MatthiasWandel
1 HN recommender · recommended in 5 months, 2014–2020
4:53 · 1.2M views · Dec 12, 2010
Matthias Wandel shows how his pantorouter, a template router machine, works. The flexible machine cuts joints such as mortise and tenon and dovetails, and plans are available.
Cited as a favorite example of clever mechanical design and as a reference for CNC joinery devices.
5 comments from Hacker News
mattias' approach has really influenced how i think about software engineering. not entirely surprising considering he is also a software engineer. i think his youtube channel is really worth checking out. he has even invented several new, amazing tools, like the "pantorouter" for cutting perfect mortise and tennons (among other things) with a router. this video the way he solves, and even identifies, the problems in the woodworking domain are, i think, very instructive for how to think about some aspects of software design.
> " If it's not too much to ask, can you better explain me your reasons? Is $500 a large amount of money for your budget? " BitCoin has no associations in my mind except distasteful scams, hustle and the seedier side of life. The feeling is that you're trying to convince me to buy into Amway or an MLM scheme or a holiday time share. It wouldn't just be "wasting $500" it would be "being scammed". Wasting $500 would be mildly annoying, being scammed while watching it happen and thinking "this is a scam" and still going along with it would be infuriating . I could spare it. If I lost it, the loss would not inconvenience me. But you are acting as if BitCoin is doing something new here - I can already hold some high-risk/high-return investments, and they are some that I think have a chance of increasing in value for reasons that I understand at least at a high level. For one example, Segway had a very understandable business model: invent and patent a new vehicle, make and sell it. The risk was that nobody would buy, and they didn't. By comparison, I don't understand at any level why BitCoin's price is what it is, and have no confidence it won't collapse suddenly and completely instead of going up. I don't know what it would take to make the price go 50x higher to get any feeling if that's likely or unlikely. I don't know why it would happen to Bitcoin specifically instead of Litecoin, Namecoin, Peercoin, Dogecoin, xRipple, Nxt, Monero, Stellar, Ethereum, etc. Buying a cheap specu
I've always worried that it's worse than that. Even if there's plenty of deep thinkers (which is what slow thinking is in my opinion) - there should always be some people with good fortune and circumstances to push at the peripheral. I honestly do not see that today in Silicon Valley - I see a lot of useless bullshit and superficial replacements, there's only a handful of people out there keeping it together. However... poverty of Time is not likely to be the main constraint unless you live in the Middle Ages. Many intellectuals have taken jobs which enable them to kill two birds, merely being physically active and forced to be active by a job that requires it is a genuine cognitive advantage - not to mention the infinite distractions that can smear your available leisure time such that you produce nothing of value. Most aristocrats did not belong to the Royal Society. No - the real problem is that we're too synchronized. We think alike - we have a 'frame problem' of our own. Being here on HN or on the Internet in general is not an advantage. It at first appears to be valuable in the sense that you understand what exists and who is doing what, the context. That is I suspect the opposite of what we need for true innovation. For true innovation you need to connect up with 'the network' once or twice a year - and the rest of the time fuck off and do something good (ideally with a small close knit group). “[..]Although personally, I think cyberspace means the end of our species."
The whole project smells of YouTube woodworking culture. That's not a bad thing! It's just that the device itself reads like a CNC Pantorouter ( this video ). They show a table-top workbench. ( [LINK] ) And, the final example is of "Korean Joinery" ( [LINK] ). None of this is damning. It just gave me a heck of a sense of deja vu as I watched. I almost expected stop-motion clamps to squeak by, a la Frank Howarth!
This is so cool! [LINK] [LINK] This is basically how the pantarouter by Matthias Wandel [0] works: [LINK] Or take a look at this weird engine: [LINK] I am a bit nostalgic/sad about the fact that many young people who would've wanted to learn this craft a century ago are today choosing software engineering. [0] this video