@dan, @dean, @terence, and I were all crammed around a desk geeking out about how smooth that thing moves. Really awesome job @jkopel! (Now I need one!)
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Here are plans for a microscopeā¦
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This is super sweet. A glowforged gimbal, who would have thought! When I saw the pin and slot joint you did, I immediately thought it would look even cooler/be more sturdy if you made the slot in the cross piece longer and then used an actual wedge as the pin with the same angle as the leg sits at. This way the wedge would sit flat along the leg and be even more handsome looking.
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Yes!
I think that would have been a more elegant solution. The pin (it is actually a wedge but 90 deg. from the leg) structure was somewhat limited since I only have 1/4" thick plywood at the moment. Butā¦ I could have just used some of the thin hardwood!
Next time. 
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I really love seeing these beta projects. I used to wait for a GlowForge email to remind me I hadnāt visited the forum in awhile. Now I rush in here daily, looking for the next Beta Day project. 
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We were all at the office watching the video and commenting on how we chose wisely with @jkopel.
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Thanks for all the kind words.
At this point I definitely have a backlog of things I want to make and ideas to experiment with.
It seems as if every project leaves me with notes/sketches for 5 more, and I am struggling to not spend 12 hours a day playing with the Glowforge,
If I were not essentially self employed, I probably would have gotten fired from the day job by now!
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Figure out how to monetize some of those ideas, and fire yourself from the day job!
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That is essentially how I ended up with the day job in the first place.
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Engaged in the creative flow, other possibilities continually present themselves. An exciting evolution, sometimes leading to a result that didnāt exist in the original concept.
With that, the inspiration compounds! A great joy to the creative spirit.
Although i can sketch well, I rarely have I worked from a sketch for that reason.
I have a clear mental concept of the goal, and the path to it is wide open to those moments of insight.
Definately not the straightest course to the point, but to me, that is a big part of the adventure.
(But notes are essential when an unrelated idea strikes in midstream)
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Thatās a tad weird in this case @dan. I mean if you donāt know, then itās not some secret function of the GF you are working on, and rather his clever mind working on a project (unless you are so devious that it is really a super secret functionā¦ 
). How is asking him this different than asking him what thickness of material he used, or why he chose to paint something blue? Unless you mean we should not ask him any questions about his projects at all, in which case I missed that, and thought we shouldnāt ask him about GF functions explicitly.
Up until purchasing a GF Iāve done all of my projects from sketches. Iāve never used Sketchup, Inkscape, Illustrator, or any kind of CAD software before. GF is the first tool Iāve had where I felt like I need to learn a program in order to use (which is strange because I work with computers for a living!). Iāve always seen it as a separation of my day job, and my woodworking hobby.
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Iām thinking any of us that would like to, even just occasionally, make stuff using the laser, but āsketchingā right onto our materials instead of in SketchUp can make stuff happen with minimal or no computer design. Or, design in pen and refine after Glowforge snaps itās pic. I could see this speeding up refinement of a design pretty well.
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I took Danās reply to mean glowforge subscribes to the beta testing theory of answer their technical questions but donāt interfere, no matter how trivial it seems. Let the user use it.
Westinghouse, in the 20ās I believe, wanted to determine how light levels affected productivity. So they made it brighter and productivity increased. Then they made it dimmer and productivity still stayed higher. Whether the workers thought they were being watched, cared about, or just liked the attention is unknown, but interfering changed their behavior. The lesson being we need to install remotely adjustable dimmers in jkopelās house so his output increases 
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Ah, sort of a Glowforge Prime Directive. Sorry, Iām a Star Trek fan.
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Uh, the hawthorne effect doesnāt apply when the research subject is the one publicly posting their outputā¦ For instance I use OnShape CAD, and was over in their office yesterday afternoon UK/Beta testing a huge new feature (sorry, NDA); they watched me spectacularly fail (painfully so) and as I floundered from one thing to the next, a huge group of folks (apparently including the CEO) were watching me via screen sharing and a camera, but I didnāt meet them until afterwards, when the ācurtain was pulledā. So yes, I do understand this (I do scientific studies on patients, and am used to blinding) but we were asking about something he posted publicly that he did not apparently a function of the devices, but his cleverness. If you arenāt allowed to ask him about his making techniques (which apparently are unrelated to the GF functions per @Danās post in this case) not sure why having him post in a forum, rather than just having him send images to Dan and having him post picsā¦
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Thank you for the name, the Hawthorne effect, of what I described. Yes, when the subject publicly posts attention is expected. It is also the normal path for a glowforge owner: make and then publicly share. And I would argue that people asking how you did it is also the normal path. However, it is not my beta and I could see someone not wanting their beta tester, with limited time, answering questions regardless of the source, when he could be exercising the machine.
I just used the Westinghouse experiment as an example of how you can never be sure you arenāt influencing something materially. Asking him how he did it will cause him to reflect for a moment on his design. Now jkopel is considering a better gimbal instead of moving on to something else. One path leads to free energy and the other path leads to uncovering a major bug: the butterfly effect. There are different approaches to beta testing and it is the one they chose.
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I think the point is that while we can ask @jkopel whatever we want, he will not answer unless he is able to based on his beta agreement. And @dan is just letting us know that things like specific requests are not allowed per that agreement, so we should not waste the time making those requests.
It is also important to realize that the ability to share his work with us is a privilege for us, not a right. It can be taken away if GF deems that we are being too distracting, etcā¦ Additionally, the act of taking photos and videos (though maybe they are required per the beta agreement) and posting his projects here takes timeā¦ time that he could be spending on more projects.
Iām just glad that we get some minor interaction with the Glowforge, even if it is vicariously through Josh, and while I would certainly like to know more and have tons of questions, I will eventually get to explore it myself.
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