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Exhibiting the Mk2 Turing Machine

Accepted submission by Phoenix666 at 2015-10-29 20:22:38
Science

Here's a short video clip of the Mk2 Turing machine working at Derby Maker Faire [srimech.com]. It took about 6 weeks from sending the plans off to RazorLab to having a working machine at the Handmade Digital exhibition in Manchester. There are still lots of handmade parts in the Turing machine, but having the majority of it laser-cut has made it much easier to construct. There are also a lot of bugs in the design. One of the great things about the laser-cut design is that I can record these bugs as though they were software defects, which they are in many ways. The design for the machine is on github, at https://github.com/jmacarthur/millihertz/tree/master/scad/newbuild, [github.com] although it may not be very intelligible at the moment. I really need to spend more time documenting the design. Lots of people have said they like the shiny black laser-cut Turing machine, and others have said they prefer the scrappy style of the original. Personally I'd prefer to hand-make the final version out of solid brass, but that will be several iterations away.


Original Submission