BACK ROOM
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FRONT ROOM
ABSTRACT
Wednesday, 10 December 2025
Monday, 8 December 2025
Gemini Coding Revisited
I continued to experiment with Vibe Coding in Google's Gemini 3 (like I just did with animated lines and voxels this month):
INSTRUCTIONS
"Make a simple drawing program in the browser where all the straight lines go to infinity (the edge of a box), and all the curved lines make a circle."
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A drawing from the simple program
Moreover, apparently half of the screen was hidden, when I tried to use the program in the browser.
PREVIOUS TRY
These are the same instructions I gave to DEEP SEEK back in February 2025, to write an online computer drawing program. I did this on Hugging Face in a program called akhaliq/anycoder (which looks very different now), and created the Drawing Program:
And that program has the same issue, as half of the screen was hidden, when I tried to use the program in the browser.
I just drew this in the old program
And that program has the same issue, as half of the screen was hidden, when I tried to use the program in the browser.
In February I managed to draw some line images, which I stacked into an animated GIF, as my ultimate goal was to make an animation of lines eventually:
Ultimately I want the lines to move too
- Later in March 2025, Bob and I wrote draw random lines and draw random circles programs in ChatGPT
GOOGLE SEARCH
I subsequently entered the same request into Google Search, wondering if anyone else has created a program to do similar things.
"Make a simple drawing program in the browser where all the straight lines go to infinity (the edge of a box), and all the curved lines make a circle."
Instead, Google Search generated the CODE for another program, which I made into a webpage -- Drawing Program from Google Search:
When I hit "Dive deeper in AI Mode" it takes me to Gemini Deep Dive. However all my "thinking" hours had expired, so I believe that I got a lesser version of AI:
Google Search gave me a different program,
which I had to run locally on my laptop,
and drew only one circle or line at a time
Thursday, 4 December 2025
Laser Cutting -- into Metal Silk Screen
The key is the STAINLESS STEEL METAL MESH! The CO2 laser cutter will not cut metal.
Adric brought in a roll of stainless steel screen (200 mesh hole 74um, 50x50cm), and we stretched and adhered the screen to a wooden stretcher bar frame with a staple gun. Then we coated it with ecotex TEX BLUE screen printing emulsion using a plastic bondo spreader:
We uploaded the image to LightBurn for the laser cutter. Then when the emulsion dried, we used a CO2 laser to cut away the emulsion in the screen. We used 80 speed and 30 power, and it took 40 minutes to cut. However I think we could have used a higher speed and power, to cut faster:
I choose an AI generated image of a Rhino with Wings as a test image:
Naturally I took the laser cut silk screen over to the UNM Printmaking Department, to show it off during their student print sale on December 4, 2025:
The next issue is going to be how to RECLAIM and reuse the screen. Perhaps we can just coat it with emulsion again, covering the holes in the open space. Or we should be able to just use the recommended emulsion remover -- Ecotex® Screen Printing Emulsion Remover. We used to use Clorox to take the emulsion off the screens.
Apparently we can also use a diode laser to cut away the emulsion from a metal silk screen. So perhaps I can go on location and laser cut images with my Laserpecker 2 into metal silk screens:
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The test print on fabric
We laser cut an image into a metal silk screen coated with emulsion, at Quelab on December 3, 2025:
The laser cut image was very clean
into metal silk screen
Metal Silk Screen on wooden stretcher bars,
coated with ecotex TEX BLUE screen printing emulsion
- It looks like you can also buy the metal screen from Amazon
Laser cutting the emulsion off the metal silk screen --
80 speed, 30 power
Note that we laser cut away the photo emulsion. We did not "harden" the photo emulsion with the laser cutter. Therefore we probably could have just coated with screen filler. Someone actually just used GUCAMOLE to coat and laser cut his screen.
The final cut
Very detailed cut screen
Animated with Midjourney
PREVIOUS
We did a semi-successfully test run on November 26, 2025. There were a lot of pinholes in the emulsion when it dried (but perhaps that was because we used a heat gun to accelerate the drying process). The lowest power (10%) did not burn off the emulsion, but 30% power did a fine job:
Earlier in October, all this was just a fantasy when I first blogged about the possibility:
FUTURE FORGE
We got the idea from Future Forge Makerspace when we were in Silver City doing a print workshop at the Southwest Print Fiesta last October. They were interested in the X-Tool system. They sell a kit with precoated screens for the laser cutter.
NEWSPRINT
I had been interested for years in combining silk screen with a laser cutter. Back in 2014 we laser cut images into newsprint -- laid the newsprint on a t-shirt, then a silk screen over that and pulled ink over it. The newsprint served as a mask, keeping the ink off the empty parts of the design on the shirt:
- Michael Roman taught me this technique at the Mission Cultural Center in San Francisco in the 90s.
DIODE LASERS
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- It looks like one could just cover the metal silk screen with tape, and laser cut that off
OTHER LINKS
- Wire Mesh for Screen Printing (Benefits, Alternatives, and Cost)
- ECO FRAME WITH 4 LOCKING STRIPS - 20X24IN
- Cheap (no Photo Emulsion) Screenprinting
- XTool Screen Printer
- 270 Mesh T304 Stainless .0014" Wire Dia
- PVC frames for silk screens
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