlight

Using sunlight and a torch reflector.

unscrew the reflector from your torch, and remove the bulb if necessary
fold a piece of paper or tinder so that it fits through the hole at the centre of the reflector
holding the fuel in place so it sits where the bulb was, aim the reflector at the sun
adjust until the sharpest concentration of light appears on the fuel (sunglasses might help here)
hold steady until the fuel bursts into flame

A torch reflector works by capturing the light spreading in all directions from the bulb, and reflecting the light along parallel paths to create a beam of light. By aiming the reflector at the light coming from the sun, it works in reverse: the sunlight is reflected onto a single spot, where the bulb was mounted. Provided the reflector is large enough, and the apparatus is held steady, the concentrated energy from the sunlight will ignite the tinder.

Other methods can use similar lensing effects to concentrate sunlight and ignite tinder: the curved top of a clear plastic water bottle; a spherical, water filled balloon of clingwrap and the polished base of an aluminium can. All of these methods create a much less efficient reflector or lens than a torch, so are more difficult to deploy. Patience, a steady hand, and attention to positioning so that the most concentrated spot results are all important. Using a piece of paper that is black, rather than white (such as newsprint text) may help.

Step Six: Friction

Using a bow drill (This takes a while, and demonstrating the effect using a drill stick in an electric drill can make the demonstration more effective initially).

prepare the bow by threading a 1m length of 3mm cord through the pre-drilled holes on the bamboo drill bow provided. Push the cord through the hole, and tie a knot in the end to anchor it, then do the same with the other end.
ensure the cord is not too tight as it needs to have enough slack to make a twist around the drill stick. Adjust by retying the knot if necessary.
place a hearthboard on the ground, parallel to the direction of the bow. The hearthboard has prepared start holes (complete with a v-shaped notch to allow sawdust to build up outside the drilled hole).
put something below the notch (a leaf, piece of paper or bark) to catch the sawdust that will result, and to allow you to move the ember when it forms.

Drill Stick (15mm diameter minimum)

twist the drill stick into the bowstring, making sure the bow ends up on the opposite side to your body (the pointed end goes UP).

Socket (block with a shallow dimple in the centre)

The purpose of a socket is to reduce friction in the hand, and harder materials (such as bone or metal) are sometimes used. Hold the socket in your non-dominant hand, and centre the pointed end of the drill stick into the dimple pre-drilled in the socket.
place the blunt end of the drill stick into a hearthboard hole. Push down on the socket to steady the drill stick as vertically as possible and rapidly saw the bow back and forth.
if the drill stick does not rotate, you will need to tighten the bow string (some adjustment can be done by holding the bow string against the bow with your dominant hand)
after a few minutes drilling, smoke should emerge, but keep drilling. Remember to breathe fresh air!
when dense clouds of smoke are coming from the drill stick, and a good pile of sawdust is visible, stop drilling, and see if smoke continues to come from the pile of sawdust. If not, resume drilling with more vigour.
when the sawdust (also known as punk) continues to smoke when drilling stops, fan or blow gently on the pile and a glowing ember should be seen
transfer the ember to a pile of tinder, continue fanning or blowing, and flames should result.

Making the glowing ember takes longer than you think, as it requires enough friction to reach the ignition temperature, as well as to generate a big enough pile of sawdust to act as fuel. It is common for the drill stick to make a hole right through the hearthboard if this is too thin (a hearthboard 20-30mm thick works better, but something 12 - 20mm thick can work too). If a hole is made, move the hearthboard along so another dimple lines up with the growing pile of sawdust, and continue drilling.

Other techniques using friction can also be made available for participants, like a pump drill, fire plough and a hand drill (this works with the right wood - Xanthorrhoea flower stem works well, especially if thick enough (15 - 20mm is ideal)). All these techniques take longer, and require their own particular skills.

Step Seven: Pressure

Using a fire piston

This is best prepared earlier, and supplied as a demonstration, since manufacture requires tools and materials not included in the workshop kit.

place some tinder in the notch in the end of the piston
insert the piston into the cylinder, and place on a stable flat surface
strike downwards forcefully, pushing the piston into the cylinder
remove the piston, and the tinder should be alight. If not, try again.

Making a successful piston relies on a very good seal (it must be airtight) between the piston and cylinder. Adding some grease or vaseline to the o-ring or twine used to seal the piston helps.

Step Eight: Chemical

These methods are almost guaranteed to work, and serve as a good finale to the facilitator led part of the workshop.

Using chemicals: Condy's Crystals and Glycerol (easy and guaranteed)

place a heatproof mat on the ground
place 1 -2 teaspoons of potassium permanganate in the centre of the mat
add a few drops of glycerol (up to 1mL)
stand clear until purple smoke and flames appear (this is a delayed reaction, and it may take 15 - 60 seconds for ignition to occur)
the materials will leave a solid crust on the mat, which can be brushed off when cool. Products are not toxic, but the smoke may be irritating, so ensure adequate ventilation.

Using chemicals: Condy's crystals and white sugar (easy but less certain - practise is advised)

place a heatproof mat on the ground
place a couple of teaspoons of potassium permanganate crystals in the centre of the mat
add an equal amount of white sugar
mix thoroughly, and apply pressure (grind as if using a mortar in a pestle)
spontaneous and vigorous combustion should result

Ask participants if any suffer respiratory sensitivities, and advise that irritating smoke will be produced during this activity. Have a means of extinguishing the fire on hand, since this method produce vigorous burning, and will be influenced by the quantity of materials used.

Step Nine: Free for All

In the final stage of the workshop, allow participants to try whatever variety of techniques you have available.

Troubleshooting

Safety

Remember to advise participants to keep a clear workspace, model the extinguishing of fires using a heatproof mat, and ensure hair, papers and other potential fuels are kept clear of the work area. Work outside if you can, especially when the free-for-all might involve 15 people vigorously bowing their drills.

Tinder

Making charcloth works better if the pieces of fabric are not packed too tightly into the tin. Pieces about 50mm square are about right. If the 'cooking' goes on for too long, the charcloth will become brittle and crunchy - it is better if the material can be teased apart to expose individual threads - so make sure the container is removed from the heat as soon as the smoke ceases to be produced.

Flint and Steel

The cigarette lighter flints are almost always successful. If not, ensure the cotton wool tinder is well dispersed (allowing more oxygen to enter), and adjust the aim to direct sparks directly onto the tinder.

Using a file and hard rock is much harder - a substantial force is required to shave hot metal from the file, and sparks are often meagre. The sharp rock is held firmly, and the file needs to strike the edge at an angle of 20-30 degrees. Holding a piece of tinder in the same hand as the rock can help catch the brief sparks.

Battery methods

The 9V battery will work consistently, though a 1.5V battery (like a AA) will not have enough energy to work. If two 1.5V batteries are joined in series (+ to -) and held together with some tape, there may be enough power to set the steel wool alight.

Be aware that the battery will get hot during this process.

Cover the battery terminals to prevent short circuits during transport

Sunlight

The torch reflector needs to be clean to be effective. In some designs, the lens over the reflector cannot be removed, and while it will still work, smoke fills the cavity making repeated use difficult.

Plastic bottles and clingwrap are very difficult, since getting a sharp focus is not always possible. Try different shaped bottles, and avoid water dripping from the clingwrap onto the tinder.

Use commercial aluminium polishing compound and a soft cloth (chux works well) to shine the can to a mirror finish. Coarse grits (or steel wool) can be used to start, but they will leave scratches that make this method fail. Again, finding a sharp focus point requires patience and some skill.

Friction

The type of wood used makes a difference. Dry pine (eg: pallet timber) or western red cedar works, but hardwoods should be avoided (especially for the hearthboard). Timber with too much resin (seen in distinct dark rings or veins) is not a good choice. Damp wood (or air) also makes this technique fail. Be sure to have a nest of tinder available before starting.

If the drill stick becomes glazed, friction will be reduced. You can try cutting a x-shaped notch in the end of the stick, but this probably means one of the types of wood being used is inappropriate.

The drill stick needs to be at least 15mm diameter to be effective. Thinner material will smoke, but will not produce enough sawdust for ignition to occur. Because friction is desired, using dowel with a smooth circumference is better (grooved dowel may not work). Natural woods can be substituted, but straight pieces are required so that the drilling is easily controlled (and remove the bark).

The purpose of the socket is to reduce friction in the hand, and harder materials (such as bone or metal) are sometimes used. Adding some lubricant here (grease, vaseline , oil or even saliva) can be of assistance. The socket wood can be of a different (maybe harder) variety.

During drilling, more downward pressure at the beginning will maximize the production of sawdust. Less pressure and faster speeds can be used later, to maximize friction.

Making a demonstration pump drill would be a good addition. If you wish to have a demonstration fire plough on hand, the literature suggests that having a plough stick made from harder wood than the hearthboard works best. The plough stick needs to be at least 15-20mm diameter, and about 600 to 800 mm long. The plough hearthboard needs to be long enough for the operator to sit on one end to hold it steady.

Pressure

Consider purchase of a commercial fire piston to increase the chances of success. If you intend to make one, remember that the pressure generated may be high enough to shatter the cylinder (acrylic should be avoided - thick wood or metal work, as does high pressure PVC pipe).

Chemical

Gently grinding the potassium permanganate crystals before use to make a finer powder will ensure a more prompt result (don't be too vigorous, though, since this is an unstable chemical). Practice this technique so that you can get a sense of the time delay before ignition. If no flames occur, adding a bit more glycerol can sometimes get the fire going, but do not linger in the area because the extra fluid might have an immediate reaction. Disposal of the products is best as a dry material, into the landfill waste stream. The sugar variation is more difficult, and practice is definitely required for any guarantee of success.

References

There are lots of websites with pictorial guides to many of these methods, and some further insights may be gained from the research material collected here:13_ways_to_start_a_fire_techniques.docx.

Production notes

Instructions

Original artwork for the pictures in the booklet are here: 13ways_ai_files.zip

1. Feedback:

Solution:

2. Feedback:

Solution:

3. Feedback:

Solution:

4. Other observations:

References

Files

99 everyday homes for Queenslanders wood cuts

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 16:25:49 +0000

99 everyday homes for Queenslanders wood cuts

Checkout the original catalogue by Home Building Publishing Company; 1939

99 everyday homes for Queenslanders

Paint a Mini Queenslander

We have laser cut many of these designs as miniature woodcuts that you can paint and use as magnets, keychains and more. Drop by Open lab at The Edge and ask about painting one to take home for free, using our paint pens and plywood lasercut house designs.

Ask Open lab supervisors about adding a hole to your lasercut before painting if you would like a keychain, or ask for magnets and appropriate glue if you would like to take home a magnet.

Library of vectorised designs

If a design is missing numerically, it was because we were unable to get a trace of the design from the catalogue (or we haven't finished vectorising them all yet).

Image	Name	Design File
	Design 1	Design1_99home
	Design 2	Design2_99home
	Design 3	Design3_99home
	Design 4	Design4_99home
	Design 5	Design5_99home
	Design 6	Design6_99home
	Design 7	Untraceable
	Design 8	Design8_99home
	Design 9	Design9_99home
	Design 10	Design10_99home
	Design 11	Design11_99home
	Design 12	Design12_99home
	Design 13	Untraceable
	Design 14	Design14_99home
	Design 16	Design16_99home
	Design 18	Design18_99home
	Design 19	Design19_99home
	Design 22	Design22_99home
	Design 23	Design23_99home
	Design 26	Design26_99home
	Design 28	Design28_99home
	Design 29	Untraceable
	Design 30	Design30_99home
	Design 34	Design34_99home
	Design 35	Design35_99home
	Design 36	Design36_99home
	Design 37	Design37_99home
	Design 38	Design38_99home
	Design 41	Untraceable
	Design 49	Design49_99home
	Design 50	Untraceable
	Design 56	Design56_99home
	Design 57	Untraceable
	Design 61	Design61_99home
	Design 64	Untraceable
	Design 68	Design68_99home
	Design 76	Design76 _99home
	Design 81	Design81_99home
	Design 82	Untraceable
	Design 85	Untraceable
	Design 87	Design87_99home
	Design 89	Design89_99home
	Design 93	Untraceable
	Design 95	Untraceable
	Design 96	Design96_99home
	Design 99	Untraceable
	Extra Design page 121	Extra Design Page121_99home

101 - Introduction to Blender

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 17:15:10 +0000

101 - Introduction to Blender

Workshop presentation

Some pages may link to other online workshops, tutorials or guides created at The Edge, you may require the internet to connect and view links.

Admin view

Public view

Resources

https://www.giudansky.com/illustration/infographics/blender-map

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nachazo/blender-cheat-sheet/main/blender-cheat-sheet.png

https://youtu.be/7TUahRas-Ec?si=zXFFc4LRMC3ntond

101 - Intro to 360 Film

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 23 May 2024 15:28:37 +0000

101 - Intro to 360 Film

Slides - Admin view

PDF - 101_-_intro_to_360_filming.pdf

Resources

Insta360 ONE X2 webpage

Insta360 ONE X2 online manual

Insta360 ONE RS webpage

Insta360 ONE RS online manual

Workshop prep notes

Ensure IPads have Insta360 installed
Ensure 360 Cameras are charged
Test connect IPad app to camera
Ensure the right devices are connected to the cameras

101 - Arduino Introduction

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 10:32:08 +0000

101 - Arduino Introduction

This intro to Arduino uses a LED matrix to show how to connect and use existing libraries to create fun projects without too much coding and wiring.

Redevelopment by Meg White March 2025 based around programming created by Michelle Brown and Peter Lin, September 2022.

Workshop Presentation

This workshop has been created into a slide show for presentation and documentation purposes. Please feel free to download and use the guide and files as per our CC license in the footnote.

Some pages may link to other online workshops, tutorials or guides created at The Edge, you may require internet to connect and view links.

Admin view - Slides

Public View - PDF

Arduino IDE Cheat Sheet

Acknowledgement

Summary

Participants will learn about the Arduino IDE program and connecting an Arduino Nano and a programmable 8×8 LED Matrix display.

Skills Introduced

Overview of circuit and components
Assembling components
Using the Arduino IDE and basic coding

Materials

Material	Quantity	Cost	Notes
Arduino Nano V3.0 Board	10	$13.48
USB cable (included with Nano)	10	$0.00
MAX7219 Serial Dot Matrix Display Module	10	$9.05	Link
Small 1.2“ 8×8 Ultra Bright White LED Matrix + Backpack	Alternative	$13.50	Link	Various colours available
Solderless Breadboard	10	$4.36
Solderless Breadboard Jumper Cable Wires (10 x 10)	50	$0.80
	Total	$27.69

Requirements

Computer with USB A port or adaptor
Arduino IDE program installed

Health & Safety

Running this workshop at The Edge?.. You should familiarise yourself and your participants with:

DML Risk Assessment

Workshop Walk through

What is a microcontroller?

A microcontroller (or MCU for microcontroller unit) is a small computer on a single integrated circuit.

one or more CPUs (processor cores)
memory
programmable input/output peripherals
can be mixed signal devices interacting with
- digital signals
- analogue signals

Why use an MCU?

Microcontrollers are small, low powered and robust, making them perfect for embedded systems such as:

medical devices
remote controls
office machines
appliances
power tools
toys
wearable technology

What is Arduino?

Arduino is an open source computer hardware and software organisation, project, and user community ¹⁾

The hardware is based on the Amtel 8-bit AVR MCU
The software uses the Processing IDE, with a simplified version of the Java programming language
Open source has led to the creation of a huge range of
- clones
- compatible devices
- peripherals
A strong community means
- “Someone, Somewhere has solved the problem”
- we can run this workshop using and adapting existing resources.

Basic circuitry

Example diagram

Step 1

Downloading or checking our software is installed and up to date. We an install updates to our software on the DML (Digital Media Lab) computers, it just won't save the update when the computers are restarted.

Arduino IDE

Open Arduino IDE, it will automatically open a blank code base document for you.

Connect the Arduino Nano with the blue USB cable provided.

Do a Blink test by navigating to the File menu>Examples>0.1 Basics>Blink

Step 2

Components

What are breadboards?

A breadboard (sometimes called a plugblock) is used for building temporary circuits. It is useful to designers because it allows components to be removed and replaced easily.

What connectors and cables do we use for basic electronics?

In this workshop we are using Solderless Breadboard Jumper Cable Wires so we don't have to do any soldering.

Connecting cables, what you need to know (pins, ground etc).

Let's put our kit together (explaining which cable goes where and why we need to know this for the programming)

Nano Pin

TX1.
RX0
RST
GND
D2
D3
D4
D5
D6
D7
D8
D9
D10	CS	Load
D11	CLK
D12	DIN	Data in
-	-	-
D13
303
REF
AV
A1
A2
A3
A4
A5
A6
A/
5V	VCC	5 volts
RST
GND	GND	Ground
VIN

Step 3

Downloading and adding libraries

For this we need LedControl library, so let's learn how to add a library.

Install LedControl Library

and can use the example “LCDemoMatrix.ino” to test our devices are working

Run Example Code

This should have our matrix working! If not, let's troubleshoot.

If you did get it working, try some of the other example library code.

References

https://xantorohara.github.io/led-matrix-editor/

Downloads

https://www.arduino.cc/en/software

Additional Learning

Take a look at our Arduino 101 - Coding workshop

Or other past projects:

Deskduino Project

Badgeduino Project

¹⁾

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino

Augmented Reality 101

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 18:05:55 +0000

Augmented Reality 101

Acknowledgement

Workshop presentation

The Augmented Reality 101 workshop has been created into a slide show for presentation and documentation purposes. Please feel free to download and use the guide and files as per our CC license in the footnote.

Some pages may link to other online workshops, tutorials or guides created at The Edge, you may require the internet to connect and view links.

101_-_intro_to_augmented_reality.pdf |Public view - Slides}}

Admin view - Slides

Workshop resources

For our poster animation we are going to use one of The Queenslander magazine covers from the State Library collection.

queenslanderanimated_april1937.psd.zip

Resources

https://www.pinterest.com.au/Thebadlament/augmented-reality-art/

https://wiki.slq.qld.gov.au/doku.php?id=workshops:prototypes:facefilters

https://wiki.slq.qld.gov.au/doku.php?id=workshops:public:augmentedreality:start

https://wiki.slq.qld.gov.au/doku.php?id=engagement:flyingarts:artiz2021:arfilters

Designing the Digital

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 05 Jun 2020 12:11:32 +0000

Designing the Digital

Developed by Greg Le Sueur in Nov 2017.

Summary

In this ideation and prototyping session we’ll use Design Thinking principles and processes to research, design, mock-up, and test an app (or website) using Marvel. Through the process we’ll cover:

User research
Defining the problem/opportunity
Ideating a solution
Prototyping the solution using Marvel
Testing the solution with other participants to validate if it solves the problem

At the end of the workshop, you’ll leave with a tested prototype and the knowledge of how to recognise opportunities, ideate solutions, and validate them using Design thinking, which you can apply to future endeavours.

If you attended Prototyping the Digital, this Design Thinking workshop would be your next step, although it’s not a prerequisite.

Materials

Slides (pdf)

Digital and You- Woorabinda Workshops

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 18:07:20 +0000

Digital and You- Woorabinda Workshops

With Mick Byrne

Digital Design & Prototyping

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 05 Jun 2020 12:31:54 +0000

Digital Design & Prototyping

Designing the Digital

Use Design Thinking principles and processes to research, design, mock-up, and test an app (or website) using Marvel. First in a series of 3 workshop sessions.

Prototyping the Digital

Learn some of the key principles and processes you can use when getting a new digital product off the ground. Second in a series of 3 workshop sessions.

Prototyping the Physical

Learn some of the key principles and processes you can use when getting a new digital product off the ground. Third in a series of 3 workshop sessions.

Prototyping the Digital

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 02 Jun 2020 13:38:25 +0000

Prototyping the Digital

Developed by Greg le Sueur in Sep 2017.

Summary

Got an idea for a new digital product or app? There are a couple of key principles and processes you can use when getting a new digital product off the ground. In this workshop participants will get some insight into the processes and tools professional designers use when planning, building, and testing a prototype for a new app or digital product.

Materials

101 - Intro to DSLRs

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 02 Oct 2025 10:02:16 +0000

101 - Intro to DSLRs

Developed by Waldemar Janek, 2024 Reveloped by Carla Zimbler 2025

Workshop presentation

The 101 - Intro to DSLRs workshop has been created into a slide show for presentation and documentation purposes. Please feel free to download and use the guide and files as per our CC license in the footnote.

Some pages may link to other online workshops, tutorials or guides created at The Edge, you may require internet to connect and view links.

Public view - Slides

Admin view - Slides

Accessories Available

Manfrotto Befree Tripod
The Godox V860iii Speedlite Flash
LED Lighting Kit

Additional Resources

https://www.canon.com.au/get-inspired/glossary

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/graphics/pictures-of-the-year-2024

Early Animation Technology

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 15 Feb 2025 13:23:04 +0000

Early Animation Technology

Workshop presentation

This workshop has been created into a slide show for presentation and documentation purposes. Please feel free to download and use the guide and files as per our CC license in the footnote.

Some pages may link to other online workshops, tutorials or guides created at The Edge, you may require internet to connect and view links.

Public view - Powerpoint Slides

Public view - PDF Slides

Admin view - Slides

Admin view - Session plan

Animation templates and examples

During the workshop to show the basic frame by frame animation process, we have created an example using one of the State Library's collection resources. We have chosen one of The Queenslander illustrated cover images as it is a good example of how to remove a basic background and manipulate the image to separate the ball from the person and make it bounce across the 16 frames.

Link to the Illustrated front cover from The Queenslander, October 15, 1936

Download the medium quality JPEG version (about 5MB)

GIF Animation Template

Basketball Photoshop GIF layers PSD file

Horse and Rider Photoshop GIF layers PSD file

Unzip to open file with Photoshop.

Zoetrope Animation Templates

Our Zoetrope inner ring circumference is about 40cm in length, this fits to an A3 printed piece of paper and the templates below sized for The Edge's 3D printed model;

16 Frame Zoetrope blank template A3

16 Frame Zoetrope Basketball Girl A3 PDF

16 Frame Zoetrope Basketball Girl PSD file

Unzip to open file with Photoshop.

Phenakistiscope Animation Templates

Current working template size A4 print

PDF Basketball Girl A4 print

PDF Basketball Girl A4 Print no border

PDF Horse Gallop A4 print

Unzip to open file with Photoshop.

Zoetrope 3D print files

Original small version of Zoetrope

zoetrope_01c_inner.stl

zoetrope_01c_main.stl

SLQ version of Zoetrope

Inner ring - Zoetrope inner ring

Outer ring (body) - Zoetrope outer ring

Food Automata

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 05 Jun 2020 12:21:10 +0000

Food Automata

External

This workshop was developed by Peter Musk in 2015 and delivered as a TryIt.

Simple automata using basic machines are created from cheap foodstuffs and hot glue.

summary

Automata are devices with simple moving parts. The movement is usually created by turning a crank. The mechanism driving the motion may be hidden or exposed (as in these examples), and the moving parts are often designed with some artistic elements, with the movement implying a narrative (eg: a simple up and down movement can be used to animate a woodcutter chopping a log).

The advantage of using food as a construction material is that it is cheap and familiar. The disadvantage is that the construction materials are often not uniform, and some physical adjustments are often required for effective actions.

Complete documentation has not been developed, but illustrated workshop guides are available.

workshop materials

Physical materials

Materials and tools required are listed in this document: food_automata_workshop_materials.docx

Stimulus materials

The following file contains several You-Tube clips of modern and ancient automata that were used at the start of the workshop to introduce basic concepts. automata_clips.zip

A powerpoint presentation introducing simple machines was also used: simple_machines.zip

Instructions

Workshop #1

A construction guide for a device which spins (using two perpendicular cogs): edible_automata_construction_guide_1_handout.doc

Workshop #2

A construction guide for a device that rotates, and jumps (usng a cam and follower): edible_automata_construction_guide_2_handout.docx

Workshop #3

A construction guide for a device that produces a rocking motion (using linkages and an offset push rod): edible_automata_construction_guide_3_handout.doc

Evaluation

The first two workshops worked well, but #3 was technically challenging and took much longer that the allocated 2 hours.

Some effort was put to finding an edible glue (Royal Icing was tried, but took too long to harden), but with no success.

Take care to provide skewers that will fit inside the macaroni guides (not all macaroni is the same), and search through your pasta to find relatively straight pieces for best effect.

Cruskits work better than rice crackers (which suffer from too coarse a grain). Less brittle materials also work better when shaping is required (hence the gingernuts).

Food materials may need to be checked for freshness before use - biscuits particularly will become soft through exposure to the air, and will crumble rather than carve.

101 - AR Face Filters

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 11:31:46 +0000

101 - AR Face Filters

Developed by Michelle Brown

Acknowledgement

Summary

In this workshop you will design and create your very own Instagram and Facebook filter! Use it as a creative and engaging promotional tool or just for fun for you and your friends.

Skills Introduced

Design thinking
Basic graphic editing skills
An understanding of Augmented Reality as a technology
Introduction to the computer program Spark AR

Tools

Computer
Spark AR program
Smart phone
Facebook/Instagram account
Possibly a smart phone connection cable

Introduction to AR

What is Augmented Reality?

Let's take a look at a basic rundown of the technology and use cases plus equipment that can be used.

Augmented Reality

Introduction to AR Face Filters

Social filters and lenses have become very popular in recent years, with Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook all including the option to augment yourself and environment through videos and photos.

It has become not only a terrific way for digital (and traditional) artists to not only compliment their practice, but also make a great income from creating filters. Because many of the other augmented reality options can be quite costly for hosting and creating apps or using third-party apps, and AR glasses are still in early days and expensive, using Spark AR (Facebook) or Lens Studio (Snapchat) which are free and have lots of community creators and tutorials.

Because we always want to highlight the good and the bad with any new technology, it is important to note that there has been some research into the problems of social media and beauty standards and body dysmorphia in young people. So we feel it's important to note that the workshops we run will not usually cover any of the body/face manipulation aspects.

Let's Get Started

Computer account set up

Let's make sure our computers are turned on and logged in.
Navigate to a web browser (Chrome/Friefox/Safari, doesn't matter) and we'll open this Wiki page so everyone can follow along with the steps in case you get lost, or you can refer back to this page at a later date as a refresher.
The program we are using today is Spark AR, let's make sure we can open that program on our computers, navigate to the Windows menu if you're on one of The Edge computers, and type Spark and it should come up for you to click on and open. If it asks you to login and connect Instagram/Facebook accounts then do that now, otherwise we will do that at a later stage.

If you are following along with this workshop from home, visit here to download - https://sparkar.facebook.com/ar-studio/download/

Once downloaded install the app and follow prompts, including logging into the Facebook and linked Instagram account that you would like the filter to be available through.

Designing our filter

Let's have a think about the theme we would like to use, do you want the face filter to cover your entire face? Or stickers on the cheeks? For this workshop session, we'll show you how to use a pineapple as cheek stickers along with the half skull image for the full face, but as you will see as we go through step by step, you can use the same method for any 2D face attachments.

2D image sourcing

During today's workshop we won't have much time to draw and design our own 2D image, so we'll be using images sourced from the State Library Collection or online that allows for Creative Commons use (https://creativecommons.org/

SLQ Collection items

Let's open the One Search catalogue to search the SLQ collection - http://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/primo-explore/search?vid=SLQ

https://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryqueensland

Free online resources

There are a few websites that you can visit to download free images for use, even though we aren't selling or making money from our face filters, we still need to be mindful of what images we use and copyright.

Here are a couple of popular sites we use regularly;

Pixabay - https://pixabay.com/vectors/

Provides options for - Free for commercial use, No attribution required

Archive.org - https://archive.org/

One of the best resources available, a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.

Editing your image

If we grab a free PNG image (with a transparent background) then we shouldn't need to do any editing before importing it into the Spark AR program to use, but if you choose a more complex image that you want to just grab one part of, you will need to use software to edit. Take a look at some of our online Photoshop intro workshops.

Once you have downloaded the image you want to use, we will choose an image editing software to get the face placement right for use in Spark AR.

Photoshop

Need an account.

GIMP

Free and Open Source.

Example Assets

https://pixabay.com/vectors/pineapple-fruit-food-tropical-5985740/

Right click images to download;

halfskullfacel.png

halfskullface.png

Using the Face Mesh template

Before we get to building our filter in Spark AR, we need to download some additional resources to help us with the placement of images on our face.

Face Reference Assets

The Face Reference Assets are a collection of textures and 3D objects that we use when creating face effects in Spark AR Studio.

A folder of the assets are available for download - Download Face Reference Assets

If you download the folder and unzip it (extract compressed on Windows), you will see the folders Mesh and Textures. Mesh is mainly for 3D assets and filters, Textures are what we use for building 2D.

If you are using Photoshop then there is also a handy Photoshop file that has the different textures as layers and one I like to use to set up my texture, you can also import this into Gimp and this is the file we will use today - download that here

For further reference we can check out Spark AR's guide to using these here - https://sparkar.facebook.com/ar-studio/learn/articles/people-tracking/face-reference-assets#whats-included-in-the-face-reference-assets

Bring in your image

In Photoshop go to File>Place embedded and choose your pineapple/skull face/own design so it import in on its own layer.

You can see that the blue tiger face image is still visible, so let's turn that off by clicking on the eye icon on the layer. We should then only see the 'face feminine' layer as visible along with our pineapple.

Place your image

We then want to scale and move our pineapple into the cheek position (or elsewhere on the face you would like it to show) and we can duplicate and arrange till we like the look of our placement. You can switch back and forth between the feminie and masculine templates to make sure the placement works for both.

Export your image

Now that we know our face stickers are in a good position, we can turn off the template layers (click the eye icon) and export as a PNG file with the background transparency.

Making our filter

Now that we have our image we would like to use for our filter, we'll open Spark AR and learn how to use a Face Mesh and attach our image.

Spark AR

We already opened Spark AR and logged in during earlier in the session, but if you don't have the app open, find and open the program and login (or ask the facilitator to login if you don't have a Facebook account).

Once opened, you should see a side bar of options including;

Create New
Learn
Recent projects
Open

Create new

We are going to choose the Create New and the Blank Project option. Once you choose that, your screen should look similar to the below.

Set up your preview camera

There are 2 options for viewing your filter in progress with the preview window (called User in Spark AR). You can choose a webcam attached to your computer or the Real-Time simulation option. If you are using our DML computers, we don't have webcams so we're going to use the simulation option and just test our filters on our phones.

Note - It's always good to check your filter on the different face models they provide, as skin colour can alter the look of your image and we want to make sure it looks good for everyone.

Import our image

Once our camera preview is set up let's move to the next step of importing our image. In the assets window of Spark AR, click on the + sign at the bottom of the window and navigate to where you saved your PNG export, downloads folder or desktop.

When that is imported in should show up under Textures in the Assets window.

Adding a face tracker

The face tracker detects the position and orientation of the face of the person using your effect. It's the basis of any effect that responds to someone's face. To add a face tracker we can navigate to the Scene window in SparkAR and click on the + sign, search Face Tracker if it doesn't show up in the list and choose insert.

Once you have added that you should see it in your Scene window under the Camera>Focal Distance.

Adding a face mesh

The face mesh is a 3D model that responds to facial expressions detected by the face tracker. You'll apply materials to the face mesh to create the mask effect.

We need to add the face mesh as a 'child' of the Face Tracker - this means it will sit under the face tracker and any changes we make to it will effect the face mesh.

Just like how you added the face tracker, navigate to the plus sign and search face mesh and insert, this should show up as a checkerboard (black and white) in the camera view. It should like like this in the Scene window.

Creating a Material

While we have our faceMesh0 selected, we can see on the right hand side of the program the Properties window. In here there is an option to add Materials. Click on the + sign to create a new material.

This will create a new blank material that will show up as grey, like the below.

Renaming objects and assets as they are created will help you to stay organized as you build your project. Simply right-click on the object in the Assets window and select Rename, let's call ours faceMaterial.

Shader Type

When we add a material in SparkAR we can also choose what type of shader it should display as, there are a few options including;

Flat
Standard
Face paint
Blended

For this workshop we will choose Flat, but you can come back to this and try the different options once we've added our texture.

Add our texture

Now we have the base for our material settings, we can add our imported texture. While you still have the faceMaterial selected, navigate to the Texture dropdown in the right hand side properties window and you should see the name of your texture in the list, choose it and you will see your face filter come to life!

MAKE SURE YOU SAVE YOUR PROJECT!

Testing our filter

Our filter might look great on the example simualtions, but we want to see how it will look on our phones and using our faces. This is where there are a couple of options available.

Navigate to the bottom left side of Spark AR where you can see a few different icons, if you hover over them you will see the options, we want to click on the phone icon 'Test on device'.

If an 'experience' hasn't been chosen, we will need to select one, click on Select Experience and then + Add Experience, select Sharing Experience from the 3 options.

Now when we go back to the Test on Device option, we can see the Preview in App option which allows us to send our test to Instagram or Facebook if we have our account connected.

References

https://sparkar.facebook.com/ar-studio/

Downloads

Spark AR

Spark AR Player

GIMP

iTunes

Textures;

Pineapple

Right click images to download;

halfskullfacel.png

halfskullface.png

Illustrator

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 05 Jun 2020 15:38:57 +0000

Illustrator

Redeveloped by Kat Johnston in Aug 2017.

Summary

Adobe Illustrator for beginners

Create and edit vector graphics (like illustrations and logos) in this Illustrator course for beginners.

In this 1.5 hour intro course we’ll start with the fundamentals:

A demonstration of the basic tools and functionality of Illustrator
Navigating around the interface
Setting up your own custom workspace
Key features and tools: layers, paths and (your new best friend) the pen tool

*Please bring along a USB to save your work

Creating custom designs with Adobe Illustrator

Take your graphic skills to the next level in this intermediate Illustrator course.

Over 4 hours we’ll dissect advanced tools and techniques covering:

Different ways to customise your artwork/designs
Tools such as: Blending, envelope distorting, meshing etc
Creating 3D objects & mapping artwork
Creative infographics
Perspective drawing
Image tracing

Requirements and prerequisites:

This is an intermediate course, and requires a solid understanding of Illustrator, its common tools and terminology. If you are new to Photoshop, please attend Adobe Illustrator for beginners first. Intro to Mac class or proficiency with the Mac operating system.

Workshop Outline 1

Introduction to Illustrator

Beginner Adobe Illustrator Users?
Have you experimented with it before?
What are you hoping to use it for?
What are you hoping to get out of today?

Workshop Outline

Understand vector vs raster
Document settings
Become familiar with the interface
Learn about layers
Grouping and ungrouping
Learn pen tool basics and create shapes
Add and adjust strokes
Add and adjust colours
Add basic text

Vector vs Raster

Vector images are rooted in mathematical theory. Lines and curves known as ‘paths’ are used to make up the design. It can be scaled infinitely. Vectors are great for logos, icons and illustrations.
Raster images are created using pixels. They do not scale well – if you zoom in, you will see each pixel. It is often used for photographs.

Vector images can be converted to raster if needed for publishing etc.

CMYK vs RGB colour spaces

CMYK is a subtractive colour model. It refers to the four inks generally used in printing (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black). If your artwork is to be printed, use CMYK.
RGB is an additive colour model. Red, green and blue light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colours on screens. If your artwork is to be displayed digitally, use RGB.

Let’s get started!

Open up Adobe Illustrator and create a New Document

Workshop Outline 2

Advanced Illustrator

Intermediate Adobe Illustrator Users?
How much have you done with Illustrator before?
What are you hoping to get out of today?

Workshop Outline

Review the pen tool, shape creation and layers
Use the rotate tool
Use the blend tool
Understand and use pathfinder
Create clipping masks
Using live trace to create artwork from an existing drawing or picture
Use live paint
Create a finished artwork using these tools

Let’s get started!

Open up Adobe Illustrator and create a New Document

Where to go for more info

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/user-guide.html https://www.lynda.com/ https://design.tutsplus.com/ Google (and Youtube) can be a great help too! Sometimes seeing it in action is more valuable than reading a tutorial.

Materials

Illustrator 1 Powerpoint - Added to this page for slide show
Illustrator 2 Powerpoint - Added to this page for slide show
Illustrator 1 Project Plan
Illustrator 2 Project Plan

101 - Adobe InDesign

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 16:02:26 +0000

101 - Adobe InDesign

Developed by Kat Johnston, 2025

Workshop presentation

This workshop has been created into a slide show for presentation and documentation purposes. Please feel free to download and use the guide and files as per our CC license in the footnote.

Some pages may link to other online workshops, tutorials or guides created at The Edge, you may require internet to connect and view links.

Admin slide View

Public slide view

101_-_indesign_with_resource_notes.pdf - this includes the full step-by-step in granular detail with more extensive notes than are presented on the slides alone.

Workshop Resources

indesign_workshop_resources.zip

my-zine_-_export_booklet_example.pdf

my-zine_-_print_to_booklet_example.pdf

101 - Vector Design with Inkscape

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 14:32:48 +0000

101 - Vector Design with Inkscape

Summary

Inkscape for beginners

Create and edit vector graphics (like illustrations, decals and logos) in this Inkscape course for beginners.

In this 1.5 hour intro course we’ll start with the fundamentals:

A demonstration of the basic tools and functionality of Inkscape
Navigating around the interface
Setting up your own custom workspace
Key features and tools: layers, paths, the pen tool and trace

*Please provide a USB to save your work

Public Workshop Slides

Staff Workshop Slides

Workshop Outline

Introduction to Inkscape

Do you know anything about Vector Graphics?
Have you experimented with Inkscape or similar programs before?
What are you hoping to use it for?
What are you hoping to get out of today?

Workshop Outline

Understand vector vs raster
Colour
Document settings
Become familiar with the interface
Learn about layers
Grouping and ungrouping
Learn pen tool basics and create shapes
Add and adjust strokes
Add and adjust colours
Add basic text
Learn how to use the Trace Bitmap tool
File types and cross compatibility (SVG, EPS, AI etc)

Resources

Let’s get started!

First we'll cover some basic digital design items.

Vector vs Raster

Vector images are rooted in mathematical theory. Lines and curves known as ‘paths’ are used to make up the design. It can be scaled infinitely. Vectors are great for logos, icons and illustrations.
Raster images are created using pixels. They do not scale well – if you zoom in, you will see each pixel. It is often used for photographs.

Vector images can be converted to raster if needed for publishing etc.

CMYK vs RGB colour spaces

CMYK is a subtractive colour model. It refers to the four inks generally used in printing (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black). If your artwork is to be printed, use CMYK.
RGB is an additive colour model. Red, green and blue light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colours on screens. If your artwork is to be displayed digitally, use RGB.

Please note, if you intend to use your vector graphic with the Edge Laser Cutter, you will need to work with RGB colour. For the Vinyl Cutter it doesn't matter.

File Formats

Vector Image File Formats

EPS Adobe's EPS format (Encapsulated PostScript) is perhaps the most common vector image format. It is the standard interchange format in the print industry. It is widely supported as an export format, but due to the complexity of the full format specification, not all programs that claim to support EPS are able to import all variants of it. Adobe Illustrator and recent versions of CorelDRAW have very good support for reading and writing EPS. Inkscape can only export it.

SVG The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web, the W3C standard vector image format is called SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics). Inkscape and recent versions of Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW have good support for reading and writing SVG. Further information on the SVG format may be found on the official SVG website.

PDF Adobe's PDF format (Portable Document Format) is very widely used as a general purpose platform-independent document format. And while it is not exclusively used as such, it is also a very good vector image format. Adobe Acrobat PDF reader is free, but to create or edit PDF files directly you need to pay (third party tools that perform the same task are also available). There are free options that let you save/export as a PDF using the Print option.

AI The native format of Adobe Illustrator is the AI format (Adobe Illustrator Artwork), a modified version of the older EPS format. The AI format is fairly widely supported, but is less available than the EPS format, and most programs that read AI can also read EPS.

DXF Drawing eXchange Format. A CAD format from Autodesk, used by CAD tools from many different vendors. Some programs have difficulty reading DXF files with splines (curves), so the Desktop Edition supports line+spline as well as line only output modes.

There are numerous other vector formats: CDR is the CorelDRAW native format and XAR is the Xara Xtreme native format, to name a couple.

Inkscape Interface

Document Set Up

On your computer open up Inkscape from your file/applications menu. It should automatically open a new template;

To check the document size and setup info, go to the File dropdown menu and choose 'Document Properties', change your set up from portrait to landscape for today's exercise;

Menus

Let's quickly go over what you will find in each of the drop down menu's;

FILE

EDIT

VIEW

LAYER

OBJECT

PATH

TEXT

FILTERS

EXTENSIONS

HELP

Interface Layout

There are a few different toolbars in Inkscape, we'll go over the default layout quickly.

Tool Controls

Tool Box

Command & Snap Bar

Colour Palette & Status Bar

To learn more about these and setting up your preferred interface, refer to the Inkscape manual, we want to get into the more practical side of our workshop now!

Videos

Video	Transcript
inkscape_addandmoveshapes2.mp4	Adding simple shapes often makes up the foundation of a graphic. To start, click on the rectangle tool on the left hand bar, then click and drag it to make a rectangle on your screen. You can hold down ctrl key and drag at roughly a 45* angle from your start point to force the rectangle to be a square. Similar with the oval tool, you can hold down control to force it to be a circle. You can also make pac-man shapes by changing the start an d end degrees of a circle. Holding down control while using the polygon tool snaps the corner you’re drawing out to an angle increment of 15 degrees, Which allows you to snap things to be vertical or horizontal. You can also change the number of corners of a polygon using this box. Once you have a shape you can move it by clicking the select icon and then clicking and dragging the object, and releasing it when you have it in a spot you like. When moving you can snap corners to other corners by hovering them near each other until this “corner to corner” tooltip appears. We can also resize our object using these arrows…. and we can click on the object again to bring up rotate… and skew tools. To de-select an object click somewhere that’s blank on the canvas
inkscape_colourandstyle2.mp4	To change the colour of a selected object we can click on a pre determined colour from this palette at the bottom of the screen but if we want to choose a colour that isn’t listed here, we need to open the fill and stroke tool from the object menu. The fill is the main colour of the shape. To change it click on the flat colour icon, and change the colour mode to Wheel. from here we can change the colour by clicking and dragging the little bar on the rainbow ring, and the circle within the triangle. We can also make the colour transparent using this alpha bar. If we want to give our object a gradient, we can do so using the linear gradient icon. We can also edit the gradient by clicking on this icon. From here we can change a colour in our gradient by clicking on the point and changing it using the wheel or a swatch. We can add more colours to our gradient by double clicking anywhere on the gradient line and editing that dot lie we did the beginning and end dots. We can also change the direction of the gradient by clicking and dragging these points at the end of the line When we are happy with our gradient click off our object to set it. We can add boarders to our objects. These are called Strokes. To add one, select your object Then head to the Stroke Paint menu and click the Flat colour icon. You can pick a colour for it here. You can change various aspects of the line in the stroke style menu, like the width… dashes…. and corner type. This allows you to really make objects look and feel your own.
inkscape_custom_shapes2.mp4	Sometimes you want a graphic you can’t find, and thankfully Inkscape offers a few ways to make your own. The simplest way is by using multiple primitive shapes to create more complex new ones, which you can do via various options listed under the Path menu You can combine shapes using union You can cut one shape from the another by selecting the one you want to keep, then shift-clicking the one you want to remove and using difference You can keep just the area that two shapes overlap using intersection Or just the bits they don’t overlap using exclusion You can also use one shape to cut parts of another shape So you can more or recolour segments of it using division. You can combine these methods to build up some pretty complex forms, but if you want even more flexibility it’s time to look at Bezier curves. With this tool you can draw straight lines by left clicking to form your first point, then clicking again to form your first line, and again to form another, connected line. You can also make curves by clicking and dragging a new point, then releasing your mouse when you like the curve. And you can close a shape by clicking the first point once more. You can also edit your shape using the node edit tool. We can now click on these points and move their handles. You’ll notice we can now move one handle to be long and one short, which allows us to further refine our shapes. But say we have a curve here but we want a corner. We can change it using this button. I can now drag this handle to make a corner. Similarly we can convert corners to straights again using this option, or to equal straight using this one. If you have a hand drawn picture you can scan that in and import it, then trace over it with a Bezier curve to make your graphic. That can be a good way to get a feel for things when you’re just starting out wit Bezier curves.
inkscape_bitmap_trace.mp4	Converting pixel-based images to vectors While you can manually trace a bitmap image in inkscape to make a vector file, for complex images it can be very time consuming! This is where Inkscape's “Trace Bitmap” function comes in. It allows you to take a bitmap image and will attempt to convert it to a vector for you through various methods. Brightness cutoff, tries to separate the image into black and white. This method is really good for images that already look a bit like stencils. click update to see a preview. Threshold changes the midpoint, or the point where it splits black and white, fiddle with it to capture the right amount of detail. Colours tries to seperate an image into the colours it's composed of. Good images already look like paper cutouts, or logos, with several distinct colours. You can specify the amount of colours it looks for by changing this setting. results may vary as computers interpret colour differences differently to humans, and sometimes it's easier to use brightness cutoff to split your image into parts and add colour after the fact. Centre line new feature, aims to reproduce your drawing with single lines, try it with very simple lines as complex ones are likely to crash. What If/Next: No matter the mode you're using playing with speckles, smooth corners, optimise can help further refine results. These changes won't show in preview, so Click apply to see the results. you may wish to make some changes and try again. You may also wish to edit small parts of your traced image after its made, or if you can't get the results you are after, you can go back to manually tracing images, check the end of the 'custom shapes' video to learn more.

Basics

Selection Arrows

The 2 arrows at the top of the Tool Box are your main navigational tools, the first large arrow is how you can select and move items around on your document (artboard).

The second arrow down is how you can edit nodes and curves/straight lines of a path. We will discuss this in more detail later.

Layers

Layers are important to keep your work easily editable and to also create a variety of design techniques. Think of layers like old school cell animation, you layer each change of the art to create the animation.

Each layer can contain one o more objects, the final image is made up of all the visible layers stacked on top of each other, but you can turn layers (and the objects housed on them) off and on, you can move layers around to change the order and so forth. You can also create sub-layers.

Let's open our layers using the interface tools we already looked through. The icon should be in your Command Bar, which may be across the top of app or down the side, when you find it click on it to open the layers window down the right side of the interface.

Groups

Like layers, you can group or ungroup individual shapes and lines to edit or move objects around. This can come in handy when working on files with lots of objects or design items.

To group and ungroup objects, you can use either the Edit menu or Command Bar functions.

Shapes

There are a variety of geometric shapes available in Inkscape to use to create designs, these are vector shapes. Choose them from the Tool Box menu. Hold down the Ctrl key to maintain some constraint of the shape when resizing.

Paths / Pen tool

Most paths are described internally in Inkscape (and in many other drawing programs) as a series of Bezier curves. It is very useful to understand the basic properties of Bezier curves for drawing and manipulating paths. Bezier curves are defined by four points, two of which are the end points or nodes of the curve. The other two are control points or handles, each paired with one of the end points. The control points have the useful property that a line starting at one end of the curve and ending at the corresponding control point is tangent to the curve at the end point. This enables the smooth joining of multiple Bezier curves to form a path.

With The Bezier curve tool in Inkscape you can draw outlines around bitmap images of create your own shapes and designs. It can take a little practice to get used to, but once you gain an understanding of this you can do a whole of cool stuff.

Adjust Strokes

Once you have created a path you can make the stroke as large as you need via the stroke

Adjust Colour

Similar to above, you can also change the colour of the stroke or if wanting to have an object/shape that is in colour, you can change the fill. If you want to have just a coloured shape with no outline, turn off the Stroke and vice versa.

Text

Text is pretty straight forward, use the text tool to type any text and adjust like you would in most computer programs (font, size, colour).

Designing a Sticker

We have 2 options for creating our vinyl sticker in Inskcape, we can use the basics we've just learned to make our own basic shape or text for printing on the vinyl cutter with a few minor steps, or we can use the following method to import a bitmap (does everyone remember what a bitmap is?) and learn how to trace our bitmap to create a vector to print.

Please follow along to learn the Trace option, as it's very handy and similar to Adobe Illustrator's option.

Trace Tools

Using Trace Bitmap

Using this option is great but can be very time consuming

Let's find a photo that we can use and save to our desktop (go to an internet browser and search for something that will be simple in shape and without much background) or we can draw our own image with a black marker and paper.
Import the image into Inkspace via File menu>Import or Ctrl+ I is the shortcut.
A pop up asking you about import options will come up, for now let's just use the defaults.
Position your image in the middle of your A4 page (the default page setup), towards the top but it doesn't really matter too much here. Remember to zoom in and out you can use right click while holding down control to zoom in and shift to zoom out.
This will create a layer called Layer 1, it's good practice to start naming your layers straight away, so let's rename it to something relevant like 'base image'.
We need to prep the image for tracing, as tracing photos or detailed images is a very tricky and time consuming process! We can do this by going to the Filters menu and then Colour, let's first make our image greyscale as we don't need any colour for this sticker. Make sure you choose the preview option so you can see what it will look like before you apply, don't worry too much about changing any settings here, we'll do that in our next step.

For our sticker we are only going to create a silhouette so we now need to adjust the brightness and contrast to create a black shape. We do this in the same Colour menu, choose the 'lightness and contrast option' and again, hit the preview option so as you move the lightness and contrast sliders you can see what happens. We want a plain black silhouette or outline, the main goal is to create a good contrast image with a white background that can be easily removed.

Now that our bitmap is a black shape, we want to convert it to a vector. Make sure you have the image selected, then go to the Path menu and choose 'Trace Bitmap' or use the shortcut Shift+Alt+B. This will open the Trace Bitmap pop out window. Don't forget to enable the preview function so you can see what the end result will look like. You may only need to adjust the Brightness Cutoff threshold slightly, but you may also want to play around with the settings to get what you want, particularly if you aren't working on a plain shapes like we are and want more detail in your design. Choose the ignore background option and once you are happy with your solid shape (a few key lines left in are ok), hit the OK button.

You now have a copy of your image as a vector, hooray! This will have copied the new vector image on to the same layer, if you want to keep your original image, add a new layer and copy, cut and paste to the new layer and turn it off for now (click on the eye to turn it off).

Now when you choose the node editing arrow or double click on the shape, it should show up all the 'nodes' and paths that you've created as now your image is a vector. You can grab individual nodes (zoom right in) and adjust as needed.

If you want to simplify your shape, you can also go to the Path menu and try that out by choosing Simplify (ctrl + L).

With our cat outline, we need to make it more suitable as a sticker, because right now it won't really work as it's thin outlines rather than a solid shape we can peel off the vinyl. Let's start by deleting any stray nodes, like background noise or the whiskers inside the face as we won't need those. There's an eraser tool that you can use to draw a line across the path you want to remove, once you separate a line from the main artwork, you can select and delete it. We also need to make sure our outline becomes a stroke rather than a fill, when we converted the image we created a line but it is currently a fill so we'll need to adjust this by playing around with our fill/stroke setting and deleting any double outlines. We should end up with something that looks like either of these 2 images;

We have now got a vector image we can print on the Vinyl Cutter as your sticker!

There's a few Youtube videos that you can watch to get more ideas on how to make the settings work for you;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFLxCMoE9Gk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVuufbv3TfY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7HwLTQu2FI

Using the Pen tool

So we showed you the trace option and that may seem super easy but once you get into more detailed photos and images you will see it can be a bit more time consuming and a lot more work. So we want to show you a bit more about drawing your own vector shapes (just like hand tracing) with the Pen tool / Bezier Curves tool.

Let's use the same bitmap image we used for our auto trace option, now create a new layer that sits over the top of our image. You may want to lock your image layer so it doesn't move during this process.

Select the Bezier Curve tool and find an easy starting point of your image and click release to make your first node, then start to trace around your image incrementally adding nodes as you go. You have 2 options to curve your paths, if you don't release your click finger when you create a node you will see you can create curves by moving the mouse, once you click off your mouse button it finishes the path, but you can easily adjust later with the 'handles'.

If you just move around your image making the nodes and straight lines, this is also ok as you can go back and adjust all the handles to get your curves, and it's up to you which way you might prefer to work.

Vinyl Sticker

We can now save our new vector shape ready for printing on the vinyl cutter, go to the File menu and Save As, choose the name of your sticker and make sure you are saving as a standard SVG file.

We use Illustrator on the vinyl cutter to import our image to print it, Illustrator can import SVG and should have no issues.

We load our vinyl roll on to the bottom of the vinyl cutter where there is a plastic roll holder, we feed the vinyl colour side up into the cutter and align it to the side but also make sure our feed rollers (small rollers that feed the sheet through) are inside the white marks. If they aren't you may get an error that says bad position.

You also need to make sure the size of your print job will not exceed the size of the vinyl roll. When you feed the vinyl into the machine and hit enter, it should auto calculate the width and show on screen. Since we're just making small stickers, we should be fine but always good to check these settings.

We can see on screen a preview of what our sticker will print like and once you are happy with it, hit the print button and away we go!

Kombucha Finery

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 18 Jun 2018 01:40:03 +0000

Kombucha Finery

Developed by Jimmy Eng for the Edge at multiple occurrences. This is the first documented delivery, files below;

Workshop handouts and instructions are below:

Further details about Kombucha fabric growing and preparation (as well as examples of earlier workshop products) are in the TryIt section

Laser Cut, Hand-Bound Books: Crafting the Grumpus' Treasured Tomes

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 16:16:14 +0000

Laser Cut, Hand-Bound Books: Crafting the Grumpus' Treasured Tomes

~~HERO-SUBTITLE Combining Digital Fabrication with Traditional Handcrafts~~

Acknowledgement

‎

Target Audience: Adult members of the public (16+)

Cadence: 4 sessions, fortnightly

Capacity: 10 persons per cohort

Context: Grumpus 2021

About

The master of the Great and Grand Rumpus is calling for artisans and tech-smiths alike to bind the whisperings of the world of the GRUMPUS into vivacious and venerable volumes to fill his library….

Throughout this workshop series you will take the stories produced by the world-writing workshops and bind them into a beautiful book to display as part of the Great and Grand Rumpus exhibition in the State Library Gallery later in the year.

To craft these creative chronicles we will be combining the traditional handcraft of book binding with the contemporary skills of digital fabrication. Along the way you will learn how to:

Design a cover in Inkscape (vector graphics software)
Cut and etch that design on our laser cutter (including a laser cutter induction)
Sew up a text block from loose leaves of paper (the stories) using traditional materials and methods
Turn our laser-cut pieces into a cover and complete our books.

We’re also blessed to have a member of the library’s Preservations Team co-facilitating this workshop series, and there will be an opportunity to visit their workshop here at the library in a bonus daytime session midway through the workshop series. There you will get a rare glimpse at the place where some of the real magic of the State Library happens, learn how real book binders carry out their works and see their super fancy guillotine as we trim up our books.

There are no special skills required, and bring your creativity, ideas and enthusiasm to each of the 4 fortnightly workshops starting Tuesday the 7th September to bring the book to life! You must be at least 16 years old to participate in this workshop.

As with all our workshops we will also be releasing the workshop structure for free via our wiki (where the outline is being drafted currently) so that if you want to run a similar workshop in your spaces after we have run ours, you have a head start with all our resources!

Session 1

Design & Inkscape

Setup

Tools & Materials

Per participant:

Sample inkscape file + cut demo from laser for reference
Template for covers file (outline on base layer, include good image for live trace) on laptops have layer 2 active.
Laptop +power supply
Inkscape installed (all on same version)
Internet connection

Prep

Set up demo cut on laser cutter

Send email to participants:

Hi!
My name is Billie, and together with Shane from the Conservation team we will be facilitating The Bookbinding workshops you’ve signed up for over the next few weeks.
I’m very excited to meet you!

A couple of notes for the first session:
We will be doing a lot of work on the computer in a software called Inkscape.
You’re encouraged to bring in your own laptop to work on, just be sure to bring a mouse, and have the software pre-installed, it can be downloaded here: https://inkscape.org/release/inkscape-1.1/
We do have some laptops here too if you would like to borrow one for the session, please bring a usb memory stick to take your file home with you if you will be using our laptops.

As you may have gleaned, these books will become part of the GRUMPUS.
As our session time is pretty limited, please have a read about the GRUMPUS before you come, on this webpage:
https://wiki.slq.qld.gov.au/doku.php?id=engagement:grumpus:start

Your covers will take inspiration from “The Well” (a collection of art from children) which you can view here if you’d like to start gathering ideas before the workshop:
https://wiki.slq.qld.gov.au/doku.php?id=engagement:grumpus:grumpuslandonline:rrldev:thewellhome

Again, can’t wait for these workshops! I’m really excited.
See you on Tuesday at 6pm at the Edge Fabrication Lab.

Let me know if you have any questions, queries, comments or concerns.
Thanks!

Galang nguruindhau (g'day in Turrbal)

Help

Cutting Template

Inkscape Help

Inkscape can be tricky to start with but there is loads of info available to you! You can check out our wiki pages, both are full of guides, help and info: Inkscape wiki page Vector Graphics wiki page
Or check out Inkscape's own resources; guides community
Remember too, the power of google! Inkscape is very popular software and if you're asking how to do something, chances are someone else has before too.

I've also made some videos specific to the kinds of things we're doing in this session below↓

Videos

Video	Transcript
inkscape_addandmoveshapes2.mp4	Adding simple shapes often makes up the foundation of a graphic. To start, click on the rectangle tool on the left hand bar, then click and drag it to make a rectangle on your screen. You can hold down ctrl key and drag at roughly a 45* angle from your start point to force the rectangle to be a square. Similar with the oval tool, you can hold down control to force it to be a circle. You can also make pac-man shapes by changing the start an d end degrees of a circle. Holding down control while using the polygon tool snaps the corner you’re drawing out to an angle increment of 15 degrees, Which allows you to snap things to be vertical or horizontal. You can also change the number of corners of a polygon using this box. Once you have a shape you can move it by clicking the select icon and then clicking and dragging the object, and releasing it when you have it in a spot you like. When moving you can snap corners to other corners by hovering them near each other until this “corner to corner” tooltip appears. We can also resize our object using these arrows…. and we can click on the object again to bring up rotate… and skew tools. To de-select an object click somewhere that’s blank on the canvas.
inkscape_custom_shapes2.mp4	Sometimes you want a graphic you can’t find, and thankfully Inkscape offers a few ways to make your own. The simplest way is by using multiple primitive shapes to create more complex new ones, which you can do via various options listed under the Path menu You can combine shapes using union You can cut one shape from the another by selecting the one you want to keep, then shift-clicking the one you want to remove and using difference You can keep just the area that two shapes overlap using intersection Or just the bits they don’t overlap using exclusion You can also use one shape to cut parts of another shape So you can more or recolour segments of it using division. You can combine these methods to build up some pretty complex forms, but if you want even more flexibility it’s time to look at Bezier curves. With this tool you can draw straight lines by left clicking to form your first point, then clicking again to form your first line, and again to form another, connected line. You can also make curves by clicking and dragging a new point, then releasing your mouse when you like the curve. And you can close a shape by clicking the first point once more. You can also edit your shape using the node edit tool. We can now click on these points and move their handles. You’ll notice we can now move one handle to be long and one short, which allows us to further refine our shapes. But say we have a curve here but we want a corner. We can change it using this button. I can now drag this handle to make a corner. Similarly we can convert corners to straights again using this option, or to equal straight using this one. If you have a hand drawn picture you can scan that in and import it, then trace over it with a Bezier curve to make your graphic. That can be a good way to get a feel for things when you’re just starting out wit Bezier curves.
inkscape_colourandstyle2.mp4	Sometimes you want a graphic you can’t find, and thankfully Inkscape offers a few ways to make your own. The simplest way is by using multiple primitive shapes to create more complex new ones, which you can do via various options listed under the Path menu You can combine shapes using union You can cut one shape from the another by selecting the one you want to keep, then shift-clicking the one you want to remove and using difference You can keep just the area that two shapes overlap using intersection Or just the bits they don’t overlap using exclusTo change the colour of a selected object we can click on a pre determined colour from this palette at the bottom of the screen but if we want to choose a colour that isn’t listed here, we need to open the fill and stroke tool from the object menu. The fill is the main colour of the shape. To change it click on the flat colour icon, and change the colour mode to Wheel. from here we can change the colour by clicking and dragging the little bar on the rainbow ring, and the circle within the triangle. We can also make the colour transparent using this alpha bar. If we want to give our object a gradient, we can do so using the linear gradient icon. We can also edit the gradient by clicking on this icon. From here we can change a colour in our gradient by clicking on the point and changing it using the wheel or a swatch. We can add more colours to our gradient by double clicking anywhere on the gradient line and editing that dot lie we did the beginning and end dots. We can also change the direction of the gradient by clicking and dragging these points at the end of the line When we are happy with our gradient click off our object to set it. We can add boarders to our objects. These are called Strokes. To add one, select your object Then head to the Stroke Paint menu and click the Flat colour icon. You can pick a colour for it here. You can change various aspects of the line in the stroke style menu, like the width… dashes…. and corner type. This allows you to really make objects look and feel your own.
inkscape_bitmap_trace.mp4	Converting pixel-based images to vectors While you can manually trace a bitmap image in inkscape to make a vector file, for complex images it can be very time consuming! This is where Inkscape's “Trace Bitmap” function comes in. It allows you to take a bitmap image and will attempt to convert it to a vector for you through various methods. Brightness cutoff, tries to separate the image into black and white. This method is really good for images that already look a bit like stencils. click update to see a preview. Threshold changes the midpoint, or the point where it splits black and white, fiddle with it to capture the right amount of detail. Colours tries to seperate an image into the colours it's composed of. Good images already look like paper cutouts, or logos, with several distinct colours. You can specify the amount of colours it looks for by changing this setting. results may vary as computers interpret colour differences differently to humans, and sometimes it's easier to use brightness cutoff to split your image into parts and add colour after the fact. Centre line new feature, aims to reproduce your drawing with single lines, try it with very simple lines as complex ones are likely to crash. What If/Next: No matter the mode you're using playing with speckles, smooth corners, optimise can help further refine results. These changes won't show in preview, so Click apply to see the results. you may wish to make some changes and try again. You may also wish to edit small parts of your traced image after its made, or if you can't get the results you are after, you can go back to manually tracing images, check the end of the 'custom shapes' video to learn more.

Slides

	Before session: Email participants: Can bring own laptop, install inkscape (link to), bring mouse with scroll wheel that can be clicked in!!! (else have laptops here) Bring USB to transfer files home Divvy up books between participants, give them links Finalise webpage including videos of inkscape Set up laser with demo cut Materials: Per participant: Sample inkscape file + cut demo from laser for reference Template for covers file (outline on base layer, include good image for live trace) on laptops have layer 2 active. Laptop +power supply Inkscape installed (all on same version) Internet connection

	Billie = Not a bookbinder, just an overly enthusiastic maker, background in theatrical costume making and 3D printing, facilitator here at Fabrication Lab Shane = Conservation Team = real book binder! :D


	About Grumpus: https://wiki.slq.qld.gov.au/doku.php?id=engagement:grumpus:start The Well: https://wiki.slq.qld.gov.au/doku.php?id=engagement:grumpus:grumpuslandonline:rrldev:thewellhome
	Demo pieces Laser cut plywood cover, painted and metal leafed, traditionally bound rest Headband & ribbon Show inner workings at back page, talk about gluing We’re starting on covers today

	Allows us to make intricate things oncemore, as a lot of the fine work in many handcrafts have been pushed out by mass manufacturing due to time/labour costs involved in hand making something like this. Very customisable, don’t need to make a big brass stamp for each book cover, or lots of little ones, manually carve something like this. Also very repeatable! Can expect the same results from the same file. Opens it up to people who haven’t got the dexterity or practice, as this is very accurate, and being able to design it first digitally is a lot more forgiving than hand carving something!

	bitmap = pixels (like photo) = bad vector = lines made of maths infinitely zoom in and will always be crisp Because they are just maths, they are very easily read by laser cutter We don’t need to know maths! Special software allows us to make it. Inkscape is one such example. Most digital images we use day to day (such as JPEGs, GIFs and PNGs) are called bitmaps, they are made up of thousands of little blocks of colour called pixels. These are great for photos but they don't provide enough information for a lot of digital fabrication technologies (such as CNC routers and laser cutters). They also can't be made larger without the image “pixelising” and looking ugly, so bitmaps are not well suited to various graphic design applications like logos. This is where vector images excel. Vectors are essentially lines made of maths, so you can zoom in and out infinitely without the image blurring, and they are much easier for machine software to interpret. Thankfully, we don't need to program the maths these lines are made of, we have software that will work all that out for us, and they are able to save the images out in various vector formats, some of the most common being SVG and DFX, though PDFs can also contiain vectors (but it gets confusing because they can also contain other things like bitmaps!).
	Because open source, plugins for all kinds of things. Download Inkscape at home here for free: https://inkscape.org/








	Don’t worry if it’s a bit uncomfy now! You will get the hang of it in no time.

	Inserting image Video on wiki



	Can bring your own ribbon (60cm) or acrylic paint if you wish.

	The Well: https://wiki.slq.qld.gov.au/doku.php?id=engagement:grumpus:grumpuslandonline:rrldev:thewellhome The aim isn’t to reproduce the children’s art in laser form, but to make something inspired by it.
	https://archive.org/details/StencilCatalogsCutStencilsForTheUseOfPracticalMen/page/n51/mode/2up?view=theater https://archive.org/details/ExcelsiorFrescoStencils/page/n43/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/250stencildesign00kpra/page/30/mode/2up https://www.pinterest.com.au/billieruben8695/book-covers/ https://publicdomainreview.org/
	Next fortnight we will be sewing and gluing our text together!
	Template above Download Inkscape at home here for free: https://inkscape.org/ If you don’t have a computer at home you can come in and work on it here during open lab times GRUMPUS: https://wiki.slq.qld.gov.au/doku.php?id=engagement:grumpus:start THE WELL: https://wiki.slq.qld.gov.au/doku.php?id=engagement:grumpus:grumpuslandonline:rrldev:thewellhome Draft cover for next session in a fortnight on template! Email Inkscape (SVG) files to me to me by Monday 20th Sep billie.ruben@slq.qld.gov.au
	Wiki page for this course: https://wiki.slq.qld.gov.au/doku.php?id=workshops:prototypes:laser_cut_books&s[]=bookbinding Wiki page for Inkscape: https://wiki.slq.qld.gov.au/doku.php?id=facilities:fablab:software:inkscape

Session 2

Sewing Our Text Blocks

Setup

Tools & Materials

Prep

Before session:

Email participants after first session with homework

Have the books printed (5 sheets per signature, grain line running along short edge,
Have end papers printed
Finalise sewing video
Gather materials:
Bone folder each
Brayer each
Awl each awl_3d_printable.zip
Punching template each
Printed pages each
Scissors each
Sewing needle each (blunt thin good, can sand down tip)
Waxed linen or polyester thread each (enough to weave back and forward between all signatures)
Single ply cardboard each (for under punching)
Tapes each

Help

Slides

Session 3

Laser Induction

Setup

As per laser induction, except folk will cut the templates for next week:

Tools & Materials

Manilla folders

Prep

Before session:

charge ipads
set up cut files on lasers
gather manilla folders

Slides

Session 4

Putting it all together

Setup

Tools & Materials

For each participant have:

Pens
PVA/EVA Glue (share between pairs)
Brushes each
Waste paper
Knife
Mat
Steel ruler
Wood
Clamps

Prep

Slides




	Finishing Front Covers Painting (Acrylic) Gold leafing: Brushes Size: https://artmaterialsupplies.com.au/shop/jo-sonja-tannin-sealer-and-gold-size/ Leaf


	making the case (cover) Why use book cloth (impermeable to glue, protects from water/dirt etc) Methylcellulose and PVA Mix (PVA glues quick alone) Thicknesses/ measurements around edges laser cut spacers and trimming guides (with measure and description e/g for edge) sharp thin utility knives steel rulers cutting mat need knitting needles 3 per person if doing flippy back bit, 2 else. mounted to boards would be good. need presses for each person, or heavy things. non-stick stuff polyester film? Waxed paper? pressing boards felt brayers More info: how to make fabric into bookcloth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek2-1VJfskY

Slides, editable

bookbindingslides.pptx

Proposed non-grumpus workshop overview

Session 1

Inkscape
Sewing

(don't finish either of these during the session, take home with them)

Session 2

gluing spines & pressing
Laser induction (practical being cutting bookcloth templates for next week)
adding mull, headbands and bookmarks

Session 3

Painting/gold leafing covers (or dying with ink, as it keeps the texture better. Art spectrum liquid spectrum work well (NOT THE PIGMENTED KIND).
Might be able to tee this up with Rachel Spano and also do marbling with paper conservators group? If not doesn't matter, I've purchased some marbled papers for the endpapers.
Adding endpapers (if not marbled, else next week)

Session 4 Putting it all together

creating cover (attaching laser cut pieces to bookcloth)
'casing in' (putting text block into cover)

Billie's Recomendations/ Notes

Make them a fixed size, e.g. A5 (they can come back to make different ones. Templates will need to be updated accordingly, and paper of the right size gathered or cut.
I believe I have purcahsed all required materials, they can be found in the bookbinding tub, or in the tubes with the paper type things (bookcloth and spine lining material is here)
I returned the press we borrowed from preservations. We might be able to borrow a few, else clamps and plywood works well too.
I would get preservations/ Shane Bell to trim all the books to size for us after Session 2.
Might be nice to have some 3mm plywood for the covers. We can do it with 4mm, it's just a bit thicker than usual.

2022 delivery-Laser cut covers, hand sewn spines - bookbinding

In 2022 Mick & Sarah were tasked with running this workshop series over the course of 3x 4hr sessions a fortnight apart.

see this fork over here

Kombucha: Making with Microbes

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 05 Jun 2020 15:39:15 +0000

Kombucha: Making with Microbes

Developed by Pahia Cooper in collaboration with Dr. Peter Musk in Aug 2017.

Summary

Kombucha is produced by fermenting sweet tea using a symbiotic colony bacteria and yeast (or SCOBY). It is a lightly effervescent drink regarded by many as a functional food that assists in digestive health and liver detoxification. But The Edge is growing kombucha tea for an entirely different reason. Researchers, the most prominent of these being Suzanne Lee, have suggested the microbial cellulose pellicle produced by a kombucha culture can also be used as a clothing textile. Over the last several years, The Edge has been experimenting in growing kombucha and harvesting the cellulose pellicle as artificial or vegan leather. The following instructions will take you through brewing the tea for your kombucha (its food), ongoing maintenance for your kombucha and harvesting and drying your samples.

Materials

The following recipe makes a 1L of Kombucha Tea. Scale up your quantities to make more.

Equipment

Tub or tray with a lid you can cut a small breather hole in (~30mm diameter hole), able to hold 1L. The shallower the liquid the better the pellicle grows (so a bigger tray is better)
Measuring jug, 500mL
Stirring spoon
Muslin bag or other open weave material (Chux works well)
Kettle or urn
Spray bottle
Scissors
Washing tub
Flat, smooth drying board – we use laminated table top/ kitchen cupboard melamine boards
Scraper
Storage container
Washing up gloves (optional)

Consumables

6g of tea or 6 tabags
1L of tap water
100ml of soured (fermented) kombucha tea
OPTIONAL a small cutting of scoby pellicle or mother (the culture will still grow without this)
white vinegar
coconut oil (optional)
vaseline
1 cup of dry rice or sodium bicarbonate (for storage of dried material)

Commercial Kombucha drinks may have been pasteurised before sale to extend shelf life. This will kill the SCOBY organisms, and mean the product will not be a good starter for your culture.
The best source will be someone who is growing Kombucha at home, and therefore has a live culture they can share.

Instructions

Making your Kombucha

Wash your hands… properly- not just a social wash
Thoroughly clean all utensils and receptacles using mild detergent and rinse
Boil water and measure 500mL into your tub or tray
Add 85g sugar stir til dissolved
Measure out 6gm of tea and place in muslin (or organza) bag
Add muslin bag of tea (or 6 teabags)
Wash your hands again
Cover tray/ tub with lid.
Allow tea to steep until the brew cools to room temperature (leaving it overnight is OK).
Yep… wash those hands again
Remove muslin bag (or teabags) and add 400ml of cold water to the brew
OPTIONAL Add a piece of the scoby or pellicle (40mm x 40mm you have cut from the larger mass with clean scissors).
Add at least 100ml of the starter sample of fermented kombucha tea.
Replace the lid
Keep your kombucha in a place where it won’t get disturbed and out of direct light.

Kombucha does not require light to grow, but it does need oxygen (from the air).
If your container has a tight fitting lid, it may be necessary to cut an air hole in the top (cover it with some of the open weave fabric to reduce the potential for contamination by passing spores, though).

Caring for your Kombucha

Before doing anything with your brew, always wash your hands. All going well, an opaque, jelly-like white pellicle or skin of microbial cellulose should start to form on the surface of your tea within 3-7 days. This will continue to thicken over 2-3 weeks until it takes on the texture and appearance of fresh, cleaned calamari tube. The thicker the pellicle, the more robust the dried product, and best results are with a pellicle 8 - 10mm thick (which takes about 3 - 4 weeks to grow).
The key to caring for your kombucha is making sure it doesn’t get infected with common mould. The brew is most susceptible to infection in the first week as the tea sours. Once your tea has soured and the pH has dropped to between 4 and 4.5 it’s difficult for an infection to take hold in your brew. If you do observe a mould infection (furry grey, grey green or even orange patches growing on top of the brew) you can combat this by spraying infected patches with a 1:1 mixture of white vinegar and water.

Harvesting, preparing and drying your pellicle

After two to three weeks a good Kombucha brew will grow a pellicle that is about 1cm thick. This is the point at which we harvest our pellicles. Sometimes you will have a slow brew that will take a little longer. You might want to wear your washing up gloves for this part.

Without spilling any of your precious brew, remove the pellicle from the container and place it in another tub for washing.
Wash your pellicle in a mild detergent and rinse in clean water. Repeat this cycle until the pellicle has lost its sweet smell.
Dyeing: Because the pellicle is composed of cellulose (the same as cotton), many fabric dyes will be effective in colouring your creation. Dyeing is best done after washing, and before oiling – just follow the instructions for the dye.
Rubbing coconut oil into the pellicle at this stage (before it dries) will produce a more supple and leather-like product. For best results, spread the wet pellicle on a flat surface, and rub all over (both sides) with fingers dipped in coconut oil.
Lightly grease your drying board (or mould) with Vaseline to prevent the pellicle from sticking as it dries.
Spread the pellicle over the greased board or shaped mould and allow it to dry for 4 -7 days.
The 1cm pellicle will shrink to a 1-2mm thickness as the water evaporates. The length and breadth of the drying sheet will not change appreciably.
When you are satisfied that your pellicle has dried completely carefully remove it from the board or mould. You can use a scraper to help you remove a smooth sheet, or simply start at a corner and gently pick away until it lifts up, so you can grab it between your fingers, and pull gently.
If the dry product is too sticky give your next batch a more thorough wash. If it’s too papery for your purpose try washing the next batch less. Thinner pellicles will tend to give a more brittle, papery product.
Store your dry sheets of finished cellulose in an airtight container with a cup of dry rice to act as a desiccant. You can also put in an open container of bicarbonate of soda to absorb any lingering smells.

Workshop Accessories

Queensland Architecture in Miniature - Mid century modern

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 23:50:01 +0000

Queensland Architecture in Miniature - Mid century modern

Developed by Michelle Brown and Ellie Dumigan, 2023

Workshop presentation

The Queensland Architecture in Miniature workshop has been created into a slide show for presentation and documentation purposes. Please feel free to download and use the guide and files as per our CC license in the footnote.

Some pages may link to other online workshops, tutorials or guides created at The Edge, you may require internet to connect and view links.

Public view - Slides

Admin view - Slides

Nook Design Files

First prototype - midmodtestdesign_010923.pdf

Design	Material	Notes	Design file
Basic template design	No windows or doorway, flat roof	Basic template
Pitched roof design	Side door and large windows	Pitched roof design

Furniture Design Files

Image	Design	Material	Notes	Design file
	Rattan chairs	2mm	Update holes dependent on material size	rattanchairs131023.pdf
	Low coffee table	2mm	Update holes	lowcoffeetable.pdf

Research

Catalogue references;

http://hdl.handle.net/10462/eadarc/8315

https://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/permalink/61SLQ_INST/tqqf2h/alma997796134702061

https://collections.slq.qld.gov.au/viewer/IE1660986

Brisbane Open House - July 15 & 16 2023

https://explorer.corley.slq.qld.gov.au/#!/photograph/6169-1452-0008

https://explorer.corley.slq.qld.gov.au/#!/photograph/6169-3385-0014

https://explorer.corley.slq.qld.gov.au/#!/photograph/6169-1451-0001

https://collections.slq.qld.gov.au/viewer/IE1450528

https://www.thespruce.com/mid-century-modern-architecture-5072981

Night Kites

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 05 Jun 2020 14:25:25 +0000

Night Kites

External

Summary

This workshop was developed by Peter Musk for delivery at Woodford in 2015/16.

The project was to devise a kite design with a fan mounted underneath that drove a small DC motor which would generate enough power to light some LEDs attached to the membrane. Flying the kite at night should then give a twinkling effect.

Kite designs were derived from http://www.my-best-kite.com/. The designs used in this workshop are here: kite_plans.zip

Methods for turning PC fans into wind generators were informed by: http://pcbheaven.com/wikipages/How_PC_Fans_Work/ and fan_into_generator.docx

Pre-Production

Fans

Computer fans were obtained from recycling e-waste (though fans with two wires worked best). Fans from power supplies and internal CPU cooling were used. After initial testing, it was found that most modern equipment used fans with motor controls that were much harder to retrofit. Increased weight was also a concern. Subsequently, this approach was rejected in favour of attaching propeller blades directly to the shaft of the DC motor.

Membranes

Kite membranes were made from large garbage bags (wheelie bin size for the large kites).

A template was developed to help participants create accurate shapes: the template was one half of the kite, split vertically. - using an existing crease in the bag made this more efficient. Although black bags are more readily available, green or preferably orange bags make it easier to see the template outline after it was drawn.

Because the final design required the membrane to be taped along the edge before cutting for added strength, initial cutting from the bag was about 1cm larger than the template.

Dihedrals

Using a 3D printed dihedral made assembly much more efficient and reproducible (bowed cross members were difficult to get balanced). The 3D model developed is here: dihedral_v2.stl. It is made to take 6mm dowel struts, and reproduces the optimal 15 degree angle.

Motors

Low rpm low voltage DC motors were recovered from e-waste (DVD trays). The stepper motors that drive the spindles of CD drives and the tracking of the read head in the DVD drives were unsuitable because they require electronic motor controllers for operation. The small motor driving the tray mechanism was simpler, and therefore more suited. Research found that these are Mabuchi RF- 300 EA motors, available through Ali Express, but the dismantling of the DVD drive to recover the motors was an integral part of the workshop, and was well received by participants.

Wiring Harness

Recycled CAT-5 cable wires were used to manufacture the harness. Solid core wire was preferable for ease of twist connection. This wire is very thin and therefore light, and is available in quantity. Tests using a hair drier to power the fan showed that up to 6 LEDs could be lit at top speed (red and yellow worked better). The motor hung underneath the kite (where the spars are visible) and the wiirng harness was twisted onto the wires coming from the Joule Thief circuit and then along the spars. LEDS were attached in series along a double strand of CAT5 wire on each side for balance.

Propellers

Propeller blades were hand cut from 18mm black irrigation low pressure polypipe using a paper template. The template design is here: night_kite_propellor.ai. The central line needs to run along the long axis of the pipe for the correct angle to result (this is important for optimal operation). Taping the template to the pipe made for easier cutting. Two perpendicular blade assemblies were attached to each motor (after punching a hole at the centre point with a sharp screw), giving a 4 bladed propeller. The blades are mounted with the concave face forwards, and held in place with a dob of hot glue if required.

Motor support

This was manufactured by participants from 2mm wire, with a tight loop passing around the body of the motor and the two legs left long enough to wrap around the horizontal spar. The motor was mounted about 6cm from the body of the kite to allow free movement of the propeller. A third leg was attached along the axis of the motor, and wound around the vertical spar to give a 3 legged support.

Joule Thief

A Joule Thief circuit was attached between the motor and the LEDs, mounted on a paper circuit diagram, and enclosed in a cardboard enclosure. Designs are here: night_kite_designs.zip.

Winder

A winder was made from one piece of light pine as a handle, and a hand formed 2mm wire spool (sort of a wide u-shape with the short sides bent inwards to make a reel that took the fishing line). The cheapest kite line was found to be heavy monofilament fishing line, with about 50m attached to each winder (remember to tie it on to the winder before you reel on the 50m of line).

Kite materials

The spars were 6mm dowel (check design for length required).

String was builders line, which was thick enough to make knot tying easy. This line was used to make the bridle, and a short trailing line with a loop that allowed the fishing line to be attached.

Electrical tape was needed to strengthen edges and corners according to the design.

Hot glue was used to fix knots in place on the spars.

Knots

Excellent descriptions of the various knots used, and how to tie them, are on the website quoted above. These were made into stepwise instructions (with photos) for use in the workshops.

Instructions

Complete documentation of the assembly process has not been completed (partly because the large size of the device).

Instructions presented to the participants during workshops are here: night_kite_instructions.docx

Knot tying instructions used in the workshop are here: prusik_knot_instructions.docx

Facilitators instructions are here: nite_kites_facilitator_outline.docx

Design files for propellers, Joule Thief circuit and 3D printed kite dihedral are in this folder: design_files.zip

Evaluation

What Worked

Participants found the recovery of motors from e-waste an engaging and instructive experience. This meant that some tools were required - Phillips screwdrivers, small pliers.

The dihedral made assembly easy and failsafe.

The kite design was excellent, and participants were engaged by this process.

Material costs are low.

What Didn't Work

The workshop consistently ran overtime - at least 3- 4hrs is required.

Demonstration requires a substantial wind (which can not be guaranteed). The kite is large, and heavy and will not lift in a light breeze. Balancing the kite is tricky (requiring manipulation of a sliding Prusik knot along the kite bridle), and even flight is elusive. Launch is best done with two operators, and running could be involved.

Successful demonstration of the working design has thus not been achieved.

Photoshop

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 15 Jun 2020 09:14:56 +0000

Photoshop

Redeveloped by Chris Eichberger in Aug 2017.

Summary

Adobe Photoshop for beginners

Get started with the basics of photo editing in this free Photoshop course for beginners.

In this 1.5 hour taster course we’ll step you through:

The basic tools and functionality of Photoshop
An overview of Photoshop’s capabilities
Practical skills to help you experiment further
By the end of the session you’ll have a digital postcard ready to send to your family and friends

*Please bring along a USB to save your work.

Editing photos with Adobe Photoshop

Build your photo editing skills in this intermediate Adobe Photoshop course.

In this 4 hour Adobe Photoshop course we’ll cover:

Photo editing techniques using masks
Colour & brightness corrections
Touching up portraits
Photograph combinations, blending and layering

Requirements and prerequisites:

This is an intermediate course, and requires a solid understanding of Photoshop, its common tools and terminology. If you are new to Photoshop, please attend Adobe Photoshop for beginners first. Intro to Mac class or proficiency with the Mac operating system.

Materials

Prototyping the Physical

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 02 Jun 2020 13:38:25 +0000

Prototyping the Physical

Developed by Gregory Davis in Sep 2017.

Summary

Taking an idea from concept to product is a daunting task, especially the first time you tackle the process. One of the first things you need to do is design and test a prototype. To assist Innovators an entrepreneurs to clear that first, important hurdle we’re running a series of intro to Prototyping workshops with experienced designers. Even the best idea is only just an idea until you’ve made a prototype. In this workshop participants will have an opportunity to hear the strategies an experienced product and industrial designer uses to successfully convert an concept into a practical and viable object that works in the real world.

Materials

Slides PDF

101 - Intro to Podcasting

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 17:12:56 +0000

101 - Intro to Podcasting

Stephanie Dower, November 2022.

Acknowledgement

Workshop presentation

The 101 - Intro to Podcasting workshop has been created into a slide show for presentation and documentation purposes. Please feel free to download and use the guide and files as per our CC license in the footnote.

Some pages may link to other online workshops, tutorials or guides created at The Edge, you may require internet to connect and view links.

podcast_101_redesign.pdf updated_-_101_podcasting_new_branding_.pptx

Summary

Podcasting is relatively new media format that has taken the world by storm. From true crime podcasts uncovering new evidence in homicide cases to movie review podcasts giving us ideas of what to watch this weekend; Podcasts can entertain us, inform us, and inspire us. Stemming from the terms, “iPod” and “Broadcast”, Podcasts are characterised by their episodic nature and using RSS feed technology to allow audiences to subscribe and automatically receive new episodes as they're released.

Podcasting can be as expensive or inexpensive as desired by the creator, making it an accessible form of media that almost anyone can produce and share with a wide-reaching audience; if they know the basic skills needed.

Tonight's session will give participants are “quick start” guide to podcasting, giving them the basic technical skills for recording and editing a podcast, as well as some inspiration to get their creative ideas flowing.

Skills Introduced

Brainstorming and Scripting
Recording and Editing
Finding an Audience

Health & Safety

Running this workshop at The Edge?.. You should familiarise yourself and your participants with:

DML Risk Assessment

Styles of Podcasts

Storytelling - could be historical content or fictional, can include one host or more.

Examples: Serial, Teacher's Pet, Last Night on the Titanic

Audio Drama - similar to old-fashioned radio plays featuring sound design, multiple characters etc.

Examples: 36 Questions, The Candyman, Elf Control

Solo - run by one person and possible covering specific topics.

Examples: Rachel Corbett's Podschool, Creative Peptalk

Interview - usually featuring regular guests and interviews and may include a few hosts.

Examples: Wilosophy, How Others Dads Dad

Panel - a group of hosts discussing different topics relating to the podcasts main focus.

Examples: Smartless, ReFramed

Basic Requirements

Like any artistic or creative product, the quality of your podcast will depend on how much time and effort you put into it but to get started, you need only a few things.

A recording device - this may be a microphone, smartphone, audio recorder
Editing software - this is where you will join the pieces of your audio together into a seamless (and hopefully engaging) episode
Host server - this is where you will upload your podcast and get an RSS feed for distributing your podcast
A great idea that people will want to listen to!

Brainstorming and Scripting

You may have heard the expression that Content is King; this is truer than ever in podcasting. If you want audiences to hit that all important 'subscribe' button, you need to know or understand what will appeal to and engage your audience. One of the simplest ways to figure this out is to ask yourself, “What would I want to listen to?”

Some questions to ask when brainstorming your podcast are:

What kind of podcast do you want to create?
How long? How often?
Who is your target audience (Lay audience or industry specific? Vocab and level of explanation will be important for how you communicate based on the level of expertise you expect listeners to have)
Tone: serious or light-hearted?
How will you record it and edit it? (don't worry if you haven't thought about that yet, we'll go into this later)
How will you promote it?

It's also important to be familiar with the podcasting landscape i.e. what other podcasts are already out in the world. Think about these key things when developing your podcast:

Is this for fun or will you be looking to monetize?
Are there other podcasts that cover similar (or identical!) topics, how will yours be different?
How long will an episode of your podcast run for (will each week be the same or will you
intersperse with extras or ‘minisode’ eps)
Have you thought of a name that will stand out from the crowd? (Making sure to check if it’s already been used before you get too attached!)
How often will your podcast run, weekly, monthly, intermittently? Will it be seasonal or continuous etc.

Preparing to Record

Preparation is key when it comes to the recording phase of your podcast. There are often many moving parts to recording a podcast and you want to make sure you've nailed these down so you can ensure you'll get the desired result from your recording session and go into it feeling confident.

A few key things to include in your preparation for recording include:

Finding a quiet location to record in
Researching which microphone will deliver the best audio for you
Sourcing intro and outro music or audio stings
Testing platforms for remote interviews with guests, etc.
Making sure you have the correct permissions to use the audio you want or need

As Podcasting becomes more and more popular, recording equipment is becoming more accessible but it's still important to which microphones or audio recorders are going to work best for your podcast and then decide whether it's appropriate to invest in purchasing this equipment or perhaps look into what resources are available for hiring.

There are a range of tools for recording audio nowadays, including portable audio recorders (e.g. Zoom H4 recorders), smartphones, and more traditional microphones (e.g. RODE Podcaster and Broadcaster) which arguably will give you the best chance of recording high quality audio. It's important to remember a few things when deciding which microphone is best for your podcast.

Dynamic or Condenser - these are the two types of microphones and each have their own pros and cons but Dynamic microphones are generally more adaptable across various conditions.
Audio interface - if using a microphone connected to your computer or tablet, you'll most likely need a piece of software or application that can be used as an audio interface. This may be audio editing software like Audacity or the Voice Memo app on an iPad.
Pop filters - this is usually a piece of mesh material that sits between the microphone and the presenter's mouth and works to soften any pops or clicks that come from the pronunciation of some letters e.g. 'P' or 'C'.

If you are needing to record remotely, whether its with a co-host or interview guest, it's important you test the equipment or software you'll be using but also have the other person check things on their end too. There's nothing worse that listening back to a recording and hearing an echo or one person's voice being considerably louder than the others. There are a number of platforms available for remote recording, two of which are:

Zoom
Squadcast

Editing a Podcast

Once you've recorded or sourced all of the audio elements you want to include in your podcast, it's time to edit! This is the step in the podcasting process you'll bring all of your assets together and edit them into a seamless audio sequence that will be exported as an episode of your podcast. For this, you'll need to use audio editing software on a computer and there are a few options available, most popularly:

ProTools (Mac & PC)
Logic Pro X (Mac)
Adobe Audition (Mac & PC)
GarageBand (Mac)
Audacity (Mac & PC)

The first pieces of audio you'll want to bring onto the timeline are most likely an intro, chosen music and/or audio sting which are used to help transition from once piece of audio or conversation topic to another. There are many sources for free music online that fall under Creative Commons licenses.

Free Music Archive explains in more detail what is licensing and copyright, plus it allows you to search for music and soundtrack audio. http://freemusicarchive.org/License_Guide

For today's session, we'll go through the basics of Audacity which is an open source piece of audio editing software that can be downloaded at this link https://www.audacityteam.org/download/

Some things you'll need to understand or learn about before diving too deep into the editing phase are:

Decibels - this is the volume of audio, otherwise known as loudness output and generally when editing your podcast, you want your audio to sit around -16 LUfs so as to not have any audio peak and become distorted
Mono or Stereo - there are usually two options for setting up your project channels. If you set up your project as Mono, you will be working with just one audio channel (not to be confused with clips) whereas Stereo you will have two audio channels, usually Left and Right so when you export your finished podcast episode from Audacity, audiences will hear your audio coming through both their left and right speakers as opposed to just one side.

Now it's time to have some fun playing around and experimenting with the tools in Audacity. To get started, let's go through a basic Audacity software induction which will help us understand some of the basic tools available in the program. https://wiki.slq.qld.gov.au/doku.php?id=facilities:fablab:software:audacity

We have some audio available for you to download here to use as a prototype as you find your way around Audacity.

Finding an Audience

You've recorded, you've edited and now you have a finished podcast episode ready to be shared with the world! But how do you do that?

In order to distribute your podcast to platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts, you'll need two things - an RSS Feed and Host Server.

RSS stands for “rich site summary” and is a simple way of automatically staying up to date with the delivery of content, for example, tracking episodes of podcast releases. This is what connects audience platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify to your host server which is where you will actually upload your podcast to and input Metadata. Note that Metadata can also be added to your audio files when exporting from Audacity.

There are a number of Host Servers available, ranging in cost and ease of use. Some popular servers are:

Podbean
Buzzsprout
Libsyn
Soundcloud
Podomatic

Do your research to see what is best suited to your skills and budget for your podcast.

Once your podcast is available to audiences, the next step is attracting and building an audience which is arguably the most difficult part of podcasting. When thinking about how to reach and connect with your audience, consider the following:

Who do you think would benefit from listening to your podcast or who do you want to reach?
What are their habits?
Do they already listen to podcasts? If so, which ones?
What is their occupation?
How do they get information? Social media or traditional media?

By thinking about your audience on a personal level, you can start to strategise different ways of engaging them e.g. throughs social media channels, website, cross-promotion, etc.

References

Podcasting - General

Audacity

https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/audacity_tour_guide.html

Music/Sound Effects

https://artlist.io (Paid Subscription)
https://www.epidemicsound.com (Paid Subscription)
https://freesound.org/browse/ (No Cost)
https://soundbible.com/free-sound-effects-1.html (Free SFX)

RSS Feed

If you'd like to learn more on Podcasting or check out other workshops happening at The Edge, sign up to The Edge eNews through SLQ https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/about-us/contact-us/stay-in-touch

Downloads

https://www.audacityteam.org/

Further References

Our full Podcasting workshop

Our full Podcasting workshop - online version

Audacity workshop

Podcasting

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 12:49:53 +0000

~~REVEAL~~

Podcasting

Developed by Michelle Brown, 2020 and continues to be updated.

Workshop Series - 3 Sessions

In this series of workshops we will cover;

Pre-Production - Research, what makes a popular podcast, finding a story/topic and creating an engaging channel
Post-Production - Editing and hosting (free distribution options and metrics)
Production - Mics and sound, what gear do you need, understanding sound including capturing atmosphere, interviewing techniques. Includes State Library audio equipment induction.

Workshop 1

Pre-Production

Ice-breaker and Introductions

We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their continuing connection to land and as custodians of stories for millenia. We pay our respects to past, present and future leaders.

Everyone to introduce themselves and talk about what they want to learn from the sessions. Discuss as a group;

different types of podcasts people are listening to, why they like them.
how they subscribe to listen or follow their favourite podcasts
what type of podcast topic they might be considering
who has any previous experience with audio production

What is a Podcast?

Discuss the history and popularity of podcasting currently, how is it different to traditional media like radio.

"Podcast" is a blend of words, formed by combining “iPod” and “broadcast”. The term “podcasting” as a name was first suggested by The Guardian columnist and BBC journalist Ben Hammersley, who invented it in early February 2004 while writing an article for The Guardian newspaper.

Podcasts are audio files that can be downloaded automatically to a computer or mobile device. The revolutionary aspect of the podcast is that listeners simply subscribe (usually free of charge) to a podcast, and then as new audio files become available (episodes), they are automatically downloaded to our phone or computers to listen to on our own time.

The audience has the freedom to listen on the go (e.g on smart phones, in the car)
They can listen whenever they want
They can be very topic specific, niche content that can connect a community around the world

A good example of building a community is My Favourite Murder and the Murderinos fan cult - https://www.myfavoritemurder.com/

Some of the most popular podcasts such as Serial and S-Town attract audiences in the tens of millions around the world. In fact, it is Serial, made by the same people who produce the popular radio program This American Life which is attributed with the rise in popularity of podcasts - especially due to its attracting a traditional radio audience and introducing them to the format.

Many major media organisations (newspapers included) see that the podcast platform has a lot of potential to engage new and younger audiences and many have a “podcast first” policy on some stories, an example of this was the Australian newspaper’s Bowraville and The Teacher’s Pet podcast series.

Activity; Listen to some exerts of a podcast, facilitator to choose one or several to play to participants as examples of popular podcasts.

Basic requirements

There are several things you will need to create a successful podcast, we'll cover things in more detail as we go but here's the basics;

Content – engaging content is central to podcasting
Recording equipment or access to - audio quality is still key even with beginner podcasting
Editing software – for piecing together the recordings and optimizing for online hosting
Host server – an internet server where you load your podcast audio episodes
Host web page – this is usually a page on the on the host server's website where your audience finds your podcast and subscribes to it
A digital strategy – also could be called a marketing or promotional plan to ensure that you are getting your podcasts out so you can gain listeners and followers. There are a huge amount of podcasts out there, you'll need some good strategies to cut through the clutter

Listeners also need a way to receive a podcast.

Most importantly they need to be connected to the Internet to download podcasts
They need a podcatcher (such as iTunes, Google Podcast, Spotify). Once they have subscribed, most podcasters automatically download the new episodes to their devices.
They will also need a computer or mobile device to listen back to the episodes once they are downloaded.

Subscribing to a Podcast

Let's talk more about podcatchers so you can get an idea of how the general podcast consumer is accessing. You may be familiar with RSS feeds if you've ever followed an online news service, but podcasts also use RSS feeds to keep subscribers up to date.

Just like any media that is hosted online, we need a way to track and listen to podcasts. Let's talk about some of the options for subscribing to a Podcast, this will help you understand how best to distribute your own.

Here's a few apps you can use to subscribe and listen;

Apple's Podcast app or iTunes
Google Podcast app
Google Play Music app
Spotify
Pocket Casts ($)
Podcast Addict

An activity the facilitator might want to do here is to get participants who are very new to podcasting, to find and subscribe to one using one of the free apps. Getting to know how people are consuming podcasts is very helpful before you start producing your own!

Podcast Content

Let's talk about the content side of things, do you already have an idea for a topic? Share with the group and let's think about how broad or narrow the idea might be, how can you focus or extend the idea to capture a dedicated audience.

Some key things you might want to think about initially are;

Is this for fun or will you be looking to monetize?
Are there other podcasts that cover similar (or identical!) topics, how will yours be different?
How long will an episode of your podcast run for (will each week be the same or will you intersperse with extras or ‘minisode’ eps)
Have you thought of a name that will stand out from the crowd? (Making sure to check if it’s already been used before you get too attached!)
How often will your podcast run, weekly, monthly, intermittently? Will it be seasonal or continuous etc.

Great presentation skills, recording and editing skills along with good editorial skills (knowing what works in audio) will help you dive straight into producing a podcast, but you can also learn these pretty quickly and we'll cover the basics of these during our workshops.

Activity; Ask participants to spend some time writing down some answers to the following (use text edit or paper if they prefer);

What kind of podcast do you want to create?
How long? How often?
Who is your target audience (Lay audience or industry specific? Vocab and level of explanation will be important for how you communicate based on the level of expertise you expect listeners to have)
Tone: serious or light-hearted?
How will you record it and edit it? (don't worry if you haven't thought about that yet, we'll go into this later)
How will you promote it?

Podcast Styles

You can have your own style of podcast, but generally they will fall into one of the below broadcast formats, having a think about which style you might prefer for your own podcast may help you focus on the structure and content.

The Interview style; usually featuring regular guests and interviews and may include a few hosts
The Solo Podcast; run by one person and possible covering specific topics
The Panel Show; a group of hosts discussing different topics relating to the podcasts main focus
Conversational/Co-hosted podcast; similar to interview format but more casual
Storytelling; could be historical content or fictional, can include one host or more
Audio drama; similar to old-fashioned radio plays featuring sound design, multiple characters etc.

Episode Preparation

For great sounding audio content, preparation is key! Even if it's a loose idea for structure of the ep, but using a runsheet is super helpful to keep you organised and on track.

Some things you might need to think about when putting together the podcast;

Scripting; will you have dot points to refer to, no script at all and totally wing it, or fully scripted. Be mindful of fully scripting or winging it, you can sound like you're reading direct from a piece of paper - or with not notes can lose track of what you want to talk about.
Interviews; will you have anyone guest on your show? If you do, you may want to prepare a list of questions.
SFX & music (licensing); if you want to make your content engaging, you may want to think about sound effects and backing music.
Stings/pre-recorded elements; Creating an appealing podcast intro will help you start each show with a formula and introduce new listeners to who/what you cover.
Perhaps content warnings if your show is not suitable for younger audiences or features explicit/difficult content.

You can download a template here

Activity Let's run through this to get an idea of how you might be able to use it for your podcast preparation. Spend some time filling out on the computer with a word processing program (Pages on Mac) with your idea for an episode of a podcast.

Legalities and Copyright

Because Podcasts are globally accessible, opposed to traditional media like radio and TV, they aren't bound as strictly to ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority) codes of practice, so rules around swearing and offensive material do not apply. However, all other broadcast laws and regulations do apply – such as defamation, copyright, racial vilification and so on, as podcasting is a form of publishing.

You can also read through the Creative Commons 'Blog, Podcast, Vodcast and Wiki Copyright Guide for Australia' - https://creativecommons.org.au/publications/blogguide/

Different podcasting platforms have their own requirements when it comes to copyright material, read the fine print about copyrighted material in the terms of service as you begin to use a new platform to distribute your content.

Including music in your podcast can cause a bit of a headache, you need permissions from the artist or the right to broadcast via licensing, in Australia you would need to be covered by APRA AMCOS and PPCA.

Best to just use copyright free music or get written permission from any friends who may let you use their music (if they are on a label it may not be this easy mind you!).

Some more links on legal things to be aware of (some of this is US relevant though so keep that in mind);

https://medium.com/the-walkley-magazine/fair-dealing-for-australian-podcasters-6861290b414d

https://firemark.com/2013/05/14/9-tips-to-keep-your-podcast-legal/

https://www.creativelive.com/blog/podcast-legal-issues/

Creative Commons Licensing

Free Music Archive has a good breakdown of licensing and copyright, plus music and soundtrack audio you can search for - http://freemusicarchive.org/License_Guide

Places to find copy-right free music:

Workshop 2

During session 2 of this program we cover the recording and equipment side of Podcasting. Production - Mics and sound, what gear do you need, understanding sound including capturing atmosphere, interviewing techniques. Includes State Library Recording Studio induction.

Production

Putting together a home recording or portable podcast set up can be daunting, it's hard to know where to start, particularly when you start looking online for advice. You can fall down many a rabbit hole and end up back where you started, no clue on what to purchase and what you need.

We've found a few handy links online, but ultimately it comes down to how much you want to invest and what level of knowledge you have about sound and recording gear. Start basic is probably a good rule of thumb, you can always upgrade and spend more once you get more comfortable with the process.

It's also important to note that sound engineers and production people spend years learning this stuff, so we're not going to get through more than the basics today, and it will be up to you to continue to grow your audio knowledge. The State Library offers specific workshops on many audio programs and we even host a Producers Meet up.

Resource; Ira Glass Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91FQKciKfHI

Gear

Requirements - Ability to record vocals with little sound interference is your main goal, if you're just starting out and don't have access to a studio, there is a basic list of things you'll need.

Mic, leads and pop filter (XLR vs USB)
Audio interface (may not require if you go with USB mic)
Mic Stand
Headphones
Soundproofing (Your recording environment is key, you may need to deaden the sound of the room, not too much echo or road noise, aircon rattle etc.)

Extra items;

Portable Audio Recorder
Or mic/adapter for mobile phone

Also required is a computer to run the setup and audio editing software.

There's some great resources available on a website called Transom

It's up to you how much you want to spend, but we've looked at rough basic costs for a portable/home recording set up.

Basic starting costs;

Basic Mic ($100 to $150)
Mic Shield (from $50 to $89)
Pop shield or mic sock ($10)
Mic stand/s ($20 for desk stand and $20 for full stand)
Mic lead (will come with USB mics, XLR leads from $20)

Resources; https://podcastblastoff.com/post/How-to-Build-a-Podcast-Studio-on-Any-Budget

https://www.digitalmarketer.com/blog/podcast-equipment/

Recording with iPhone - https://www.guidingtech.com/audio-recording-apps-iphone/ Dolby mobile app - https://music.dolby.com/dolby-on/

Microphones

https://thehub.musiciansfriend.com/audio-recording-buying-guides/buying-guide-microphones

https://reverb.com/au/news/what-are-the-basic-types-of-microphones-the-basics

http://sessionville.com/articles/types-of-microphones

There are 4 main types of microphone polar patterns, which identify where and how much the mic will pick up.: cardioid, super cardioid, omni and figure 8.

Cardioid: Imagine a Japanese fan coming from the tip of the mic. That’s the pattern it will hear sound from.
Super Cardioid means the fan is not fully unfurled – a tighter pickup area.
Omni means all around, from everywhere – think a globe around the mic as it’s pick up range.
Figure 8; put the mic in the center of the 8 and it’s a visual to the pattern it will pick up – not much if anything from the side and everything in front and in back.

There are three different categories for mics: Dynamic, Condenser and Ribbon.

Mic technique is also very important, here's a quick guide on how best to position yourself - https://www.voices.com/blog/microphone_sweet_spot/

Plug in mics for iPhone - https://www.podcastinsights.com/best-iphone-microphone/

Intros and Stings

Today we're going to get you to record an intro for your new podcast, if you have no idea about what your program might be about, that's ok, just make something up for today.

Once we get into the recording studio, we'll get you to record the vocal audio and then we'll edit that back on the iMac's using Audacity.

Some of the things you want to cover in your show promo are;

Name of your podcast
Host of the podcast
Purpose or tagline of the podcast
Any other important info like sponsors or disclaimers

If it's pre-recorded then you want to keep it relevant for every podcast episode, after you play the intro/sting, you can then introduce the episode topic, any guests or other relevant info.

Resources; https://www.podcastmotor.com/actually-create-podcast-intros-attract-listeners/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K2QIkAvFeg

Recording Studio Induction

For this part of the session we'll move to the recording studio to show everyone how to use the space and get comfortable with recording a small vocal piece.

If you haven't already got an idea for a podcast, make one up and write a short intro so you have something to record and edit back in the DML.

Some info on The Edge Recording Studio and how to book - http://edgeqld.org.au/resources/recording-studio/

https://wiki.edgeqld.org.au/doku.php?id=facilities:recordingstudio:basics

https://wiki.edgeqld.org.au/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=facilities:the_edge_lab_handbook_recording_studio_v4.pdf

WORKSHOP 3

During session 3 we will cover Post-Production, including editing audio, creating soundbeds and using effects, and how to host and distribute your podcast. We'll also cover some of the monetisation and checking your metrics (how many people are listening!).

Audio Editing Software

We're showing you the basics of Audacity as it is a free and open source software, there are many other multi track software or DAWS (digital audio workstations) you can use and in the Digital Media Lab you have access to;

ProTools (Paid)
Logic Pro X (starting from $600)
Ableton Live ($99 upwards)
Adobe Audition ($30 per month subscription)
Audacity (Free)
Garageband (Free with Mac)

Another paid option is a new program called Hindenburg which has been created especially for journalists in radio and podcasting, as it's a very clean and easy program to layer and organise audio (cost is $95EU) https://hindenburg.com/

Audio Editing Basics

Understanding Decibels, Gain and Levels Resources;

Probably the best one to go through - https://transom.org/2015/podcasting-basics-part-3-audio-levels-and-processing/

-16 LUfs is generally the suggested loudness output, Hindenberg software makes this very easy to output at this level.

Audacity

We have chosen Audacity to showcase as it is a Free and Open Source software available on all OS platforms.

Let's go through a basic Audacity software induction so we can understand a few more of the basic tools and what we need to get our new Podcast Intro up to scratch; https://wiki.edgeqld.org.au/doku.php?id=facilities:fablab:software:audacity

You might want to try out Garageband, it is ONLY available on Mac, so keep that in mind, but we can go over some of the basics.

Soundbed

Main advice for any audio interviewing is to make sure you record a bed of room tone or atmosphere sound to undercut the whole ep so it sounds even.

Another useful trick is panning 2+ mics slightly to the left and right to give the feeling of being in a room with the podcasters, and using a high pass filter if you have too much noise you can’t clean up.

For your show intro editing, let's find some free backing music and sound effects and edit our vocal recording to piece together a fun podcast sting!

Free music and sound effects resources;

Output File Formats

We always suggest that you record using the WAV format (high-quality, no data compression) even though for the purposes of a podcast your file will be converted to an MP3 or AAC format (lower-quality, data compression). When setting up your session in your audio recording and editing program, the best standards at the lowest size to use are: WAV, 16-bit, 44.1 kHz. (You can record at higher quality but the difference is mostly negligible by the time you export the file as an MP3 or AAC).

Podcasts need to be distributed as data compressed files, and the most widely accepted formats are MP3 and AAC. The quality settings are up to you, but as a guide:

Music and/or much creative sound? Stereo MP3 at 320kbps
Essentially just voice? Mono MP3 at 128kbps or even lower can suffice

Smaller file sizes are preferred, so do some tests and go with the lowest encoding rate that still sounds good enough to you. However lower rates will effect much musical material, so if it’s music heavy you should aim for a higher rate.

If your podcast will sound fine in mono (if it is just spoken word), export, and encode, in mono: the resulting file will be only half as big as a stereo version. It’s a good idea to keep the file at 16-bit and 44.1 kHz, and experimenting with different compression settings in your MP3 or AAC encoder, but some voice-only podcasts can sound OK at lower sample rates or bit depths. The most common file format is MP3, and that’s still the most widely supported by all devices that can play podcasts. AAC is becoming increasingly popular, and those files can be played on the vast majority of devices. AAC offers better audio quality at smaller file sizes, so it’s more efficient to store and to distribute, and it offers some additional metadata that MP3 does not, such as Chapter Markers, embedded links and images. These add-on features are not widely used by podcast listeners though.

Apart from audio quality, the main thing to take into consideration in relation to the size of the file that you are uploading for podcast is bandwidth. Bandwidth, the amount of data used to deliver your audio to the end user, probably won’t be a big problem until your podcast becomes very popular. If you have a few hundred, even a few thousand subscribers, the bandwidth used to send out that audio will likely be covered by the basic contract with your web host or podcast host (depending on where you are putting your audio). It is definitely worth checking to see what your hosting service provides, and what happens if you do exceed the agreed-upon bandwidth. Costs can increase considerably if you start getting hundreds of thousands of downloads but if you are so successful with your podcast hopefully you will be able to attract advertising!

It’s always a good idea to export and save a full-quality version of your production as an uncompressed WAV file. You may want to make simple changes or updates to your program and in some cases it might be easier to tweak a mixed version than to go back and re-adjust the elements of your original multi-track project. Also, the technology of audio delivery changes, so at some time in the future, you may want to re-encode your production.

The actual encoding of your files can usually be done directly from your editing program: most of them will have an option to export your final mix in a few different formats. Or, you can always export the mix of your show as a WAV file, and use a separate encoding program to convert it to MP3 or AAC.

Distribution

One of the main things people get stuck on when they get started in podcasting, is how to get it out to listeners. There's a few steps to distributing your podcast, and you might want to know straight away how to I get it on iTunes or Spotify, we'll cover this a bit later but the 2 key things are RSS feeds and a hosting service.

Metadata

Metadata is is useful information about your podcast and makes it easier to find your podcast when searching.

You may already know about Metadata as it's displayed in your media playing software (such as iTunes) or on the screen of your MP3 player - such things as Track title, Album, Artist. When you bounce/export audio, software like Audacity will ask you to fill in these fields.

RSS Feeds

RSS stands for “rich site summary” and is a simple way of staying up to date with the delivery of content, for example, tracking episodes of podcast releases. Wiki entry

The following steps of setting up an RSS feed are based on what you would do if you are using Whooshkaa.

1. Create an account

Head to https://www.whooshkaa.com/

2. Create your podcast

Click ‘Create a Show’.
Complete the program info fields
Provide an image at least 1400 x 1400 pixels large. Square images appear to perform better.

3. Adjust the content settings Edit your podcast:

Choose a category for your podcast.
Select the language of your podcast.
Check the Contains explicit content box, if applicable.

(Optional) settings

Stats service prefix URL: This is where you might add a 3rd-party, stats-tracking service such as Podtrac
External show page: Add your website or a specific URL

4. Access your RSS

Your ‘RSS Feed URL’ is on your show page on Whooshkaa. This can be sent to a number of podcast platforms, and allow for listeners to subscribe to your show.

Whooshkaa has inbuilt buttons to submit to iTunes and Spotify. To submit to iTunes you will need an iTunes Connect account. These each take time to be validated by the respective platforms, and Whooshkaa can’t guarantee they'll get added, although if they don't it's generally down to poor formatting, blank or incomplete fields, no image, or if your podcast shares a name with an existing show so get the quality right from the get go!

More on RSS Feeds; https://rss.com/how-to-create-an-rss-feed/

https://www.podcastinsights.com/podcast-rss-feed/

Hosting

There are a variety of hosting services out there, it mainly comes down to cost and ease of use for most people. We've chosen to show more of Whooshkaa as it's free and a simple system for beginners but some others include;

Podbean
Buzzsprout
Libsyn
Transistor
Simplecast
Soundcloud
Podomatic

Resource;

https://www.thepodcasthost.com/websites-hosting/best-podcast-hosting/

https://www.podcastinsights.com/best-podcast-hosting/

Promotion

Once you have a podcast set up, it's not as easy as just waiting for listeners and followers to find you, you need to get out there and promote the podcast and new content.

Think about creating a website, even if it's a free Wordpress or Blog site.

Think about social media, create a Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter account - but only if you'll use them regularly, as social networks and their algorithms are about continuous engagement. You can't just create a page and then not post regularly, as your audience may not as engage with your content if they don't know what's coming up on the podcast.

Make a media contact list (see if you can find someone who works in a similar area who has one prepared)

Organise cross promo with other podcasts of similar size, plug each others’ shows.

Join facebook groups for fellow podcasters

Have a launch party. Physical events in the real world help to build excitement around your show’s release, and to connect community.

Some more info on effective podcast promotion;

https://buffer.com/library/promote-a-podcast

Audience Metrics

Once you start your podcast, you want to track who your listeners are and how they're accessing your podcast. Why? Well firstly, it helps to know you're not just putting out something you've spent a lot of time and energy on and you've got no one listening. Secondly, if you want to make money from your podcast, then you're going have to grow your audience, the best way to grow your audience is to know your audience! With a clearer understanding of your listening audience and the right promotional pushes, you might be able to earn some income.

Depending on your hosting service provider, you should have access to some analytics, like how many listens, where people are located, listening sources (itunes, spotify etc).

Here are some Whooshkaa Insight screen shots;

Looking at other podcasters and the most popular podcasts from around the world can help you gain an understanding of what gets the most interest from the general public, however, don't let that stop you from staying in a niche area and not thinking too much about a topic that will appeal to a large demographic, some of the most obscure and self indulgent podcasts have become very popular!

Specific analytics tracking website Podtrac has some really handy and accessible information about measuring analytics for podcasts, and they use a measuring system that is free for podcasters to sign on for and provide monthly rankings - http://analytics.podtrac.com/

Making Money

We just talked a lot about looking at our audience and analytics, and mainly this is what is key to getting a podcast to bring in income. This is a hard thing to achieve, it's a very competitive market with new podcasts popping up every day.

How do you get out on top with so many other diverse and interesting podcasts fighting for the listeners attention? Well when you do start to get a healthy audience, there's the opportunity to bring in sponsors/advertisers. And this is where possibly having a niche topic of podcast can help you target some key aligning sponsors, say for example your podcast was on guitar pedals, well then you've got a good chance of convincing a pedal manufacturing business to come on board as a sponsor - an example one is Mozilla’s IRL.

Another way to make money is to use crowd-funding, and ask straight to the source, the listener, to support by becoming a patron or contributing to a fundraising campaign (Patreon is an example of this).

There's also the opportunity to apply for funding for some more specific areas of podcasting focus, like documentary storytelling and reporting etc. but this is pretty rare still in Australia.

You could start small when you had a good following of loyal supporters and just get some merch produced and sell it!

Affiliate sales programs (amazon, redbubble etc.) are also helpful because they’ll sign almost anyone, you don’t have to have heaps of followers.

Some more resources;

https://www.thebalancesmb.com/how-to-make-money-podcasting-2531432

https://www.podcastinsights.com/make-money-podcasting/

Wrap Up

That's the end of our Podcasting series, we encourage you to learn more on the areas you may feel less confident in, googling tutorials or using the Lynda training resources. Or, check out some of the more tailored workshops the State Library offer - https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/whats-on

After this session we hope you'll be ready to go with starting your own podcast! Please keep in touch and let us know when you've launched - appliedcreativity@slq.qld.gov.au

Feel free to join local Facebook group set up for Brisbane Podcasters - https://www.facebook.com/groups/brisbanepodcasters/ Or the Australian group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/australianpodcasters/ Another great resource - http://australianaudioguide.com/

101 - Intro to Premiere Pro

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 16 Apr 2025 16:46:46 +0000

101 - Intro to Premiere Pro

An Introduction to Premiere Pro.

Developed by Michelle Brown 2019, updated by Amelia Paxman 2022.

Workshop Presentation

This workshop has been created into a slide show for presentation and documentation purposes. Please feel free to download and use the guide and files as per our CC license in the footnote.

Some pages may link to other online workshops, tutorials or guides created at The Edge, you may require internet to connect and view links.

Admin view

Public view

What makes a good edit?

Think about your audience
Who are they?
What music do they like?
What feel are you going for?
Using images to evoke emotion

Discuss some of the favourite edits or techniques as a group so the induction can focus on some specific areas as required.

Summary

During this session we will touch on the following.


Project set up	Source monitor Program monitor Timeline Project window Tabs for different workflows
File management	Folder structure Keeping everything together Importing assets Offline files
Saving your project	Save as The importance of regular saving Reopening Auto-Save files
Setting up sequences	Naming sequences Duplicating sequences Workflow Bin structure
Using the editing timeline	Dragging footage onto the timeline Audio and visual components Muting, soloing, eye icon Zooming in and out Time Creating slugs
Editing tools	Drag Trim Razor
Footage duration	Slowing Speeding Reversing
Transitions	The cut The cross dissolve/fade to black Wipe / page tur
Effects	Effects library Colour correction Adding and removing other effects Effect controls
The vertical timeline	Opacity Overlay Splitscreening
Keyframing	Size Motion Working with still images
Text	Graphics tab Adding text
Exporting	Checking your timeline Choosing your export location Choosing your settings

Before getting started

This introduction covers the basics of Premiere Pro, including getting to know the user interface, but one of the key things before you even open the program is to be organised with your assets!

Whether working off an internal or external hard drive, start every project by creating a project folder and this folder will contain all the files related to your project. Make sure you have dedicated folders for your raw footage, audio and for the exported drafts and final video files.

This will just make things a whole lot easier as you go.

User Interface

There are four main windows which make up the Premiere Pro workspace:

This image shows the layout of the Editing workspace without any imported media, you will see different tabs at the top of the screen to change to different workflows.

Project (bottom left): Where you import and organize your media
Source Monitor (top left): Where you view and trim your raw media
Program Monitor (top right): Where you view your timeline sequence
Timeline (bottom right): Where you create your edit

You can move these windows around and customize your workspace in Window > Workspaces

Projects and Sequences

Starting a new Project

Open the Program and you will be prompted to open or start a project.

Name your project and save it.

Starting a new Sequence

The sequence is where you will build your video.
File
New sequence or Command N
Select the type of camera - media type. Since Premiere Pro does a great job at automating this process once you place your footage on the timeline, leave all this as it presents itself. Just rename your sequence at the bottom of the window and hit OK.

Projects can contain multiple Sequences

Importing Media

2 Options;

File Import
Command i

You can import multiple media files or folders.

We have some video and audio files that we will pass around to use as assets so you can follow along with some basic composition and editing, copy the folder 'Premiere Pro Induction Assets' on to your desktop and pass the USB along to someone else to do the same.

Use what we just learned to import one of the video files.

Editing Basics

In and Out Points

Double click on one of the video files you have imported in your project panel; this will load the clip into your Source Monitor. Use the Mark In ({) and Mark Out (}) buttons to set the desired start and end for this clip. The grey bar under the clip shows your clip selection. You will always be able to tweak the length of this selection once you place your clip on the timeline, so no need to worry about getting the perfect selection now. You can also use the I and O keys to input in and out points.

Getting a Clip Onto the Timeline

Once you’ve made your selection using in and out points, you can either drag the clip onto the timeline (from the Project or Source Monitor windows) or using the Insert/Overwrite buttons.

Editing a Clip on the Timeline

Now that you’ve got your clip on the timeline, you can move it around and adjust its length on either end using the Selection Tool (V). Your cursor will turn into a red arrow symbol when you position it at the inner or outer edge of the clip, allowing you to lengthen or shorten it. Using the Razor Tool (C), you can split your clip in two or cut out a section in the middle.

These two tools will allow you to do most of your basic editing.

Building your Sequence

This image depicts an imported video file being viewed in the Project, Source and Project Monitors and in the Timeline window.

We have one video file which includes an audio track already added to our Sequence, but let's add some more.

Find one of the backing audio tracks provided and import this into your project, find another video file and add this so you have two lots of video footage to work with.

What we want to do is have two video tracks transition and add the music soundbed to the sequence so we can still hear the interview, but have the music playing at a good volume underneath.

Transitions

Transitions are what happens between each bit of footage (or audio), there are many ways you can use transitions effectively, but beware of going overboard and alienating your audience with a wrong transition choice!

You can't really go wrong with some of the basics;

straight cut
dissolve / fade in and out (Dip to Black)

Applying transitions is as easy as dragging a transition from the Effects panel and dropping it into the timeline at the beginning or end of a clip. To find the Effects panel if it isn't open already, choose Window > Effects from the main menu (or press Shift+7).

Some more info on Transitions; https://helpx.adobe.com/au/premiere-pro/how-to/apply-transitions-premiere-cc.html

Audio

Basic audio adjustments

Although Premiere Pro includes a full-featured Audio Track Mixer, there are times when many of these options are not required. For example, when creating a rough cut from video and audio captured together from DV footage, output to stereo tracks, follow these guidelines:

Start with the Master meters and volume fader in the Audio Track Mixer. If the audio is too far below 0 dB or too high (the red clipping indicator appears), adjust the level of clips or tracks as needed.

To temporarily silence a track, use the Mute Track button in the Audio Track Mixer or the Toggle Track Output icon in the Timeline panel. To temporarily silence all other tracks, use the Solo button in the Audio Track Mixer.

When making audio adjustments of any kind, determine whether the change is applied to the entire track or to individual clips. Audio tracks and clips are edited in different ways.

Use the Show/Hide Tracks command in the Audio Track Mixer menu to display only the information you want to see and save screen space. If you aren’t using Effects and Sends, you can hide them by clicking the triangle at the left edge of the Audio Track Mixer.

More info here - https://helpx.adobe.com/au/premiere-pro/using/overview-audio-audio-mixer.html

Effects

You can apply one or more Standard effects to a clip by dragging effect icons from the Effects panel to a clip in the Timeline panel. Alternatively, select the clip and double-click an effect in the Effects panel to apply it. You can apply the same effect multiple times, using different settings each time.

You can apply Standard effects to more than one clip at a time by first selecting all the clips you want to affect.

You can also temporarily disable any effect, which suppresses the effect without removing it, or you can remove the effect completely.

To view and adjust effects for a selected clip, use the Effect Controls panel. Alternatively, you can view and adjust effects for a clip in the Timeline panel by expanding its track and selecting the proper viewing options.

By default, when you apply an effect to a clip, the effect is active for the duration of the clip. However, you can make an effect start and stop at specific times or make the effect more or less intense by using keyframes.

Learn more here - https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/applying-removing-finding-organizing-effects.html

Colour Correction

You can find the color- and luminance-adjusting effects in the Color Correction bin inside the Video Effects bin. Although other effects also adjust color and luminance, the Color Correction effects are designed for making fine color and luminance corrections.

You apply the Color Correction effects to a clip the same way you apply all Standard effects. The effect properties are adjusted in the Effect Controls panel. The Color Correction effects and other color effects are clip-based. However, you can apply them to multiple clips by nesting sequences, which is a more advanced area that we won't really have time to go over today.

A basic guide for us to try;

Choose the clip you want to add color to on the timeline and double-click it.
Click the Effects Control tab.
Search for Fast Color Corrector, and double-click it.
When the effect loads in the Effect Controls window, it’s going to give you a ton of options. Scroll down to the White Level and click the eyedropper icon.
Find the brightest/whitest area of your picture and click the eyedropper there.
Now go back to the Effect Controls window and go to the Black Level eyedropper.
This time you’ll be finding the darkest/blackest part of the image and click the eyedropper on it.
If you want to do more to the image, you can go to the Gray Level and use the eyedropper to identify the neutral colors in your scene. However, you don’t always have to do this and you can actually mess up the picture using it.
You can also adjust your Color Level Settings: you can intensify the colors or add richness to your look. The left corresponds to the blacks in the scene, the right corresponds to the highlights.

When correcting color, it’s useful to use the Vectorscope or waveform scopes (YC Waveform, RGB Parade, and YCbCr Parade) to help you analyze the chroma and luminance in a clip. You can view a scope in a separate Reference Monitor that’s ganged to the Program Monitor so that you can check your video levels as you make adjustments.

Learn more on colour correction here - https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/color-correction-adjustment.html

Exporting Video

Basic Guide to a simple export;

To export a sequence as an H.264 file (the most popular option), make sure the Timeline panel is active and choose File > Export > Media or press Control+M (Windows) or Command+M (macOS).
In the Export Settings dialog box, choose Format: H.264 and Preset: Match Source – High Bitrate.
To choose a filename and location, click the blue filename to open the Save As dialog box. Use this to choose an export location and a name for your new file, and then click Save.
When you’re happy with your settings, click Export. The new video file will be created, ready to share with the world.

There are many preset options for exporting, you can use the drop don menu to look through and choose the best one for where the video project may end up being hosted.

Health & Safety

Running this workshop at The Edge?.. You should familiarise yourself and your participants with:

DML Risk Assessment

Resources

Great set of general tutorials and tips and tricks: https://motionarray.com/premiere-pro/adobe-premiere-pro-cc-tutorials/

Premiere Tutorials and Tips: https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/tutorials.html

Editing tips: https://vimeo.com/blog/category/video-school/tag:editing

Editing Technique: https://vimeo.com/insidetheedit

Working with and import video content from different cameras: https://www.lynda.com/Premiere-Pro-tutorials/Starting-from-scratch-Importing-media/371692/413960-4.html

Understanding Audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIqV8nIjTTE

Learning the art of colour correction and grading: http://www.learncolorgrading.com/

Post haste: Is a free tool that set's up project folder stuctures: https://www.digitalrebellion.com/posthaste/

Adobe Premiere pro forum: (issues or questions about the software) https://forums.adobe.com/community/premiere

Green Screen footage to practice with: http://www.hollywoodcamerawork.com/green-screen-plates.html

Art of editing: when should you cut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q3eITC01Fg

Types of compression and video formats: http://nofilmschool.com/2014/08/heres-what-you-need-to-know-video-compression Where to find Creative Commons licensed footage and Music:

What is Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org.au/

Public Domain/ Creative Commons Video Footage: http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/20-free-online-stock-video-sites/

Creative Commons Music: https://incompetech.com/

101 - Intro to Procreate

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 11:27:01 +0000

101 - Intro to Procreate

Developed by Ellie Dumigan, 2023

Acknowledgement

Workshop presentation

The Procreate 101 workshop has been created into a slide show for presentation and documentation purposes. Please feel free to download and use the guide and files as per our CC license in the footnote.

Some pages may link to other online workshops, tutorials or guides created at The Edge, you may require the internet to connect and view links.

Public view - Slides

Admin view - Slides

Resources

Summary

Learn the basics of using Procreate to create sketches, paintings, illustrations and even animations.

Skills Introduced

Procreate Gallery Overview /basics
Interface Overview + Hand gestures
Creating a Canvas
Brush options
Brush Studio
Introduction to Layers
Saving and Files + Exporting capabilities

Tools and Preparation

Hardware required: IPad and Stylus
Software required: Procreate

Workshop Walkthrough

Procreate Gallery Overview/Basics

When you first open the Procreate app you will be greeted with the home page or Gallery that stores your latest artworks. When opening the app for the first time the Gallery will contain some premade sample artworks to demonstrate the app's capabilities.

In the upper right corner, you will see the options for Select, Import, Photo and ‘+’

Interface Overview + Hand gestures

Three sections of the Procreate interface. These three sections can be broken down into

Painting Tools (Top right of the image),
Sidebar (left side of image) and
Editing Tools (top left).

Painting Tools:

1. Paint - access the brush library (Procreate automatically comes with hundreds of brushes to choose from) to paint, sketch, ink and more.
2. Smudge - Blend and mix colour using the same brushes from the brush library. This tool can help create a range of effects, textures and looks.
3. Erase - Using the same brush library this tool can help remove mistakes and make adjustments to your artwork.
4. Layers - Draw on different layers to break up artwork and not disturb aspects you have already done. Layers also let you move, edit, recolour and delete elements without altering other aspects of your work.
5. Colour- Select and adjust colours to your desired hue. A colour wheel is also available to select the desired colour. Procreate also has the option of colour palettes that allow one to select colours and create new palettes.

Sidebar:

6. Brush Size - Controls the brush size, slide up for a larger brush and down for a smaller meeting. The larger brush size will create a thicker stroke, while a smaller brush tip will achieve a thinner line.
7. Modify Button - activities the colour eye dropper. This allows for colour to be picked from a specific area of the canvas (or an imported image). Slide the eyedropper over the desired colour and release it to select the colour.
8. Brush Opacity - This controls the opacity of the brush from more transparent to a more solid colour. The slider can be dragged up or down to make changes or hold the slider and move sideways to adjust in smaller increments.
9. Undo/Redo arrows - Tapping one arrow will Undo the last action and selecting the other will redo the action. A notification will pop up at the top of the screen each time an undo/redo arrow is pressed. Procreates allows Undos up to 250 actions.

Editing Tools:

10. Gallery - This will return you to the homepage/gallery, this feature is covered in the Procreate Gallery Overview /basics section of this walkthrough.
11. Actions - Shown as a Wrench icon. The features include inserting a file, a photo, taking a photo, adding text, cutting, copying and copying the whole canvas. Share is also included under this option, allowing canvases to be exported out in different file formats, these can then be shared via email or message or uploaded to social media accounts.
12. Adjustments - controls all of your image adjustments, including colour and image filters.
13. Selection tool - lets you select various areas of your artwork to modify your image.
14. Transformation tool - assists in moving, distorting and scaling the image.

Hand Gestures:

A handy aspect of using the Procreate system on the iPad is the hand gesture options that make it even easier to navigate the interface. Below is a basic list of the available hand gestures that can help speed up your work.

Pinch to Zoom - using two fingers place them on the canvas and move them together to zoom out or apart to zoom in.
Pinch-Twist to Rotate - pinch the canvas and twist your fingers in a circular motion to rotate the canvas.
Quick Pinch to Fit to Screen - Same gesture as Pinch to Zoom but done at a faster rate. Do the same gesture in revere to return to the previous view.
Two-Finger Tap to Undo - Tapping two fingers together on the canvas to undo. Rapidly undo a bunch of actions by holding two fingers.
Three-Finger Tap to Redo - Tap three fingers together on the canvas to redo. Rapidly redo a bunch of actions by holding three fingers.
Three-finger Swipe to Cut/Copy/Paste - Swipe three fingers down on the canvas to bring up the Cut/Copy/Paste option menu.
Four-Finger Tap for Full Screen - tapping four fingers on the screen will enter Full-Screen mode with the interface disappearing. To bring the interface back, four-finger tap again or tap the full-screen button in the top left corner.

Procreate also has a wide range of Accessibility Gestures and all the gestures can be changed to best suit the user. This can be accessed through the Actions (wrench icon button), then Prefs and Gesture Controls to open the Gesture Controls panel.

Single Touch Gestures are one accessibility option for users with limited hand movements, this can be activated via the iPadOS settings - Procreate and then toggle Single Touch Gestures Companion on. Just as a note the companion will always remain on-screen until it is toggled off.

Creating a Canvas

Now that we have a basic overview of the Procreate Canvas interface, let’s create a new canvas to begin working on

To create a new canvas press on the ‘+’ in the gallery view
This will open the new canvas options
You can either choose from the default canvas sizes or you can choose to create a custom canvas size by tapping on the small + canvas button in the right corner.
Dimensions for the canvas can be in millimetres, centimetres, inches or pixels, choose the size that works best for the project you are creating.
We will select just a standard A4 paper size to begin.
DPI or dot per inch can also be selected for the new canvas from this view. The size of the DPI will again depend on what the project has been used for, we will use 300 DPI for now.
The colour profile can also be selected, it will default to RGB but CMYK is the preferred option for designs that will be printed.
A cool feature of Procreate that can be seen in the Custom Canvas menu is the Time-Lapse Settings. The app allows users to record and export time-lapse videos of any created artwork. These settings options aid in choosing the quality of the video being exported.
The last option in this view is Canvas properties, this is where a background colour can be chosen or made transparent. This is not a locked option and changes can be made throughout the project via the layer menu.

Once all these settings have been decided on, hit ‘Create’ to open our new canvas. Now you should be able to see your canvas in the middle and the Procreate interface around it. This interface can be moved around to best use your needs but we will leave it at the default stage for now.

Let's move on to brushes and start to play around with Procreate’s features.

Brush options

With Procreate you can create using an apple pencil or even your finger. Let’s go over some of the essential brush options that you have access to.

Overview of the brush options:

Paint
Smudge
Erase

All these options use the same brushes from the brush library with different effects. It’s great to play around with these options and see all the ways you could create with them.

To start select the Brush Tool and select a brush option from the Brush Library that comes with Procreate, you can also download custom brushes from the internet. Know you can choose other aspects like colour, size and opacity and go wild with your creation.

The Smudge Tool works similarly to Paint but works best when there are already other strokes made on the canvas already. The smudge tool can be used again with again brush from the Brush Library and can create various effects. The Smudge Tool allows you to move the pigment around your canvas through blending, smoothing out strokes or mixing colour.

Erase is the option you use when you want to erase an aspect of your artwork. To begin using this tool you can again select the Brush Tool and a brush from the library and then move the brush around the canvas to erase parts of your artwork.

A nice tip with brushes is that the most recent brushes you have used will appear in the top list of the Brush Library under the tab Recent. This can be helpful to return to a brush you were using quickly. You can also pin your favourite brushes by swiping left on the brush in the Recent section and tapping Pin.

Brush Studio

Brush Studio is a menu that allows you to fully customise the pre-made brushes in Procreate, or even create your brush!

To enter the Brush Studio, tap on the brush you would like to edit and this will open the Studio. This interface is divided into three parts: Attributes, Settings and Drawing Pad.

Attributes:

Contains 12 characteristics of your brush. Shape, gain and size can all be adjusted for the brush here.

Settings:

The settings are different for each of the 12 characteristics of the brush, you can make heaps of changes such as spacing, jitter, stabilization, tapering and so on.

Drawing Pad:

This allows you to preview and test out the changes been made to your brushes before saving.

An excellent way to test out the differences is to draw shapes and scribbles while adjusting settings to see how it looks.

Let’s have a play around with the Brush Studio and see what kinds of things we can create. Draw out a few shapes and squiggles, maybe a dog, have fun with it and see the difference the Brush Studio can make to your artwork.

Introduction to Layers

Layers are super helpful in separating elements of your artwork, allowing you to make changes to one layer on the artwork without affecting the others.

Layers can be grouped into a folder, copied, pinned and hidden.
The bottom of the layer menu is the background layer with a colour. This is where the colour for the background can be selected or turned off completely for exporting transparent PNG files.

Saving files and sharing

Saving files: New canvases are always automatically saved into the Procreate gallery. Within this gallery, you can create stacks to help organise your artwork.

These stacks work similarly to folders and help group items together. Drap and drop artwork on top of each other to create a stack that can be named accordingly.
Swiping left on a canvas in the gallery menu will open a menu that includes options for sharing, duplicating or deleting. This is an easy quick way to make copies, delete or share your work.

You can also backup your work via a few different methods involving, iCloud Drive or an external hard drive. This can help you access this work if something happens to your device, to save the work simply select the projects to want to save in the galley area. A drop-down menu will appear and you can choose which file you want to save, you can save them as image files, a Procreate file, Photoshop and pdf files. This gives you a few various ways to back up your work. If the work is a work in progress a good file option would be Procreate or a Photoshop file so it can be opened and worked on later.

Sharing your work:

Procreate has a pretty easy way of sharing your artwork with friends, family or the world. You can share the artwork via the Gallery or the actual project file itself.

Sharing via the Gallery is easy!

From the Gallery choose the Select option at the top right-hand corner of the screen
Then click on the artwork you want to share and click the share option that appears in the menu bar.
A drop-down menu will appear with all the different file formats so that you can share the artwork. Select which format you would like from this drop-down menu.

Sharing via the project file is also quite easy!

Click on the Actions tool (wrench icon) and select the third option ‘Share’ and a drop-down menu will appear.
Select which file type you would like from the list! There are a few different options to choose from.
Once Procreate has generated the file, a screen will appear that allows you to choose where to send your file.
If you select Save Image an image file will be saved in the Photos app of your device.
or you can share the file via email, messages or social media.

References

Images from the State Library Collection that were used to develop samples and use for tracing.

Entwined: Plant illustrations	https://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryqueensland/albums/72157719562665238/
Entwined SLQ Exhibition	https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/entwined
Australian orchids / R. D. Fitzgerald	https://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/discovery/fulldisplay?vid=61SLQ_INST:SLQ&tab=all&docid=alma991311844702061&searchScope=SLQ_PCI_EBSCO&context=L&lang=en
Exotic Botany	https://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/discovery/fulldisplay?vid=61SLQ_INST:SLQ&tab=all&docid=alma998353154702061&searchScope=SLQ_PCI_EBSCO&context=L&lang=en
A specimen of the botany of New Holland	https://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/discovery/fulldisplay?vid=61SLQ_INST:SLQ&tab=all&docid=alma997628024702061&searchScope=SLQ_PCI_EBSCO&context=L&lang=en

101 - Intro to ProTools

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 12:08:45 +0000

101 - Intro to ProTools

Developed by Marius Wyllie, 2023

Acknowledgement

We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their continuing connection to the land and as custodians of stories for millennia. We respectfully acknowledge the land on which we all meet today, and pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging.

Summary

Learn the basics of ProTools, an industry-standard music production software. Together we will get an overview of some of the tools available in ProTools to enable you to record audio, MIDI, edit, and export audio.

Skills Introduced

Create a new session
Overview of Sample Rate and Bit Depth
Setting the Playback Engine and Buffer Size
Navigate the Edit and Mix Windows
Create Audio and Instrument Midi Tracks
Basic tools (Selection Tool, Trim, Grabber, Smart Tool)
Creating Click Tracks and setting Tempo
Creating Markers
Recording Audio and Midi
Importing Audio and Exporting Audio
Bouncing session to stereo WAV or MP3 files

Hardware and Software

Software required

ProTools.

Hardware required

MIDI Keyboard
USB microphone

Health & Safety

Running this workshop at The Edge?.. You should familiarise yourself and your participants with:

DML Risk Assessment

Preparation

Ensure your computer is equipped with Headphones, MIDI Keyboard, and a USB Microphone.

References

protools_101.pdf

shaking_through_eliza_hardy_jones_441_16_raw_tracks.zip

Queensland Community Library 2023

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 17:21:51 +0000

Queensland Community Library 2023

~~HERO-SUBTITLE Laser-cut miniature Queenslander book library ~~

2023 development and delivery by Michelle Brown in collaboration with YPF for spring holiday program

Workshop presentation

Coming soon!

Design File Templates

Community library design

Template	Material	File
Base library design - All 4mm pieces (fit parts to A2 sheets)	4mm ply	comlibrarybasenookall080923.pdf
Window, swing doors and rails (fit parts to A2 sheets)	1.5mm ply	comlibrarycasementsrails080923.pdf
Windows and stain glass (read notes in file)	0.75mm PETG	comlibrarywindows080923.pdf

Material cutting notes

Be aware that the PETG will buckle and warp with the detailed engraving and you will need to pay close attention to the laser, pausing and keeping the sheet taped to the honeycomb frame where possible. Quick cuts of each piece then wait for 5 mins or till cooled to do the next piece.

Queensland Architecture in Miniature

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 23:09:52 +0000

Queensland Architecture in Miniature

Publicly delivered workshops

A series of workshops and activities focused on creating miniature items based on State Library collection items and using The Edge resources.

Mid-century Modern Architecture

Mid-century modern in Miniature 2023
Our specialty workshop focused on vector design and fabricating book nooks using State Library collection resources.

Queenslander Architecture

Queensland Architecture in Miniature 2023
Our specialty workshop focused on vector design and fabricating book nooks using State Library collection resources.

Queensland Architecture in Miniature 2022

Our specialty workshop focused on vector design and fabricating book nooks using State Library collection resources.

Queensland Architecture in Miniature 2022

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 11:46:35 +0000

Queensland Architecture in Miniature 2022

~~HERO-SUBTITLE Laser-cut dollhouses, booknooks, and other delights! ~~

Prototype developed by Billie Reuben 2021, workshop developed by Michelle Brown and Rozina Suliman October 2022

Acknowledgement

Summary

Fretwork, breezeblocks, casement windows, VJ walls and hardwood floors; there’s a lot to love about Queensland architecture.

Join us as we dive into State Library of Queensland’s collections and bring to life the rich histories of the houses around us through digital fabrication techniques such as laser cutting and engraving.

Supported by skilled facilitators you will create a miniature piece of QLD architecture (e.g. part of a doll’s house, a book nook, a mini facade or diorama).

This journey will see you:

getting inspired by Queensland architecture through the enormous wealth of the collections here at State Library of Queensland.
learning to create vector files suitable for the laser cutter in free and open-source software (Inkscape).
laser cutting your files
assembling some of your creation
completing a laser cutter induction, so you can come back and make more! (Completing a General Induction will be required before you can book the machine)

Session Overview

Session 1

* Research

* Introduction to Inkscape

* File setup

* Design

Session 2

* Laser Demo

* Laser Induction

* Design

* Cutting

Session 3

* Laser cutting

* Stainglass window design and cutting

Session 4

* Painting

* Assembly

* Exterior Finishing

Materials

Cutting Materials (per participant)

An A2 sheet 4mm plywood (outer Nook)
An A4 sheet 0.5mm thick craft card (optional)
An A4 sheet 1.5 to 2mm ply or boxboard (building up rails, doors and for breezeways)
An A5 sheet 0.7mm PETG film or 1.5mm acrylic (windows and door panes)
Tacky craft glue / UHU glue
Gouache
Watercolours
Acrylic paint colours
Acrylic medium (gloss and matte)
Sharpies or other coloured pens (for stained-glass painting)

Tools

Small brushes
Palettes (painting)
Bags for sorting pieces
Pipettes (glue/paint)
Skewers (gluing/painting)
Tweezers
Masking tape
Exacto knives
Computers running Inkscape
USB sticks
Laser Cutter
Inkscape design software

Health & Safety

Running this workshop at The Edge?.. You should familiarise yourself and your participants with:

DML Risk Assessment
Innovation Lab Risk Assessment
Laser SOP
Knife SOP

Session 1

Research and Vector Design with Inkscape

Acknowledgement of Country

Welcome

Check everyone in and set up on a computer
Why did you sign up? what are you hoping to get out of this series?

Overview of series & presentation

Getting inspired by Queensland architecture through the enormous wealth of the collections here at State Library of Queensland
Designing a small model/book nook at 1/23 scale using a combination of pre-drawn and cut pieces and elements of your own
Elements participants will focus on for their own designs are a heritage archway, back window casement, the stained glass window above the front door and swinging door casements and the fretwork breezeway above the side door
Learning to create a couple of vector files suitable for the laser cutter in free and open-source software (Inkscape)
Completing a laser cutter induction, so you can come back and make more!
Laser cutting your files
Painting your creation
Assembling your creation
External finishing your creation

This is a 4-part workshop, you must be able to come to all the dates as each session builds upon the work of the previous.

End goals of Session 1

An idea for the final design of your book nook
A basic understanding of using Inkscape to edit our template files and design our own items
Started on the design for your individual design pieces

Research and Design

What defines a Queenslander?

Wikipedia - 'The quintessential Queenslander is a single detached house made of timber with a corrugated iron roof located on a separate block of land.[1] They are all high-set, single-storey dwellings with a characteristic veranda that extends around the house to varying extents but never entirely surrounds it. In later years, many have been renovated to enclose part or all of these verandas to create extra bedrooms. The under-house area is often also enclosed to provide extra living area to these houses, which leads to the common misconception that an authentic Queenslander has two storeys.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queenslander_(architecture)

State Library key resources

Corley Explorer

Built Heritage

Architectural Styles

QLD architecture terminology

Let's get familiar with some of the terms used to describe internal architecture, with some specific references to Queenslander style.

Fretwork
Picture Rails
Dado/Belt Rails
Wainscoting
Ironwork
Breezeways
Hall arches
Architraves
Cornices
Skirting boards

Checkout some of these links for more info and inspo;

House Histories - https://www.househistories.org/

Catalogues of Queenslanders 1920-1930 - https://www.househistories.org/queensland-house-designs-1920-1930

Federation Homes website - https://federationhome.com/2018/03/12/queenslander-tropical-styles/

Renovating Queenslander blog - http://renovatingaqueenslander.blogspot.com/2014/07/mouldings-picture-rails-skirting.html?m=1

Scale

Miniature scale varies, as there are several standard sizes and you can buy items to suit the different sizing.

Standardized sizes for modern dollhouses include 1:6, 1:12, 1:16, 1:24, and 1:48, while antique houses are often a custom size.

Here's a collection of images and links to help determine scale.

The Spruce Crafts website image guide by Lisa Fasol.

Image from - https://everythingverysmall.com/dollhouse-miniatures-1-12-scale-or-1-24-scale-or-others-some-insights/

Most Book Nooks are 1:18 to 1:24 scale.

The scale we are using for our book nook is close to 1:24, it's a just a tad smaller, more like 1:23. This means we can find designs or buy items at that scale for our nook.

Designing our Nooks

Base Design

We've got a base design for you, which includes a few key design elements like engraved paneling and rails. We'll be cutting these before the next workshop session to provide to you then.

Nook base template Download the file to take a look

You can choose to edit the base before we cut them if you feel your skills are up to it without too much support required, you will need to provide the file at least one week before the next session.

Making the base design

We used a box generator to get the design, there's a few online free options, and we'll give you a quick demo on how you can use them.

Box generator - https://www.festi.info/boxes.py/

The dimension of our Nooks is listed further below.

Design Elements

During this workshop series, the end goal for participants is to choose their own designs for the following parts of our Nook;

Hall archway
Breezeway
Door paneling
Stained glass window
Window casements

Apart from the archway, the pieces of our Queensland Miniature will be using different material to our 4mm ply base nook.

We have thinner ply options and thick card, we'll talk you through the differences, but mainly it's your own design choice!

We understand some people may not want to spend much time on the computer designing, and prefer to do more decorating, so we have lots of templates you can choose from. We'll take you through these and they are collated in the files section towards the end of this page.

Design process

When you starting a design project, it's always great to start compiling references and narrowing down your ideas (or maybe not!).

It's great to use a Moodboard when we work collaboratively or solo on projects.

Our Pinterest miniature architecture inspiration board

Be aware of copyright and IP if you want to trace a design, which you can read more about here.

State Library reference

Pages 116 onwards of 99 everyday homes: https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/research-collections/queensland/built-heritage

Other references

Making our files

Inkscape

Why

Free and open
Extremely powerful

You can also use Adobe Illustrator or Fusion 360 or any similar design program, as long as the file is able to be saved to an editable format that the laser cutter can use. SVG, PDF are good formats for our laser workflow.

We're going to be running through the full Inkscape Tutorial during today's session.

During this tutorial we will concentrate on the pen tool option of tracing, outlined in this video

inkscape_custom_shapes2.mp4

To get started in Inkscape, we're going to take a screenshot with the Snipping Tool of a design we want to use to learn with (search snip in your Windows search bar).

Here's an example we can use are from the back pages of 99 Everyday Homes, where there are casement windows and doors plus other great images to practice using the pen tool to trace with.

Sizing our Nooks

It's always important to get your sizing right, as it will save time and material wastage.

We need to know our material thickness before we start designing because this will impact our cutting and design process, for our Nook outer shells we're using 4mm ply. If using a Box maker program than you should already have noted and included the material thickness.

This is our Nook template measurements (assembled/internal);

height - 160mm (151mm)

width - 105mm (97mm)

length - 170mm (155mm)

Door Sizing for scale - 87-88mm height

For our individual archway designs, the internal width is 97mm, but keep in mind if you intend to cut and add wall rails to the base template walls, you will need to adjust the rails or archway to include notches to accommodate the fit.

Make sure to use the nook template to line your archway and notches up with the railing designs in Inkscape.

If you want to use one of our pre-made archway, you can choose from the vector file templates below, you will need to measure and re-size to fit your end nook design and make notches for any rails (e.g 3mm deep if rail is 3mm material).

Homework

During the time between our next session, consider practicing your new Inkscape skills so it starts to stick, and you can come with more designs to cut on the laser.

Session 2

Laser Induction and further design

Acknowledgement of Country

Welcome and Check in

What we are covering this session:

discuss where participants are at in terms of design work and their needs for the session
give participants their pre-cut book nooks
laser cutter induction - 1.5 hour
research and design time - at least 2 hours to finish archways, stained glass, doors and breezeways designs
refine any designs for cutting and laser as required after induction completed
research and look at choosing paint colours if time permits

Laser Induction

Each participant will undergo a laser induction from our Fabrication Lab supervisor during this session.

You can learn more about the State Library's laser here - Bookable Resources - Laser Cutter / Engraver

Research and Design - Queenslander Colours

During this session we want to trial and test some paint colours and combinations, we can use some of our scrap ply pieces. To get a true Queenslander look, dive into some of the below resources at State Library.

Books at SLQ (request and collect from Level 3):

Online Resources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queenslander_(architecture)
https://www.deluxpainting.com.au/blogs/popular-queenslander-interior-colour-schemes/ (mix of modern and traditional)
https://www.resene.com.au/pdf/charts/Heritage_Colour_Palette.pdf
https://collections.slq.qld.gov.au/viewer/IE1814305
https://www.pinterest.com.au/carey1419/queenslander-colour-schemes/ (mix of modern and traditional)

Books for purchase: https://www.restorationstation.com.au/garden-homewares/books

Images from previous sessions for colour inspo

End goals of Session 2

A basic understanding of using State Library's laser cutter and completion of a laser cutter induction
Finished, or near finished design for your individual design pieces (it is ok to finalise and do more cutting in the next session)
Have a good idea of the colours you'd like to paint your book nook including the floor finish

Homework

Further design work if participants are keen to keep designing, especially for testing on laser cutter in the next session or providing to facilitators to test cut between sessions.

If you haven't already chosen a window engraving design, think about what you might like before the next session or bring one ready to cut.

Session 3

Laser cutting & painting

Acknowledgement of Country

Welcome and Check in

What we are covering this session:

Finalise design files and prep for laser
Laser cutting; getting comfortable with the laser after last fortnight's induction
Painting and some assembly

End goals of Session 3

At the end of these session we hope each participant will have the base Nooks painted with their preferred colour scheme and also have cut their design items.

You should have completed designs for;

Hall archway - design your own or use the vector files in the templates section that will need to be resized for your Nook and notched for rails
Rails, door surrounds and breezeway (above side door)
Door panelling - 3 x doors (1 x side door, 2 x swing doors)
Window casement - back window
Window panels/engraving - 3 x panels (1 x back window, 2 x swing doors)
Stained glass window - above front swing doors

Don't worry if you don't have any of these designed yourself, we have the basic designs available for you and will have pre-cut options.

Session 4

Finish and assembly

Acknowledgement of Country

Welcome and Check in

What we are covering this session:

Painting
Hinges or fastenings
Assembly
Exterior Finishing

Painting Nook pieces

2 x coats of paint is recommended for walls and roof, you can also paint the outside of the nook to compliment. For the floor, a stained look works nicely, make sure to test on scrap pieces of ply wood. If you are using boxboard, beware of too much soaking in.

Be careful when painting near the notches, if you add too much paint into the notch parts, it can make assembly of the final Nook more difficult as it adds extra dimension to a tight design.

For painting the stained glass windows, pens are recommended, kids coloured pens work well with a few coats, sharpies work ok but leave some pen marks which you can dab away with paper towel before it dries but can be fiddly.

Windows and doors

Depending on the designs you have chosen or created yourselves, you will need to do the following;

Glue the 'mottled glass' cut piece to the back of the large casement window using the Uhu glue, this then gets glued to the back Nook wall (make sure to glue it on the right way! The open hole on that piece is closest to the base/floor as remember, Queenslanders have high ceilings).
If you chose the generic side door, it just needs a paint, may need the hinge parts cut out a little more after painting to allow for the below. If you chose a design that has 'glass', you will need to collate the 4 pieces - 2 outer frames, internal frame that the mottled glass sits in and the glass itself, use the Uhu glue to assemble.
Glue the stained glass window to the backside of the front Nook piece

Hinges or fastenings

This is the trickiest part of the Nook process, the metal hinges are a bit too small to try to use nails or screws, and only certain glue will work with the metal and wood.

Here are the options we have found that can work, and it is your preference on which way you might like to go;

use small pieces of tape as hinges, works well and stays in place, however is visible even when painted and does not look the best
small magnets attached to doors and frames, seems to work well, may need to use the knives to cut deeper recesses for placement, also still relies on glue and wood (the Uhu glue we provide worked fine with the first magnet tests)
Mick to add his test here

Assembly

It is recommended that all painting is completed and external parts glued to each piece before gluing the final Nook together, you may need to use the knife to make sure extra paint hasn't added size to the notched parts as this can cause gaps.

End goals of Session 4

Nooks assembled and photos taken!

Provide you with inspiration for further adding to your designs with things like small LED lights, 3D printed parts and furniture, all things you can do at State Library's Fabrication Lab.

Design File Templates

Basic nook with archway design

Our nook dimensions file - nookdimensions.pdf

Template	Material	File
Base book nook design with door	4mm ply	Nook design file
Rails, door and window casements	1.5 mm to 3mm ply or boxboard	Rails, window & door casements
Mottled glass design for windows	1.5mm acrylic or 0.75mm PETG	Mottled glass
Stained glass window designs	0.75mm PETG	Stained glass engraving
All designs layered	Various	Combined files
Front Nook piece rails and door surround	1.7mm to 4mm works	Front Nook rails

Material cutting notes

Current working file for windows with engraving (clear acrylic or PETG), tested with 1.5mm acrylic and .75mm PETG, both look fine but the PETG works best since it's thinner, but be mindful of warping, quick single cuts are best and remove any plastic covering before cutting.

Further templates

Hallway with second room design

Please note these are not all checked for use with the above correct template files.

Billie's original design files

Nook box - prototypecutfile.pdf

Window, door casings and frames - miniwindowsdoors_1-5mm.pdf

Original stained glass window file - miniwindowsengraving.pdf

Original file for 0.5mm card (extra detail work, furniture) -

otherbits_0-5mm_card.pdf

Vectorised SLQ collection designs ready for resizing for use

Make sure you use the above templates with the correct sizing to resize any of the below for use in your nook

Arch Vector Files

Casements

qldarchcasementsswingdoors.pdf

Stained Glass

Stained glass patterns from Craftmanspace.com

References

Interior fretwork designs https://www.auburnwoodturning.com.au/standard-heritage/interior-fretwork
Window etching designs https://www.househistories.org/rolled-figured-glass
Free stained glass window designs https://www.craftsmanspace.com/free-patterns/craft-patterns.html

Queensland Architecture in Miniature 2023

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 05 Jul 2025 14:12:56 +0000

Queensland Architecture in Miniature 2023

~~HERO-SUBTITLE Laser-cut book nooks, miniatures and other delights! ~~

Prototype developed by Billie Reuben 2021
2022 development and delivery by Michelle Brown and Rozina Suliman
2023 development and delivery by Michelle Brown

Workshop presentation

Some pages may link to other online workshops, tutorials or guides created at The Edge, you may require internet to connect and view links.

Public view - Slides

Admin view - Slides

Design File Templates

Basic nook with archway design

Our nook dimensions file - nookdimensions.pdf

Template	Material	File
Base (Closed) nook design	4mm ply
Base (Closed) nook design - Magnet cuts	4mm ply
Reverse nook front piece - Magnet engrave	4mm ply - pre-cut piece
Base nook with patio design	4mm ply
Front Nook rail door surround	1.7mm to 4mm works	Front door surround
Rails and door surrounds	1.5 mm to 3mm ply or boxboard	Internal rails and door surround
Accents template; casements, doors, breezeway & stain glass	1.5 mm to 2mm wood	Accents template
Mottled glass design for windows	1.5mm acrylic or 0.75mm PETG	Mottled glass
Stained glass window designs	0.75mm PETG	stained_glass_designs.pdf
Nook roof	4mm ply	Pitched roof design
Front veranda idea	4mm ply	Front add on veranda
Fences	4mm ply	Fences file

Material cutting notes

Current working file for windows with engraving (clear acrylic or PETG), tested with 1.5mm acrylic and .75mm PETG, both look fine but the PETG works best since it's thinner, but be mindful of warping, quick single cuts that are separated by a good distance are best, and remove any plastic covering before cutting.

Additional Design Files

Vector designs	Material	File	Image
Arch 1	4mm ply	Arch1 design file
Arch 2	4mm ply	Arch2 design file
Arch 3	4mm ply	Arch3 design file
Arch 4	4mm ply	Arch4 design file
Arch 5	4mm ply	Arch5 design file
Arch 6	4mm ply	Arch6 design file
Arch 7	4mm ply	Arch7 design file
Arch 8	4mm ply	Arch8 design file


Multiple options	1.5mm to 2mm	Casement windows and doors
Back window casements	1.5mm to 2mm	back_window_casements.pdf
More side door options	1.5mm to 2mm	More side door options
Breezeways	1.5 mm to 4mm	breezeways.pdf

Furniture Design Files

Vector designs	Material	File	Image
Mini frames	1.5mm - 4mm	frame_design.pdf
More frames (unsized)	1.5mm - 4mm	pictureframes.pdf
Some furniture	1.5mm - 2mm	some_furniture.pdf
Different Roof designs	4mm
MidMod Designs July 2025	4mm + 1.5mm

QwiqCnrs - 3D printable box corners

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 12:57:16 +0000

QwiqCnrs - 3D printable box corners

developed by Mick Byrne 2025

In 2025The Edge offered a Peppers Ghost workshop based on the hologram component of the Art of Projection workshop.

Instead of gluing up a boax 3d printable corners were designed paramentrically so that and thickness of card could be turned quickly into a box

The a STL design for the corners and a DXF for a corner cutting template can be downloaded after entering your card thickness into the parameters

Files

7mm 2Ply Corrogated Cardboard - 7mm_3dpnt_corner.stl 7mm_cornercut_temp.stl

4mm Single Ply Cardboard - 4mm_corner_template.dxf 4mm_corner.stl

1.3mm Presentation Cardboard - 1.3mm_card_corner_template_for_printable_corners.dxf

1.3_mm_printable_corner.stl

Short Form Video

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 12:51:06 +0000

Short Form Video

Developed in 2020 by Michelle Brown with input from Amelia Paxman, continuously updated.

Summary

A step beyond podcasting, vodcasting, also called video podcasting or vlogging, is a video recording in the style of an interview or instructional format primarily available for streaming or download over the internet. You can make a vodcast about pretty much anything – budding stand-up comedian, gear unboxing, personal stories, science experiments plus more, if you have an idea, we’ll help you to get it into production!

This program is a series of 3 x 4 hour workshops including a software induction in Adobe Premiere (and FOSS alternative Openshot). Each session will cover the below activities;

1. Pre - Research, what makes a popular video blog, finding a story/topic and creating an engaging channel

2. Production - Mics and cameras, what gear do you need, understanding video capture and interviewing techniques. Includes SLQ audio equipment induction.

3. Post - Production, editing and hosting (free distribution options and metrics)

Workshop 1

Pre-Production

Ice-breaker and Introductions

Everyone to introduce themselves and talk about what they want to learn from the sessions. A reminder that later in the session participants will be talking about their potential ideas, so start thinking about what you might want to do now.

Discuss as a group;

different types of video bloggers or channels, get participants to name some they watch and why?
how they subscribe, watch or follow their favourite content
what type of short form video topics they might be considering
who has any previous experience with video production or other content creation

What is a Vodcast?

A step beyond podcasting, vodcasting, also called web-series, video podcasting or vlogging, is a video recording in the style of an interview or instructional format primarily available for streaming or download over the internet. You can make a vodcast about pretty much anything – budding stand-up comedian, gear unboxing, personal stories, science experiments plus more.

Youtube is one of the most popular places to host video content and content users even have their own term, 'Youtubers'. A few of the most popular channels and Youtubers can be found through some Google searching; https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/top-youtube-channels-most-popular-youtubers

While the majority of popular content relates to gaming, there are MANY great channels dedicated to everything you can think of. Some of the biggest categories of popular content include;

Gaming (as mentioned, the MOST popular)
Product reviews
Unboxing
Skits/Parodies/Comedy Sketches
Food/Cooking
Sports
Haul videos (shopping experience)
Animals (who doesn't love cute animal vids)
Tutorials (anything can go, from computers to makeup)
Collection videos (collection of products, toys etc)
Tag or challenge
Vlogs (more about the person than a particular content area)
Video journalism - interviewing people about a newsworthy issue

Other avenues for online videos include Twitch (popular for its live streaming), Instagram Stories, Vimeo, Facebook, Twitter and more.

Get To Know Your Content

It's a good idea to get to know what's out there and what's popular, so you can have a baseline to think about when you're starting out with your own channel or content development. Your idea doesn't need to fit into a pre-existing area, but understanding what viewers might be looking for in format and topics is a good starting point.

Let's take a look at a few popular channels and their content, while watching, take some notes on what you liked or didn't like about the format, topic etc.

Slow Mo Guys (things in slow motion)

Hot Ones (famous people eating hot wings)

5-Minute Crafts

Simone Giertz (robots and tech)

Chloe Morello (beauty)

The Hydraulic Press Channel (crushing things in a hydraulic press)

Braincraft (brain science)

The Katering Show (cooking parody show)

Study With Jess (study tips)

Primitive Technology (building cool things out of the natural environment)

Eddie Woo (teaching maths)

videogamedunkey (games commentary)

Two Weeks (LGBTIQ web series)

Purrfect Practice (piano teaching)

Draw With Jazza (drawing)

Here's a further list of most popular Youtubers from 2018 - https://www.businessinsider.com.au/most-popular-youtubers-with-most-subscribers-2018-2?r=US&IR=T

Youtube is not the only platform. There are lots of places for short-form video content such as vimeo, instagram, snapchat and broadcasters like ABC and SBS commission online-only content. If you are interested in short documentary, news outlets and similar platforms like The Guardian, Vice etc pay for short documentaries about interesting subject matter.

Here are some videos on other platforms:

ABC Open - Mother Tongues: Butchulla (Butchulla language)

ABC Open - Small surfer makes big waves

ABC Open - Beryl: 100, living alone and loving life

ABC iview - The Kraken Show (morning talk show parody)

Don't feel as though you have to create something to 'go viral' and reach a huge audience. Online platforms are a great way to find an audience for a niche interest or skill. A small group of people could be very interested in a specific area of knowledge that you have to offer. Just because something has a small intended audience, doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile.

Being able to create engaging short videos is an important skill - often job applications, grants and crowdfunding campaigns require video content.

Example of a vlogging with niche video content:

Jered Montgomery - Trumpet Lesson Tips - Ropartz: Andante et Allegro, pt 1 (trumpet tutorial)

Here's an example of how vlogging was used to make a longer form, traditional documentary series:

My Year 7 Life

Content

Ideas

The first point for any content creation is brainstorming or fine-tuning your idea into something substantial, try writing up a 2 minute elevator pitch with your proposed idea that makes it clearly understandable by the audience and any potential people involved (guests, funders, viewers).

Many popular youtubers use a skill or area of knowledge (using a hydraulic press, language, make up) to teach or display their work. Think about your own areas of expertise and how you could use that in a video.

Think about what research you will need to do to make the content interesting, engaging and accurate.

Activity; Get participants to use an idea they may already have brewing or come up with something new for this exercise (write a paragraph that clearly defines what their potential video channel might be).

Example;

Clip Art is a seven-part documentary video series focusing on Australian music film clip directors, featuring interviews and music videos created for Australian artists. Each half-hour episode will be broadcast on Australian television and via Youtube and will focus on several film clip makers from each Australian state or capital city, their work and also the Australian musician’s clips they’ve worked on.

Plan

Some things to think about when planning your content;

Define your audience
Clarify your message or subject matter
Think about style - will you use animation elements? Music? Will you need actors?
Devise your budget
Create scripts
Storyboard
Include a beginning and end message (introductions, wrap ups)
Decide how long your average video will be and try and stick to similar length every episode
Start thinking about other logistical issues - where will you film it? Who will be in it?

Storyboard

'A storyboard is a graphic organizer in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence. The storyboarding process, in the form it is known today, was developed at Walt Disney Productions during the early 1930s, after several years of similar processes being in use at Walt Disney and other animation studios.' - Wikipedia

Let's talk about why it's an important part of the process, even if you like to keep things causal and off the cuff, having a storyboard for your video project will help you focus and keep on track.

Take a look at Storyboarding The Simpsons way- by Chris Roman for some key tips and tricks;

strybrd_the_simpsonsway.pdf

Capture

Once you have planned out your content you need to record it! We'll cover more about this in session 2 of these workshops, but the capture stage is pretty integral to the process and great planning will get you prepared so you have less to do in the post production stage. Making sure you know what and how you are going to shoot your video and get great audio is very important.

The less time you have to spend editing poor quality audio or badly lit video footage, the better and less frustrated you will be!

Edit

During the editing process you can get as creative or as basic as you like, editing video usually requires a bit of skill and this is where we'll also go into more detail in workshop 3, including covering a Premiere Pro software induction.

Distribute

Once you have your video file ready to go public, you need a place to host it online and a plan to distribute, we'll cover this more in our later sessions but you should have a pretty good idea of where your content is going to end up before you start any of the production process.

Activity

Let's try our hand at some script writing and take some time to develop an opening for our new video channel (if you have no ideas yet just make something up), thinking about what we've learned today, try and include;

Name of your vlog/channel if it will be something regular
Introduce yourself
Introduce the content of the video
Will this be a regular series? If so include info on when people can expect new content

Keep in mind you will be the one delivering the script, so don't write words you might have difficulty with pronouncing, keep in natural and maybe just keep to dot points if you work better that way!

Workshop 2

In today's session we'll look at the production workflow and have a chance to play around with some of the Edge's video equipment and have a look at basic requirements to get started, intermediate options and touch on some advanced gear.

Production

The Basics

What cameras does everyone use/have access to? DSLRs, mobile phones, GoPros?

Take participants through the following PDF, discussing each section in greater detail.

camera-_videography_presentation_-_2014.pdf

Lighting & Stability

Further to what we just discussed about lighting your video capture, let's go into more detail about why it pays to light your scene rather than just rely on natural lighting.

Lighting is one of the areas that people don't think about too much when they are starting out with video capture, it's another expense and more equipment to think about, but trying to fix poorly lit video after the fact is a headache on its own.

You can experiment with natural light, small LED lights, reflectors, LED ring lights, torches and other sources.

Near sunrise and sunset are good times to use natural light - the light is more even, flattering and there are no harsh shadows. Midday is the worst time.

Here's an example of a poorly lit video from a great webpage about first online videos - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R49OWIMvbY

The webpage itself is a great resource so let's take a look and watch the first ever uploaded Youtube vid - https://biteable.com/blog/inspiration/first-youtube-video/

Stable video is also key to keeping viewers engaged, having an unsteady video moving and jumping all over the place will not endear you to viewers. Tripods and gimbals are ways to keep your video capture stable and provide smoother movement than hand held.

Audio Capture

Similar to lighting, it is very important to capture great audio along with the visual aspect, people won't watch your video if the audio is hard to hear or is filled with buzzing and distracting noises.

General rule is to capture good audio rather than try and fix in post, as you'll run into issues with continuity and noise removal. You can use a variety of methods to capture audio along with your video, these can include;

Lapel or Lav mic (a small microphone attached to the person speaking); this is good for single person video capture and gets nice and close audio capture, but be careful of the talent moving too much during the recording as you can get rustling fabric sounds etc.
Camera mounted mic (shotgun mic); these are usually directional so won't work for every occasion but good for stationary person to camera audio capture
Boom pole and mic; this will let you get right up close to the person you want to capture speaking, but generally requires someone to operate the boom along with the camera
Portable recorder; these are super handy as they can be used to capture not only an extra input of audio for your video but voice over/off camera content too

Once you do start capturing separate audio you will need to think about the syncing process, having audio cues can help, beginning your capture with a loud noise (like a clapper) will give you the ability to match your waveforms up easier in post.

Another good resource; https://www.videomaker.com/article/c10/14216-recording-good-audio-for-video

Equipment

The Edge has some equipment that you can use in the space itself, this is usually coordinated with the Applied Creativity team staff, ask at The Edge Reception to speak to one of the team.

Gear available includes;

Canon EOS 200D DSLR Camera w/ Guided Display and 18-55mm Lens
Canon EOS 6D DSLR Camera w/ Canon Zoom lens EF 24-105mm
Tamron 18 - 270mm Lens
Several camera tripods
Mobile phone Gimbal for stabilizing mobile video footage, it is a DJI OSMO 2 and there's an easy video guide https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX-G49P_tOE
Audio Technica ATR3350IS Lapel mic for use with mobile or DSLR camera
Zoom H4N and H2N

Putting together your own kit, what do you need?

Camera of some kind, this could be your mobile device as these days the latest models capture great quality footage. You could also use a webcam for a basic vlog
Microphone or another audio capture device to get great quality audio with your footage. This could include a camera mounted mic, lapel mic, Zoom recorder
Lights; having good lighting is very important for video capture, even basic lights will help you get clear, defined footage
Tripod; something to mount your camera on so it's still and no shaky handheld footage (unless you're after a Blair Witch style shoot)
Gimbal; a gimbal is a way you can mount a camera or mobile and get steady capture (try out the Edge's with a mobile, see above for video guide!)
Backdrop; green screen or some other creative backdrop
Batteries charged!!
Leads
SD cards or other storage (hard drives for raw footage)

Other things to think of during the production phase;

Consent forms; make sure if you have talent coming to be filmed that you get a consent form so they understand where they may end up and you won't have any issues later on about people asking to take down your footage

Opposed to traditional media like radio and TV, your content may not be bound as strictly to ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority) codes of practice, so rules around swearing and offensive material may not apply. However, all other broadcast laws and regulations do apply – such as defamation, copyright, racial vilification and so on, as vlogging is a form of publishing.

Different platforms have their own requirements when it comes to copyright material, read the fine print about copyrighted material in the terms of service as you begin to use a new platform to distribute your content.

Including music in your video can cause a bit of a headache, you need permissions from the artist or the right to broadcast via licensing, in Australia you would need to be covered by APRA AMCOS and PPCA. Best to just use copyright free music or get written permission from any friends who may let you use their music.

https://creativecommons.org.au/publications/blogguide/

Activity

The best way to learn is through practical activities so now that we've had a bit of a run down of both the pre-production and production stages. let's break into pairs or teams and record some content that we'll be able to use in next week's session on editing. We can use the script writing exercise we did last week as our content.

The goal is to try out some of the things we've learned, so capture separate audio along with the video footage. Teams can either use the DSLRs or their own mobiles with the Gimbal device. You will need to install the Gimbal mobile app to control it (DJI GO), tutorial here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX-G49P_tOE

Next week we'll learn how to download the video and audio to the iMacs so we can go through the editing process!

Workshop 3

Post-Production

Hopefully you have some video captured during last week's session that you can use to run through some basic editing in Premiere Pro. If not, then we can grab some royalty free/stock footage (links to options below!).

Editing with Premiere Pro

Take attendees through the basic Premiere Pro software induction, this should take around 2 hours; https://wiki.edgeqld.org.au/doku.php?id=facilities:fablab:software:premiere

Take a break!

Additional Software Options

Animation - Adobe Animate or After Effects (a short tutorial on AE - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ztwm0OTPqyI)
Free Video Editing Software:

OpenShot

Shotcut

Hosting

Youtube
Twitch
Vimeo
Australian Film and Video channels (more below)

Online sites; Ozflix is Netflix style content host that specializes in Australian content https://www.ozflix.tv/

Community TV; changes to traditional spectrum allocation of tv services changed a few years ago and community TV nearly saw its demise entirely, but there are several station who fought to continue to broadcast on terrestrial TV network and are open to discussing content collaboration. These are Channel 31 Melbourne,West TV Perth and Channel 44 Adelaide.

Funding

Discuss funding models for generating revenue and also grant options (Screen Qld, Screen Australia etc.)

Earning money through Youtube - https://creatoracademy.youtube.com/page/lesson/revenue-basics

Screen Queensland - https://screenqueensland.com.au/

Screen Australia - https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/

ABC - https://www.abc.net.au/tv/independent/arts_projects.htm

Royalty Free Support Content

Video;

Music;

Other Resources

Youtube Creators

workshops:public:sidebar

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 05 Jun 2020 15:00:08 +0000

Public Workshops

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 12:12:46 +0000

Public Workshops

Public Workshops are final release version of workshops.

These workshops have been publicised on The State Library Website and run at The Edge in the Digital Media Lab and or the Fabrication Lab.

Public workshops may have been delivered and developed by external contractors with a brief, developed internally by State Library staff, or in combination.

Public Workshop List

101 Workshops

101 - Intro to DSLRs
An introduction into The Edge's Canon DSLR cameras\

101 - Intro to Procreate
An introduction into the iPad based illustration and painting program

101 - Intro to Arduino

Developed from our various Arduino workshops into our 101 series of introductory workshops

101 - Vector Design with Illustrator

Developed from our vector designs workshops into our 101 series of introductory workshops

101 - Vector Design with Inkscape

Developed from our vector designs workshops into our 101 series of introductory workshops

101 - Intro to Podcasting

Developed from our podcasting workshops into our 101 series of introductory workshops

101 - Intro to Photoshop

Developed from our Photoshop workshops into our 101 series of introductory workshops

101 - Intro to Premiere Pro

Developed from our Premiere Pro workshops into our 101 series of introductory workshops

101 - Intro to ProTools

A great introduction to the audio program ProTools

101 - AR Face Filter

Learn how to create your own Instagram face filter in this easy to follow online workshop.

Creative Workshops

Laser cut holiday ornaments 2023
A holiday workshop focused on vector design and creating hanging ornaments the laser cutter.

Mid-century modern in Miniature 2023
Our specialty workshop focused on vector design and fabricating book nooks using State Library collection resources.

Queensland Architecture in Miniature 2023
Our specialty workshop focused on vector design and fabricating book nooks using State Library collection resources.

Queensland Architecture in Miniature 2022

Our specialty workshop focused on vector design and fabricating book nooks using State Library collection resources.

Further workshop resources

Laser Cut, Hand-Bound Books: Crafting the Grumpus' Treasured Tomes

Speciality workshop run during the Great and Grand Rumpus exhibition

The Rumpus workshop was also adapted for a general audience. 2022-23 Laser cut covers, hand sewn spines - bookbinding

DIY Upcycled Everyday Carry Bag

Re-using old outdoor vinyl banners to create a modern everyday bag.

Machine Learning

A collection of workshops based on machine learning.

Podcasting

A comprehensive workshops series on a guide to podcasting.

Short Form Video

A comprehensive workshops series on a guide to vodcasting (video!).

Augmented Reality

An overview of Augmented Reality technology and design use.

Virtual Reality

A basic introduction to Virtual Reality and use cases.

Iconic Queenslander Fretwork

Capture a design from an image and turn it into something beautiful using clever software and a CNC routing machine. This workshop includes an induction that gives you access to our CNC technology.

Technology Induction - Intro to Arduino

This Arduino induction focuses on teaching participants to understand and work with the Arduino micro controller hardware.

Adobe Photoshop for beginners
Get started with the basics of photo editing in this free Photoshop course for beginners.

Adobe Illustrator for beginners

Create and edit vector graphics (like illustrations and logos) in this Illustrator course for beginners.

Kombucha: Making with Microbes

Learn how to brew the tea for your kombucha (its food), ongoing maintenance and harvesting and drying your samples.

Kombucha Fashion

This project uses the kombucha pellicle, which is washed, dried and treated to produce a tough, flexible sheet that can be used as a raw material for making.

Kombucha Finery

More patterns and info in PDF format.

Mechanical Cabaret

Make things spin, move and jump by using a motor and a handful of neat mechanics.

Digital Design & Prototyping

Use Design Thinking principles and Prototyping processes to research, design, mock-up, and test an app (or website) in a series of 3 workshop sessions.

Steampunk LED

This is a small manually powered gear-driven generator made from ply and acrylic, with a Joule thief circuit.

13 Ways to Start a Fire

Learn about science and safety related to fire, and ways to create fire with traditional methods.

Lock Making and Picking

Learn the art of lock mechanics.

LED Pinwheels

This set of instructions details how to construct a pinwheel that uses a rubber band to drive a low-voltage generator.

Memory Wire Origami

This activity allows students to explore the simplest forms of robotic behaviour where control is through a simple circuit, with the purpose of producing expressive movement.

Pikelet: a robot that talks scratch

Pikelet - a robotic platform based on a Raspberry Pi 2B, with additional hardware to provide sensor capability and motor control.

MakeIt Kits

Our Make It Kits are available to use independently, we've provided plans and lists of items you will need for these great workshop or home play ideas!

Food Automata

Simple automata using basic machines are created from cheap foodstuffs and hot glue.

Night Kites

A kite design with a fan mounted underneath that drives a small DC motor which would generate enough power to light some LEDs attached to a kite.

Steampunk LED

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 15 Apr 2023 11:15:05 +0000

Steampunk LED

This is a small manually powered gear-driven generator made from ply and acrylic, with a Joule thief circuit.

This kit requires no tools, glue or soldering. It takes 60 - 90 minutes to build.

A pdf with illustrated step by step instructions is included for use by a facilitator.

It is also a really cheap kit (current estimates have it less than A$3.00 in materials, not including laser cutting time).

Project developed by Daniel Flood and Peter Musk for the Independent Schools Queensland Makerspace Roadshow, and delivered at six locations across Queensland between April and September, 2016.

The target audience was P - 12 teachers with little or no experience with technologies, though the activity has been successfully completed by 12yr olds and in one case a 6yr old girl (with some grudgingly accepted assistance from her father).

Summary

Science

This device is an energy converter that takes kinetic energy as an input, and produces electrical energy, and subsequently light.

Using a large gear to drive the small cog attached to the generator increases the rpm to a point where the output voltage is useful. The motor used can act as a generator because it contains permanent magnets set around coils of conductive wire which are attached to the shaft of the motor. When the shaft spins, these coils are moved through a magnetic field and a voltage is induced in the wire, available through the black and red tails on the motor/generator.

Turning this available energy into something useful is due to the Joule Thief circuit, and in particular the toroid. In simple terms, as energy moves through the wire wrapped around the ferrite toroid, a magnetic field is induced in the toroid, which rapidly collapses as the transistor reaches a threshold voltage and switches on. The collapsing magnetic field induces a spike of higher voltage energy in the secondary toroid wire, which is directed through the LED and causes it to glow if the threshold is reached. As this occurs, the transistor is turned off, and the entire cycle begins again. Because this happens very rapidly (about 200,000 times a second, depending on the specific characteristics of the resistor and transistor), our eyes see a continuous light rather than a flicker.

A useful analogy is to recall how clamping and then releasing a garden hose can cause a trickle of water to gush forth, though only for a moment. The Joule Thief achieves this effect repeatedly, and much faster by using well designed electronic circuitry. For a more detailed explanation (and examples of many variants and applications) - see References below, and find the 'Joule Thief' link in the sidebar.

Educational Applications

This activity involves several aspects that could be used to stimulate learning about basic scientfic and technology concepts:

Simple machines: The gears used have a ratio chosen to produce sufficient rpm in the motor/generator to make it work. Redesign of the gears (trying some other ratios) could be an investigation linking maths, machines and energy. The gears were generated using a freeware program (geargenerator.com - see link in References below)) that exported an svg file capable of being imported into graphics software for editing.
Simple circuits: Although the Joule thief circuit includes some electronic components, it is still a model for a simple circuit. Concepts of resistance, short circuits and polarity could be explored.
Motors and generators: this project uses a motor as a generator, and explaining this can be a practical introduction to motor theory.
Electronics: This activity gives an opportunity to discuss how LEDS and transistors work (particularly as their orientation is critical for success). The science behind Joule Thief operation (involving oscillating magnetic fields induced in the toroid) is more complex, and maybe more suitable to physics students.
Design and Technology: A functioning device can be considered the starting point for further design challenges - the large gear protrudes over the edge of the chassis, and students could develop other ways of turning it than using their fingers. Could it work attached to a wind generator? a bicycle? a water wheel? And where else could a Joule Thief circuit be used to make small constant trickles of electrical energy do something useful? (in fact, they can be used to charge a phone from a 'dead' battery, or to charge a garden light from a small solar cell, for example).

For facilitators

A version of the instructions that follow for use during workshops is here (note that some modifications have been made since this was produced):

build_a_steampunk_led.docx

build_a_steampunk_led.pdf

Files to make your own are here:

steampunk_led_facilitator_presentation.zip

For Participants

A visual instruction sheet suitable for insertion in the MakeIt version of this activity has been developed: makeit_steampunk_insert_a4.pdf

Materials

Body:

4 x M3 30mm Philips drive pan head machine screws
1 x M3 12mm Philips drive pan head machine screws
9 x M3 nuts
1 Mabuchi RF 300 EA low rpm DC motor, with 7-10mm bared and tinned tails

laser cut from steampunk_led_body_cutfiles_v2.zip steampunk_led_extra_parts_v2.zip

1 each of top, middle and bottom plates (4mm ply)
1 set of 12 spacers (4mm ply) - included in top plate design
1 small wooden gear (6mm ply)
1 large acrylic gear (3mm acrylic)
1 M3 hex nut spanner (4mm ply) - included in middle plate design
2 motor supports (4mm ply) - included in top plate design

Joule Thief circuit:

1 red, green or yellow long leg, low power LED
1 NPN transistor (3904 or equivalent)
1 1K resistor
1 toroid (OD: 12mm, ID: 6mm)
17cm Figure 8 (paired) speaker wire (14/0.14 gauge), with 7-10mm bared ends

laser cut from steampunk_led_circuit_v3.zip

1 printed Joule thief circuit diagram, on 0.6mm polypropylene backing

Tools

This activity was designed to require no tools for participants.

Facilitators may find having a couple of Philips head screwdrivers and some wire strippers on hand will assist in dealing with emergent difficulties.
An LED test rig (consisting of an LED with alligator clips attached) can help troubleshooting the Joule Thief circuit.

Instructions

Step One: Building the backbone

Begin by assembling the Top plate - the bits you will need look like this:

Take out the four long screws - these go in the corner holes as shown.
Make sure the plate looks like the image, with the top uppermost (you can tell the bottom of this plate because it has some etching on it) . The screws must go in from the top.

Thread a nut onto each screw as you insert it, and this will prevent things from falling out when you move the plate.
You can use the wooden spanner provided to tighten the nuts.

Step Two: Getting the first cog ready

When you have got the corner screws in place, stand the plate face-up again, and find the large acrylic cog.

This cog has a small spacer in the center, which you will need later, but you can push out the waste pieces from between the spokes.
If you twist them as shown, there is less chance of breaking the cog (but be careful).

Now you can push out the spacer, and peel the protective paper from all the bits.

Step Three: Attaching the first cog

Find the short screw, and slip the little spacer on to it. Then push the screw through the hole in the middle of the big cog.

Now insert the screw (with the cog attached) though the smallest hole on the top plate. Thread a nut on from underneath, and tighten with your wooden spanner.

Give the cog a spin to make sure it is moving freely.

Step Four: Get the Middle plate ready

Locate the middle plate (it has the rectangular hole), and the packet of circuit parts. When you open the parts packet, these are the bits you need for now:

Take up the LED, and you should see that one leg is longer than the other.
LEDs only work when electricity flows through them in the right direction, and the different legs help you to insert the LED correctly (the long leg is the positive terminal).

The LED legs go through the two smallest holes on the middle board, and the long leg hole is marked with an “L”.
Push the LED legs through, then bend them apart a bit on the back to stop it falling out.

Step Five: Winding the toroid

The ring shaped object in your kit is actually a magnet, called a toroid. To make it work in this circuit, it needs to have two strands of wire wrapped around it.
Using paired wire makes it easy to avoid having overlapping wires, which would stop it from working.

First, cut a length of paired wire about 210mm long. It is easiest to strip both ends of the wires at this stage, but this can also be done later.
To start the winding, thread the toroid onto the wire, about 3cm from one end, and bend the wire around as shown below:

Now take the long end of the wire, while keeping hold of the toroid with your other hand, and loop the wire back through the centre of the toroid.

Then, pull the wire tight.

Continue threading the wire through, until there are 4 or 5 loops around the toroid. More loops actually reduces the effectiveness of this device, and it will still work with 4.

When you have finished the loops, you can trim the ends of the wire to about 3cm if necessary (scissors will work).

If it has not been done for you, separate the protruding wires (use a knife or cutters, or just pull them apart with your fingers).
Do this on both ends.

If the ends of the wires have not been stripped, do it now. Look closely and you will see one wire has a black stripe, while the other is all white (or grey).
Take a plain wire from one side of the wound toroid, and a black striped wire from the OTHER side, and twist them together.
You end up with this:

Step Six: make the Joule thief circuit

The coloured circuit diagram has holes to take the parts of the circuit (you can push out any hanging chads with a pen).

Start with the transistor

The transistor is the small black thing with 3 legs. It goes in the blue holes.
Like the LED, the transistor only works when it is attached in the right orientation. If you pick it up, you will feel that it has a flat side, and a curved side (just like the blue diagram).

Insert the transistor so the curved side matches the blue picture (you might need to separate the legs a bit first).
In the picture below, this means the curved side is at the top, and the flat side faces the toroid.

Push the transistor down so it is close to the surface of the circuit board, and bend the legs apart at the back to hold it in place.

Then add a resistor

Now find the resistor - this only has two legs, and it works which ever way you put it in. Resistors can be brown or blue, and have stripes.

Bend the legs a bit, and insert them through the brown holes. Push it down onto the board, too.

When you look at the back of the circuit board, two wires are now adjacent: the middle one from the transistor and one from the resistor.
Twist these wires together as close to the board as possible. Then fold the twisted pair over and make sure they do not touch any other wires.

Now add the wound toroid

The printed circuit has a place for the toroid, outlined in green. take the plain single wire, and push the end through the hole at the end of the outlined green line.

Look on the back, and you will see this wire is beside the other leg of the resistor. Twist these two together.

The striped single wire from the toroid follows the solid green line, and pushes through next to a transistor leg.
Insert the striped wire, and twist these two together (bend them away so nothing is touching).

The joined toroid wires go through the hole at the bottom on the diagram, and can hang free until the next step.

Step Seven: Hooking up the motor

Locate the motor supplied, and the packet of small wooden bits. Open the packet, and find the small wooden cog.

Push the wooden cog firmly on to the motor shaft (it has to be a tight fit).

Take the black motor wire through the hole at the end of the black line on the circuit.
It comes through next to the joined toroid wires, and you can twist all these together.
(The cog is missing from the following images, but should already be on your motor)

Now take the red wire on the motor, and push it through the hole at the end of the red line on the circuit.

Twist it together with the other transistor leg that it is next to.

Step Eight: Attaching the Joule Thief to the Middle plate

The LED you put into the middle plate now needs to be hooked into the Joule Thief circuit (and this is a bit fiddly).
The two LED legs go through the orange holes on the circuit, with the long leg going through the hole marked “long”.
It helps to straighten the LED legs a bit first, and then you have to guide both legs through their respective holes at the same time.

As you can see, the motor fits into the round hole, and the toroid will fit into the rectangular hole when everything is in place.
The LED legs come through next to pairs of twisted wires on either side of the circuit, and each leg is twisted onto the adjacent pair.

Make sure that none of the twisted wires are touching another lot of twisted wires, and test your circuit by giving the cog on the motor a sharp spin (anticlockwise).
The LED should flick on, but if it does not, try spinning the cog in the other direction (remember: the LED only works with current flowing in one direction).
A sharp spin can best be made by grasping the cog tightly between thumb and middle finger, and then snapping your fingers.

troubleshooting

If the LED still does not light up, check that there are no loose wires, and that nothing is touching where it shouldn't.
Most times, poorly twisted wires are the problem, but sometimes the transistor or LED may be inserted back to front.
It is not recommended to twist the wires with pliers since the wires may break (especially the transistor legs). Use great care if disassembly is required.

Do not go further if you can't get the LED to glow - it is hard to solve circuit problems once everything is assembled.

Step Nine: attaching the middle plate

Turn the top plate upside down, and mount the middle plate onto the corner screws, making sure the small cog engages with the large cog.
There is a 5mm hole in the top plate to take the protruding LED.

In the packet of wooden bits, there should be 12 small tubular spacers (you might have to pop them out of their carrier first). Put three spacers onto each screw (even though only two per leg are shown).

Step Ten: Attach the bottom plate

Find the bottom plate, and also the two circular wooden motor supports from the pack of wooden bits.
Place the motor supports so the holes in these pieces sit over the bump on the bottom of the motor.

Without dislodging the motor supports, guide the bottom plate onto the corner screws.

You may need to press down firmly on the bottom plate to attach nuts to the corner screws (pressure also helps keep the motor support in place).
Use the wooden spanner to tighten the nuts.

Assembly is finished, and spinning the large cog in the correct direction (clockwise) with your finger should make the LED glow.

Production notes

Instructions

The line drawing instructions were prepared by tracing from some of the images in this wiki. Editable (Adobe Illustrator) files for future development are here: steampunk_instructions.zip

Laser cutting the chassis boards

We used 4mm and 6mm interior grade AA Hoop Pine ply, which has a non-formaldehyde glue to reduce soot and stickiness.

On a Trotec Rayjet CO2 laser the following settings were used:

	Power	Speed
Cut	85%	2%
Etch	80%	90%

The design files below contain additional templates to cut extra spacers and motor supports if these are required (having a few spares can be useful).

steampunk_led_extra_parts.zip

If design modifications are necessary, the cutfiles are here in Adobe Illustrator format:steampunk_led_cutfiles_v2_ai_versions.zip

Making the circuit boards

To make the circuit boards, we first printed the pdf in the cutfiles in colour on an A4 sticker. The design has a rectangular border which is used for registration.

After fixing the A4 sticker onto a sheet of 0.6mm polypropylene, a sharp knife was used to trim along the black border lines so the top left hand corner can be placed flush with the origin on the laser bed (To find the top left, hold the printed sheet so the clusters of holes in each circuit are on your right - the toroid is to the left).

With the material in place, the Holes (registered) cutfile was used to cut the holes to allow insertion of circuit elements, and also cut the sheet into individual circuits. This cutfile has a rectangular border which should be placed 5mm in from top and side of your laser bed template for the registration to be effective - then start cutting from the machine origin.

The files below contain pdf, and cutfiles to make the circuit boards.
Using the Trotec Rayjet laser cutter, settings were Power:30%, Speed: 2%.

steampunk_led_joule_thief_circuit_designs.zip

Preparing Circuit components

Motors

Initial prototyping used motors recovered from DVD tray drives. Subsequently, equivalents were sourced (see parts list below). Motors were supplied with very thin connecting wires, with short bared ends. For participants to be able to twist the motor's wires into the circuit, each motor had these ends stripped to about 1cm, and tinned manually.

Some batches of motors had 6mm long shafts, and later batches had 4mm shafts. This is why the 6mm small cog was used - this thickness ensures the small cog will engage with the acrylic cog regardless of shaft length.

Suggestions have been made that using a motor rated for a higher voltage might make the device more efficient (ie: able to work at lower rpm), but this has not been investigated.

Toroids

The toroids were intially wound by hand using recycled CAT5 wire. This used smaller, cheaper toroids (OD: 10, ID 5), but was a very labour intensive process (the twisted CAT5 wire had to be untwisted before use, and crossing over of the wires was a problem). The advantage of using this type of wire is that it is solid core, which makes twisting easier.

As the workshop became more efficient, it was decided that having participants wind their own toroids was a better option, and using figure-8 paired wire is a way to reduce the problem of crossed wires. Smaller gauges were tried, but the very fine stranded core was difficult to twist, and more tinning added too much prep labour. Using the specified gauge seems to work, and participants have no trouble winding a toroid in a few minutes.

The required toroid ID will depend on the thickness of wire available, so if another gauge is chosen, check that 4-5 loops can fit your toroid before proceeding.

LEDs

Even with the Joule thief circuit, this device produces a very low voltage, which is why only red, green or yellow LEDs are recommended. Flashing or super-bright LEDs will not work, and blue or white are problematic.

LEDs must have long legs (20mm or more) to fit into the design - take care to specify this when purchasing, because cheaper LEDs often have short legs (10-15mm), and these will not reach.

LEDs with clear caps (rather than tinted) seem to be brighter, and provide an element of surprise when the device first functions.

Bill of materials and suppliers

This file contains a list of kit components, pricing and sources as of Nov 2016.

steampunk_led_materials.xlsx

Dry gullies, dead ends and future tweaks

Plywood designs

A lot of trouble was experienced initially with participants mis-orienting the top and middle boards - there was no clear indication of which way was up for the middle board when the LED location was a single 5mm hole. By changing the LED mount to two 1.5mm holes, and adding the engraved 'L', it was possible to force the correct orientation (when the 'L' is visible, the board is the correct way round for assembly).

The engraving around the hole for the 12mm screw (which holds the big gear in place) is designed to act as a subtle nut trap, in order to prevent this screw from coming loose during use. This works intermittently, and there may be a case for using a 10mm screw in place of the 12mm one in the kit - this length better matches the actual distance implied by the design. It is recommended to encourage participants to tighten the final nuts firmly, as this will tend to push the 12mm screw into the surface of the middle board, and hold it in place better.

Laser cutting these plywood pieces takes a considerable time - billed at $60 per hour, this adds almost another $1.50 (50%) to the total cost of the kit. Commercial laser cutting would be even more expensive. Bulk production could benefit from making these boards from some alternative non-conductive material (perhaps by injection moulding), but the set up costs require much larger production runs to make this viable.

The 6mm ply small cog can be fragile, and prone to wear. It persists because a tight press fit is required to avoid using glue, and the compressability of wood allows this.. The hole size might need tweaking if you cut your own, depending on the kerf of your machine. As seen from the design files, this version uses a 1.75mm hole (not including kerf) to fit the 2mm motor shaft.

Circuitry

Winding the toroids took a few approaches to optimize. We tried using press connectors (the guillotine type used in telecommunications splicing - UY2 Y2 lock joint butt connectors), coupled with a short piece of CAT5 wire with a bared end. This approach gave an end with solid core, easy-to-twist copper, but while it worked on the bench, only 50% success was observed during a workshop trial. This approach was rejected in favour of the current design, which has 95% success in inexperienced hands.

Initially the circuit design was monochrome (with the goal of it being etched rather than being printed), and this proved hard for participants to interpret. Once a colour coded version was introduced, following instructions to assemble the circuit became much easier.

Many variants on the Joule thief circuit are available, and many were tried. No obvious gains in efficiency were observed, and this design was chosen because it is the easiest to draw in a clear diagram (less cross-over of wires and minimum components are the key).

Original designs resulted in a winding mechanism whereby the large gear turned anticlockwise, which led to a loosening of the screw holding it in place. This was resolved in the current version, by reversing where the the motor wires attached to the circuit.

Using hand tools

In some cases, participants have used pliers to tighten the twists. This often causes barely visible breakage (particularly of the transistor legs), and is not recommended. Emphasizing that the twist should be as close to the surface of the board as possible is a better way to get a tight join.

Critical Success Factors

Which of the critical success factors does this project target? For more details see SLQ-Strategic-Plan-2016-20

Enable Access

[✓ peter, 2016-11-18]Provide life skills and early childhood literacy programs
Increase free access to digital content
[✓ peter, 2016-11-18]Strengthen Queensland library infrastructure and discovery platforms

Engage Community

Grow the State’s historical collection of Queensland culture and heritage
[✓ peter, 2016-11-18]Engage with communities of interest through dedicated centres of engagement
Facilitate the community’s use of and interaction with content

Build Capability

[✓ peter, 2016-11-18] Build capacity within our communities of interest
[✓ peter, 2016-11-18]Generate new revenue sources
Position our workforce for the future

Delivering of The Edge Promises

Aside from the SLQ Strategic Plan, there is The Edge's commitments to the community and the lens we look at it through.

This empowers creative experimentation across...

Art?
[✓ peter, 2016-11-18]Science?
[✓ peter, 2016-11-18]Technology?
Enterprise?

It will inspire...

[✓ peter, 2016-11-18]Whimsy?
Nostalgia?
[✓ peter, 2016-11-18]Curiosity?
[✓ peter, 2016-11-18]Awe?

Feedback

Kit had dropped holes from the laser cutter.

LED were short legs - hard to twist.

References

Joule Thief examples and theory: http://www.talkingelectronics.com/te_interactive_index.html

Gear generator software (runs in browser): http://geargenerator.com/#200,200,100,6,1,0,0,4,1,8,2,4,27,-90,0,0,16,4,4,27,-60,1,1,12,1,12,20,-60,2,0,60,5,12,20,0,0,0,2,-563

Another example: LED generator

Technology Induction - Intro to Arduino

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 02 Apr 2019 16:02:14 +0000

~~REVEAL~~

Technology Induction - Intro to Arduino

Developed by Phil Gullberg in collaboration with the State Library of Queensland, March 2019.

Summary

This Arduino induction focuses on teaching participants to understand and work with the Arduino micro controller hardware. Arduino is a great tool to create digital devices and interactive objects that can sense and control both physically and digitally. The induction is divided into a handful of practical activities using basic in and output components. It also includes a short lecture on the background and purpose of the Arduino project. By the final activity participants will be able to troubleshoot and use both analogue and digital components such as sensors, lights and motors with the Arduino and have the understanding to pursue more advanced projects. This induction will not include any coding and relies on the standard Arduino example sketches as well as some customized sketches below.

Introduction to Arduino

introduction_to_arduino_microcontrollers

Materials

One of each of the following components are required for the workshop per participant, spares are recommended for LEDs and Resistors. Each participant will require multiple jumper cables of all variations. Length is not important.

Arduino UNO
USB Cable
Laptop/Computer with the Arduino software installed (or the plugin to use the web editor)
10kΩ Resistor
~270-1kΩ Resistor
9g Servo
Piezo Buzzer
Breadboard
Pusbutton
Basic LED
Jumper Cables (F→F, M→M, F→M)

For all activities you will need the Arduino, Breadboard and Jumper Cables. The rest as per activities below.

Basic Electric Circuit

Breadboard

The breadboard, in this the 170 point mini breadboard is used to connect electronic components without the need to solder. Each side consists of 17 rows of 5 points each. Each row of 5 points are connected.

Activity 1: Built in LED

Plug in the Arduino to the computer via the USB cable. Time to set up our Arduino in the IDE.

Tools → Board → Arduino Uno
Tools → Port → Choose USB port (COMX)
Tools → Get Board Info

The following message will appear if you've chosen the correct port, if it doesn't show up, choose a different port and try again.

Once the Arduino IDE has found the Arduino board its time to open an example sketch and make sure the connection between the two is working correctly.

File → Examples → 01.Basics → Blink

Press the upload button and the built in LED on your Arduino board should start blinking, one second on, one second off.

Activity 2: LED

Just like the previous exercise we will be making an LED blink, this time using a separate LED (and a resistor). This allows us to choose the LEDS color, intensity, temperature as well as extend the LED using cables.

Open the 2. LED_Blink project

You will need:

LED
270-1kΩ Resistor

Activity 3: Servo

A servo is a little motor that can turn up to 180 degrees, we can tell it to go to a specific position or just go back and forth. This can be useful for attaching artwork or other components move.

Open the 3. Sweep project

You will need:

Servo

Activity 4: Buzzer

A piezo buzzer is a very primitive speaker that can be found on the inside of computers for example. We can play different tones using code.

Open the 4. Buzzer project

You will need:

Piezo Buzzer
(Resistor)

Activity 5: Push button and LED

This activity brings everything together and we're able to combine the previous components and control them with a push button. We're using the button to decide when to turn the light on and off.

Open the 5. Button_LED project

You will need:

Pushbutton
LED
270-1kΩ Resistor
10kΩ Resistor

Activity 6: Experimentation

It is now time for you to add, remove and adapt your circuits.

Project Files

Project Files (March 2019)

Public Workshop Template

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 13 Jun 2018 17:52:59 +0000

Public Workshop Template

Vector Design 101 - Illustrator

anonymous@undisclosed.example.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 14:51:21 +0000

Vector Design 101 - Illustrator

Developed by Kat Johnston, 2022

Updated Slides by Kat Johnston 2025

example_vinyl_decals.ai

vectorised_common_car_logos.ai

Acknowledgement

Summary

Learn the basics of vector design, a core skill set for creative digital fabrication. Together we will create a single-colour design suitable for applications such as laser-cutting or vinyl plotting.

Skills Introduced

Vector vs Raster
Create a new file
Navigate the Workspace
Basic Tools (Selection Tool, Shapes, Text)
Shape Builder
The Direct Selection Tool
Text (and Expanding)
Making Your File Cut-Ready

Tools and Preparation

Software required: Adobe Illustrator.

Health & Safety

Running this workshop at The Edge?.. You should familiarise yourself and your participants with:

DML Risk Assessment
Innovation Lab Risk assessment
Laser SOP

Preparation

Before the workshop participants will need to sign up for an Adobe Account so that they can sign into Adobe Creative Suite on arrival to the workshop.

Workshop Walk through

Vector vs Raster

Today we'll be using Adobe Illustrator to create vector graphics. Vector graphics are highly utilized in the field of graphic design and also form the foundational step of many of many digital fabrication workflows such as laser cutting, CNC routing and vinyl cutting.

Unlike raster graphics which are constructed of pixels, vector graphics use mathematical formulas describing shapes, colors, and placement.

Think about it as if you describing to someone how to draw a square: four lines of equal length connecting at right-angles for each corner. By creating that shape as a vector graphic, it becomes infinitely scaleable, because the software now has the instructions necessary to produce it at any size. And if we want to cut that shape (for example, on a laser cutter or vinyl plotter), the software now knows which path to follow.

More information about Vector vs Raster

Create a new file

Open Adobe Illustrator and sign in using your Adobe Account.
Click on 'create new'.
Select a size for your artboard - presets are available for common print and web sizes. Today, let's just pick A4 in landscape orientation.
Select your units of measurement. Because we typically use mm, we will select mm. If you are more comfortable designing in cm/inches/etc, you can select those instead.
Leave Bleed at 0mm. If designing for fabrication, bleed is not required (as we are not doing edge-to-edge printing).
In Colour Mode, select 'RGB'. Certain software that we use for fabrication works specifically with RGB to deliver information to equipment. Eg, for laser cutting, a path that is set to 0.01pt RGB red is used to indicate that the machine should cut that path.
When you are happy with your selection, click 'Create'.

Navigate the Workspace

Setting up the Workspace

Once your new file is created, you will see the Adobe Illustrator workspace. Let's set it up so that we're good to go.

There are a number of default workspace set-ups available, but the one we're going to use today is called 'Essentials Classic'. Navigate to the 'Windows' menu option, scroll down to 'Workspace', and then select 'Essentials Classic' from the list. In this workspace, a top toolbar appears with a number of helpful options available depending on the tool you have selected.

As a final step of setting up your document, go to 'Windows', 'Rulers' and select 'Show Rulers' (you can also just click Ctrl+R). This will allow you to drag out guidelines as needed, and provide you with a quick size reference. Make sure that 'Smart Guides' is selected at this time also - it will make precise alignment easier later on.

Elements of the Workspace

Now that we have our workspace set up, let's look at the different elements.

Menu Bar

Along the top menu bar, you can see various menu headings. The ones we will be using most today are under 'Window', 'Object' and 'Edit'.

Top Toolbar

Because we selected 'Essentials Classic' as our workspace, beneath the menu bar is a top toolbar appears with a number of helpful options available depending on the tool and object you have selected. Eg, if you select text, it may show some text options. With the direct selection tool, it will show the fill colour, stroke colour, opacity, etc.

Left Toolbar

To the left, we can see the side toolbar. You can hover over any of the tools to see their names and shortcut options. If a tool has a small triangle in the bottom right corner, it means that there are other tool options hidden underneath. Click and hold on that tool to bring up those other options for selection.

Panels

To the right of the screen, you can see an area available to dock panels that are available under the 'Windows' menu option. These panels provide a wide range of additional functionality, and you can customise this area quite heavily to display and provide shortcuts for the panels and options you use most often.

Basic Tools (Selection Tool, Shape, Text)

Selection Tool

The Selection Tool (the black arrow, and first icon on the left toolbar) is the most basic tool which lets you select and manipulate any object by dragging or clicking on it. Most of the time, we will be using the Selection Tool.

Click on an object to select it. If your object is unfilled, you will have to click the edge instead. Holding down Shift when you have one object selected will allow you to select other items at the same time, or drag a bounding box over all the objects you wish to select to do so.
When you have an object (or objects) selected, you will be able to click and drag the squares at the edges or sides of the bounding box to make it larger or smaller.
When you have an object (or objects) selected, you can hover your selection tool just outside the squares at the edges or sides of the bounding box - your cursor will change to a double-arrow symbol, and you will be able to rotate your object.

Tip: Holding down Shift will do different things depending on what your selection tool is doing. If dragging an object, it will snap it into vertical/horizontal/diagonal alignment with where it was previously. When resizing, it will snap the size into the same proportion as the original. If rotating, it will snap the rotation into 45 degree segments.

Zoom Tool

While creating your design, you may frequently want to zoom in and out to see things close up. The Zoom tool is in the Left Toolbar and represented by the magnifying glass.

To zoom in, simply click on the area you want to zoom to.
To zoom out, hold down alt as you click on the area you want to zoom out from.
You can also use the shortcuts ctrl- or ctrl+ to zoom in and out no matter what tool you have selected, this is a common shortcut across design software

Shape Tools

To create basic geometric shapes, we're going to select the appropriate item from the left toolbar. By default, the Shape options are hidden under the default Rectangle Tool. Click and hold to bring up the other options, and select one - eg, the ellipse tool.

Once selected, you have a couple of ways to create your shape. Eg:

You can click and drag (while holding down the mouse button) to create your shape - when you stop holding down the mouse button, your shape will become an object. Hint: holding down 'Shift' as you click and drag will force the shape to have perfect proportions (eg, the rectangle tool will become a square, an ellipse tool will constrain the proportions to a circle, etc).
You can click on your artboard once, and it will bring up a dialogue box which will allow you to input the exact dimensions. When you click 'OK', it will create your object.

Certain shape tools will have additional options - eg, the Polygon Tool will allow you to set both the radius and the number of sides. If you are clicking and dragging to create shapes using the polygon tool, you can use the up and down keys (while still holding down your mouse key) to change the number of sides, and 'Shift' will force it into perfect proportion and orientation.

For now, let's create a few basic shapes to work with. Try creating these ones as shown - don't worry if they're not exact:

Altering Shapes (fill, stroke, alignment)

After you've made these shapes, you'll need to switch back to the Selection Tool to move them, change them, etc. Switching back and forth between other tools and the Selection Tool will become second nature quickly enough!

Once you have switched back to the selection tool, click on a shape to select it. If you want to select multiple shapes at once, you can click outside of the shape and drag a marquee over all of the shapes you want to select, or hold down 'Shift' as you select them individually.

When a shape (or multiple shapes) are selected, you can manipulate it:

Clicking and dragging one of the corner/edge points (the white squares) will make change its size - hold down 'Shift' if you want the shape to maintain the same proportions as you change the size.
Hover your mouse just outside of one of the corner/edge points, and it will create a sideways arrow - click and hold to rotate the object. Hold down 'Shift' if you want it to snap into standard 45 degree segments of rotation.
Moving it around by grabbing an edge (or a filled area) and dragging it around the space. If you want to keep it aligned along the same axis as you change its position (eg, in a perfect straight line off to the side), hold down 'Shift' as you drag it.

There are also a number of options in the top toolbar available to change the appearance of your shape if it's selected with the Selection Tool.

Eg, you can change the 'Fill' and 'Stroke' colours of an object with the top two squares on the toolbar, and change the thickness of the Stroke too.

For now, let's select our circles and change them to 'no fill' (the white square with the red line through it) and a different stroke colour. Give it a stroke width of about 3pt. Try giving some of your other shapes fills too.

If your circles were not previously aligned (so that they're in line with each other), that's an easy fix! Select both objects, and check your top toolbar. You'll be able to see a number of alignment tools available. Select 'vertical align centre', and they'll line up perfectly. There are also options for aligning horizontally, and to the top/bottom/sides/etc of an object. This is very handy when you want to design very precisely.

Shape Builder

Now that we know how to create some basic shapes, we can start making more complex shapes. There are several ways to do this - the most popular are the Pathfinder tool and the Shape Builder tool. Today, we're going to use shape builder.

Let's start by making a moon. Move one of your circles to overlap the other, so that it creates a crescent moon shape if we removed some of the pieces. Remember, holding down 'Shift' as we move an object will keep it in line with where it was before.

From here, select both of those shapes, and then click on the Shape Builder tool in the left toolbar.

Now when you run your mouse over your selected shapes, it will highlight a section of the overlap and show your cursor with a + symbol beside it. If we were combining these shapes, we would click and it would add the areas we selected together.

Because we want to minus sections instead of adding them, we're going to hold down the 'Alt' key before we click. You'll notice that the symbol beside your pointer has changed to a - instead of a +.

Holding down Alt, we can individually click the sections we want to remove, or click and drag over them to remove them, to leave us with the crescent moon shape.

TIP: When designing it's a good idea to keep back-ups as you go. You can do this easily by dragging out a copy of your original shapes before you use the shape builder tool. This way if you decide later on down the track that you want to make a change to that one small section of your design again (without having to repeat all of your work precisely), you can do so easily.

Play with the shapes we've drawn - try changing the scale or shape and draw more shapes and/or line segments to create something more complex, then use the Shape Builder tool to add or minus pieces together.

It is easy to create a solid house with a window and door cut out using just the shapes we've drawn already.

You've now created a single complex shape from several simple ones - and you would be able to cut this shape on a laser cutter or a vinyl plotter very easily.

Direct Selection Tool

You may want to create more complex or organic shapes than those possible by using the geometric tools provided - and this is where the direct selection tool and the pen tool come in.

Let's select our new house object with the selection tool, then click on the whiter arrow pointer instead - that is the 'Direct Selection' tool.

You will notice that the moment you click the direct selection tool, you will no longer see the bounding box around your object - instead, you will see the actual paths that make up the shape. The little circles indicate where you can create rounded corners on the object also.

From here, you can manipulate any of those anchor points (the little blue squares) by selecting them directly and moving them around.

You can also convert the anchor points from coming to a sharp point, to being a curve by selecting the appropriate option from the top toolbar.

Clicking and dragging the handles that appear after converting an anchor point to a curve can manipulate how sharply or how smoothly the curve curves. If you want it to curve in multiple directions (eg, come to a point), hold down 'Alt', then click and drag your handle.

Clicking and dragging on the corner dots will also enable you to create rounded corners. You can hold down 'Shift' and click multiple anchor points at once if you want to apply this to multiple points at once.

Play with all of these elements to create a design that's uniquely yours! You can also add and remove anchor points using the options located under the 'Pen' tool in the left toolbar.

Tip: This is just the tip of the iceberg in what you can create with Illustrator. If you are interested in learning further, please look up the 'Pen' tool. While the Pen tool does take a little work getting used to it, it is also the most used tool for some designers beside the selection tool.

Text

To create text, simply choose the 'Text' tool from the left toolbar and click anywhere on the artboard to start typing.

Once you have typed whatever you want to, you can go back to the selection tool again, and use that to make it bigger/smaller/etc.

You will notice at this point that our top toolbar has changed to show some options pertaining to text. From there, we chan change the font, alignment, etc. Pick a script style font on this occasion.

You will notice that the text is not oulined like other shapes and objects we've encountered so far. This is because the text is still editable. To make it suitable for cutting (if we were to create this for a sticker or laser-cut item), we need to convert the text to an object instead.

To do that, go to 'Object' in the top menu, and select 'Expand'. When the options come up, make sure that 'Object' and 'Fill' are selected. If you select 'Stroke' (if your object has a stroke), it will create a whole separate object for just that stroke line, so be sure that's what you want before you select it. Once your options are selected, click 'OK'.

Tip: Expand is a one-way action. You can't un-expand to edit your text again.

Once expanded, you will see the outline of each of the objects it's created. It will create a different object for each letter, which has a very clear overlap if you're using a script font like this. If we sent that to cut on a laser cutter or a vinyl plotter, it would cut each of those letters individually, rather than all together. Use Shape Builder (or the Pathfinder tool) to combine the shapes into one, so that it's suitable for cutting.

Make your final tweaks, and you've got something you can turn into a finished piece.

Making Your File Cut-Ready

From here, it's a matter of making your file suitable cut-ready. For example, for a laser-cutter the objects would be prepared with no fill colour, and with a 0.01pt RGB red stroke to cut. For the vinyl plotter, we will simply fill all objects with black and apply no stroke - and the plotter software will do the rest. Please check the file requirements information for the equipment you wish to use for details.

In either case, you can save your file as a .AI (the native Adobe Illustrator file type). Export vector file types that will work with other software, such as .svg and .eps are also available.