Grado Labs appears to be a much bigger company than it is. Founded 60 years ago by Joseph Grado, the company made millions of phonograph cartridges in its long history and, during the rise of portable music, hit pay dirt by making some of the best-sounding headphones in the business. Where is this company located? In some massive office park in the depths of New Jersey? In a manufacturing town on… Read More
Before Pac-Man, before Pong, before Space Invaders there was pinball. And it was good.
While we were in Las Vegas this week for CES 2014 we had the distinct pleasure of stopping by the Pinball Hall of Fame, an amazing space dedicated to all things electromechanical. I spoke with Tim Arnold, Director of Things And Stuff (or, alternately, Stuff And Things) who has made it his life’s mission to maintain some amazing amusements.
Arnold has a collection amassed over many years. He was – and still is – a trained Bally’s pinball technician and he has hundreds of machines in storage that he has amassed in fire sales back at the tail end of the pinball craze. He rebuilds many of the machines from scratch, using good parts from bad machines to make one uber machine that anyone can play in his nondescript museum.
Arnold has it all: Gottliebs, Ballys, Midways, and more. He has standup arcade games, as well, including amazing electromechanical games like Bally Road Runner, one of the first arcade games to use transistor controlled electronics. He also has a mini workshop in back where he repairs the old machines, keeping them in working condition even 60 years after they rolled off the factory floor.
There’s a lot of history – and a lot of fun – to be found in the Pinball Hall of Fame. Arnold is a tinkerer and a dedicated maker. He recommended that young makers learn to build things, not just mash things together. By being good with your hands, he said, you ensure your job and your skills are always in demand.
Visiting a place like the Pinball Hall of Fame makes you feel in touch with the long arc of history that led from the first bells and gears of the original pinball parlors to the ultra-realistic game machines of today. It’s mind-boggling to think that we moved from the pinball machine – essentially a glorified gas pump – to the arcade machine to the home console in a less than 20 years. Plus the games are really, really fun.
TechCrunch Makers is a video series featuring people who make cool stuff. If you’d like to be featured, email us!.
Hidden amidst the winding pathways of Llewelyn Park, New Jersey, America’s oldest gated community, steampunk designer Will Rockwell is building a future that never was. He began his career as a TV producer but he always loved to tinker with metals, leather, and wood – the three components of good steampunk. After building a set of Rocketeer-style USB keys, friends turned him on to Etsy. He opened a shop and almost immediately was flooded with orders.
These designs are a labor of love for Rockwell who scours the junkyards of New Jersey for cool odds and ends. He has two workshops, one in Pennsylvania and one in the basement of his 1912 home.
Rockwell doen’t expect to get rich with his hobby but he’s doing well, nonetheless. His unique style, nautical-themed designs, and electronic additions to his devices meld the modern and the mysterious in a quirky way. My favorite project? His electric guitar outfitted with wild effects and knife switches, although his handmade USB keys are still amazing.
Will is definitely following the maker spirit and is even making a little money. His world is one of the imagination, full of undersea starships and steaming hard drives run by pistons. It’s enough to make you think you’ve stumbled upon the world of Captain Nemo via the Jersey Turnpike.
TechCrunch Makers is a video series featuring people who make cool stuff. If you’d like to be featured, email us!.
It’s rare to see the creation of a product from idea to implementation but Blink Steady, a unique, multi-sensor bike light, allowed us to do just that. Created by Benjamin Cohen, Stuart Heys, and Mark Sibenac, the Blink Steady launched in April on Kickstarter and shipped last month.
The Blink Steady factory is in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, in a huge repurposed knitting factory that is home to a few dozen apparel manufacturers. The workshop is full of tools, stamps, cutters, and parts that Heys uses to build robots for his other clients. He and Ben got together to create their first commercial product and were pleasantly surprised by the reaction.
The light itself is dead simple: you mount it on your bike and it starts blinking when it’s dark and you’re in motion. It stops when you stop for a length of time. To change the notification style from blinking lights to a steady red beam you simply flip the light over to display the appropriate part of the laser etched logo – “Blink” to blink, “Steady” to stay on.
Heys and Cohen took us through the workshop and showed us how they made each piece by hand using locally sourced materials and labor. They truly made something from nothing and we’re proud that they were able to take part in TC Makers.
Note: Special thanks goes out to Josh Zelman, our stalwart producer and cameraman, for whom this is the last episode he’ll record as he’s leaving us on Friday. Let us know if you need a crack video guy because he won’t be on the market for long. You can find him on LinkedIn.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
