The Bricoleur: Making Do

Claude Levi-Strauss used the term "Bricoleur", referring to a maker, of sorts, who makes do with the tools and materials at hand. Terry Frohm, principle technician at the CRRF Chuuk marine laboratory in Chuuk in the early 90s, used the term "Making Do" in reference to appurtenances and contrivances, innovations he cobbled together in creating a functioning laboratory, with a minimum of expensive and specialized equipment or hardware.

I recognized, in Levi-Strauss's descriptions of the Bricoleur, the Micronesian fishermen's use---of necessity---of available materials to solve their own technical problems: Marshallese fishermen used a piece of broken glass or a sharp piece of Aluminum beer can to clean a catch of fish on the beach; spears were fashioned of discarded heavy iron wire from water-tank bands, straightened and sharpened; their slings made from old airplane inner tubes. Goggles were carved from wood---using possibly a kitchen knife sharpened on a piece of pumice that had drifted onto the beach, their glass from a
relict World War II airplane. Gillette's study of Tuna fishing in Tokelau features a demonstration by a Tokelauan elder: trapping an air bubble in the hand cupped over one's eye to provide an air-water interface through which to see fish clearly.

This Blog cannot adequately honor the resourcefulness of those men, but I have borrowed the words of Terry Frohm, to describe the purpose of this proposed collection of solutions and innovations of various kinds. These solutions are embarassingly rich in their reliance on modern materials. The intention is to develop a repository of cheap and easy solutions to problems that are important to me. I I hope it can serve as more than a collection. Rather, by example, a reminder that solutions are often at arm's reach, and not in catalogs.


Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Cell Phone Microscopes and Macroscopes

Excellent: Freely available article from PLOS One

  Cell-Phone-Based Platform for Biomedical Device Development
      http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0017150


One of the DIY Macro lenses for Cell Phone: here

      http://www.cnet.com/how-to/diy-macro-lens-for-your-phones-camera/


Another one that shows more promise using a glass lens

      http://www.wired.com/2011/03/diy-cellphone-microscope/


Something Else For Completeness: (Way Beyond Me) (PLOS One)

    A High Performance, Cost-Effective, Open-Source Microscope for Scanning Two-Photon   Microscopy that Is Modular and Readily Adaptable


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Low Cost Fly Trap


A Google Image search will display dozens of fly trap designs, using soft drink bottles.  I am curious about the ones that use two bottles. 


This is a simple trap made from one bottle.  From this site:
 



http://www.persistenceunlimited.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/fly-trap.gif




This is called the TALC fly trap.  At least two sites online have plans.  Here is one.












                                                                           http://www.fastonline.org/CD3WD_40/ITDG/FLYTRAP/GIF/FLYTRAP.GIF
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Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Getting the ball rolling: A Short List of Practical Solutions I Have Known.


Many or most of these ideas have never been actualized.  
  • Cordova, Alaska Skiff Bailer
  • My Macro attachment for a cheap canon Power Shot camera, and a diy flash diffuser
  • Using a selfie stick to hold a cell phone (camera) down low near the mud for a transect across a mud flat, to record small critters in minute burrow entrances
  • A pressure lantern understage trans-illuminator for a stereomicroscope
  • A fortuitous method of tapping a modified 12 volt power line into a portable HP Printer.
  • Various untapped ideas for 3D printing macro attachments
  • Using a 6W fluorescent lamp for household illumination 
  •  Using a fragment of a broken bottle on the beach to clean a fish

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First Post

For years I have kept a virtual file of solutions for various practical problems, in the spirit of Terry Frohm, who referred to the constructs he created for  a field Marine Laboratory, using available tools and materials.  I want to collect such solutions in an accessible manner, on this blog.  Terry spoke of "Making Do" when describing the circulating seawater system, or the freshwater supply, or to any of his inspired creations, solutions to practical problems.  At least that is what it meant to me.  I hope that Terry will forgive me for borrowing his term as the title of this blog.


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