Enter the Thing Maker

I’m building a Cyberdeck. This seems to be very fashionable at the moment. It needs a case. I could have designed one and left it at that. But I wanted something that could make lots of configurations, and other boxes too. So, on Saturday I gave Claude a detailed description of a program that I wanted to it to build for me. I pointed Claude at some other things I’ve made and told it what I wanted. And, after while of using words like “nooodling”, it dropped out “The Thing Maker”. I then spent the next couple of days bouncing backwards and forwards and refining the design and now, here we are:

A case design is expressed in a JSON file that specifies boxes, what is in them and the hinge that joins them. You use a snazzy interface to place your devices inside your boxes. The device specification includes cut-outs for the connections (you can see them in red above) which you can enable on a per-connection basis. The box (base and lid) is made around the devices and then their cut-outs make sure that the holes line up. You can also make devices “sticky” so that they will move when the box size changes. It’s been great fun to make, and it might even turn out to be useful. You can even import stl files that describe assemblies and add them to the design, along with mocks, cut-outs and supports.

It’s the kind of thing I would build if I had the time. But now I don’t have to, because Claude has built it for me. We do live in interesting times…..