Fiddling & DIY
Benches, jigs, prints, fixes and the next version.
Fiddling · DIY · Games · Software · Hardware
We make the dreams of makers and fiddlers real.
FiddlerCrab is a small Berlin workshop that designs and builds things end to end: printable hardware, ESP32 firmware, workshop software and games. If it can be sketched, soldered, printed, coded or played, it belongs on our bench.
4Design disciplines
10+Projects on the bench
6Projects to explore
20 yrsEngineering practice
Our vision
Everyone has a project in their head. Ours is helping it out.
Most good ideas die between “wouldn't it be cool if…” and the first working version. The gap is rarely talent — it is a missing part, an unreadable tool, a toolchain that eats a weekend, or nobody nearby who has done it before.
FiddlerCrab exists to close that gap, and to leave the how-it-was-made behind for the next person, whether they are opening a workshop tool or building their first device.
Make dreams buildable
A project should ship as a whole build: source, firmware, printable parts, wiring, parts lists and honest build notes — not a clever demo nobody can reproduce.
Grow STEM thinking
Not just facts: the loop of guessing, testing, failing and trying the next version. That habit works for an eight-year-old and a chief engineer alike.
Keep it delightful
Colourful, clear and a little playful — for grown-ups too. Friendly is not the opposite of serious; it is what makes serious things approachable.
The portfolio
Four benches, one workshop.
The disciplines feed each other. A game teaches us about feel, firmware teaches us about constraints, a printed bracket teaches us that the real world has tolerances.
Tinkering with intent
Printed adapters, analyser mounts, workshop jigs, dive-gear parts and the small fixes that make a bench work. Everything gets measured, printed, broken and revised.
Prototyping the feel
AnimalRun is a one-thumb precision platformer built to answer a single question before any art budget exists: does the jump feel good? Design bible, tuning panel and level verifier included.
Tools that stay out of the way
LaserCanvas gives laser and CNC machines a modern control surface. PrintDeck and PrintBridge keep an eye on printers. Divestuff turns a 3D designer into a printable object.
Boards, light and enclosures
ESP32 devices for real workshops: touchscreen printer stations, LED status lights, gas analysers and printable enclosures that actually fit the parts you can buy.
How we work
Build the smallest honest version, put it in real hands, learn what the drawing could not tell you, then make the next one better.
The FiddlerCrab loop — since the first model plane
Start from a real itch
Every project begins with something that annoyed us on a bench, in a workshop, underwater or on a phone screen. No solution goes looking for a problem.
Prototype the risky part first
The jump feel, the sensor reading, the serial handshake, the fit of a printed part. Whatever can kill the idea gets built before anything pretty does.
Make it usable by someone else
Readable settings, sane defaults, a wiring diagram, a parts list and notes about what went wrong. A project only counts when a second person can build it.
Share the how, not just the what
Open notes, open files where we can, and clear material for people who are just starting. The method is the most reusable part of any project.
Find the work
Some projects already have a home.
Follow the live tools and the projects that are ready now. PrintGlow and PrintDeck websites are still to come.
Live
Divestuff
Browser-based dive-kit design and printable parts.
LiveTrimix Analyser
Tools and project work for breathing-gas analysis.
LiveLaserCanvas
A modern control surface for GRBL laser machines.
LiveDive Planner
A focused planning tool for divers.
Project pagePrintGlow
Printer lighting and electronics. Website coming soon.
Project pagePrintDeck
Local printer monitoring for the workshop. Website coming soon.
Who is behind it
An engineer who never stopped building model planes.
FiddlerCrab was founded by Dr. Clemens Chaskel — aerospace engineer, Cambridge PhD, and an Associate and former Senior Industrial Fellow of IfM Engage at the University of Cambridge's Institute for Manufacturing.
The professional work is about manufacturing and technology at industrial scale. The workshop work is the same instinct at kitchen-table scale: try it, fly it, crash it, improve it.
Bench facts
- Founded
- FiddlerCrab UG (haftungsbeschränkt), Berlin
- Disciplines
- Fiddling & DIY, game design, software design, hardware design
- Stack
- ESP32-S3, C++, TypeScript, React, Web Serial, FDM printing, GRBL lasers
- FiddlerCrab
- Divestuff, Dive Planner, analysers, LaserCanvas, PrintGlow, PrintDeck and games
- Macrocyra
- InnovationFlow.app, InnovationFlow Diagnostic, RuruPilot and more in development
Get in touch
Got a half-finished idea? Bring it to the bench.
Makers with a project to publish, teachers and clubs looking for STEM material, or anyone who wants a small piece of hardware or software designed properly — we would like to hear about it.