Gil Sunshine

Projects
  1. Fields
  2. Inventory
  3. Out House
  4. Basket Buddy 2.0
  5. Baja California Winery
  6. Phaneritic House
  7. AquíAquí
  8. Crop Circle Kit

About
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©2025 Gil Sunshine

Basket Buddy 2.0

MIT Fall 2020
Course: 4.140J / MAS.863J How to Make (almost) Anything

Professor: Neil Gershenfeld



In the fall of 2020 I took How to Make (almost) Anything at MIT where for my final project I developed a machine for measuring, marking and cutting lengths of rattan. In addition to designing and building the machine, I developed a simple GUI for visualizing basket designs and sending commands to the machine. Basket Buddy 2.0 runs on custom hardware, software and electronics. From this simple machine, any number of baskets may be assembled.

Basket Buddy 2.0 machine can be understood in three modules: one for feeding the rattan with a mechanism modeled on a 3D printing filament feed; one for marking the rattan using a spring-loaded pencil lead; and one for cutting the rattan using a pair of sawed off reed snips. Each module is driven by a stepper motor.






A software interface was developed in OpenFrameworks, which allows the user to select an element from their design to send to the machine.