So I have four pinewood derby cars that need to be cut and put together. One for each child. Grace won’t be able to do much with it. And gee I feel bad for her. So I am going to help her out. I’ve decided that I will base Grace’s car on The Mach V from SpeedRacer!
I don’t know how close I can come to it, but I bet I can at least get the general shape right and paint the result white!
Sphere: Related ContentSo a friend of the family, Christie called my wife at home to say “Please help! my cell phone is running out of power and they’ve closed the subway and I’m stuck somewhere called Wellington Station!!! Can you come get me?”
It turned out that my wife didn’t know where the train station was and Christie didn’t know either. So my wife passed the info on to ANOTHER family friend, who is a native and we figured would have no trouble with this.
I got a call back a few minutes later from my wife saying that everything was fine and that our native-friend was on her way to get Christie from Wellington Station on Pearl St in Malden.
[...]
“That’s not going to work. Wellington station is NOWHERE near Pearl St. She’s never going to find the T-station!” So I called the native-friend and walked her through getting to Wellington station, which is in a whole different city from Malden. She was very grateful and got to Wellington station with my help!
Whew! I’m a hero.
Well, ok, she’s a hero, but I helped!
Sphere: Related ContentI got out the old Vex robot I built last year. There were some loose screws and stuff, so although I started “fixing” it I really decided to start enhancing it too.
I added nobby tires because it has some trouble on the carpet. But those tires are much taller than the other ones that are on there so the front end started scraping the floor. so now I need to lengthen the frame or something.
So I’m back to looking at eBay for good prices on VEX Robotics materials. Mostly the prices are lousy. And more importantly I’m not entirely sure what I want to do with it next. I am leaning towards mounting some kind of webcam on it. I would like to get it interracting with the home computers somehow.
I also want to mount something on it … like an arm. Or a trebuchet or something.
I should probably find a legitimate use for the robot I build.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
Sphere: Related ContentSCIFI.COM | Battlestar Galactica
Anyone still follow Battlestar Galactica? I missed the first episode.
It was three-point-five degrees this morning when I got up.
Seriously.
Oi! at least its supposed to get up to 12 today!
Yesterday Gabriel and Chloe walked home from school by themselves. There are crossing guards and the kids are seven and nine years old plus we only live a couple of blocks from the school so it doesn’t bother us. But we always wonder what they’re up to when we’re not looking.
I guess every parent does.
Have we taught them enough sense and responsibility that they won’t do something idiotic the first second we’re not looking. There’s a small stone wall on the walk home – its just visible from our kitchen and even then its only visible during winter when the leaves have fallen from the trees.
Liz looked out the window yesterday and saw that Gabriel had climbed on top of the wall and was standing on one leg waving his arms over his head like a crazy kid.
Obviously he didn’t realize she could see him.
Busted.
Sphere: Related ContentSmoking “Pot” (With an IP address) - DIY “Big Green Egg”
Rama writes -
“I was inspired to upgrade my smoker setup after reading this entry. Mine is very similar, based on the Stoker BBQ System, but uses a cheap $20 terracotta pot instead of the fancy/expensive Big Green Egg.” - Link.
Related:
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Bob sent in these great Google calc tips for makers–
One of the most useful tools I’ve found for Makers is Google’s built in calculator. It knows about all kinds of units and is as simple as typing in plain English.
For example…
Say I have an LED that I want to run from a 12v DC power supply. I already know that the LED requires a forward voltage of 2v and and a forward current of 20 milliamps. What I want to know is how big does my current limiting resistor need to be?
I know I need to drop the voltage by 10 volts, and my draw will be 20 milliamps so I go to the google search page and type “10 volts / 20 milliamps” in the search box hit enter and out pops my answer… “(10 volts) / (20 milliamperes) = 500 ohms”. Woohoo! Now, I’ve never seen a 500 ohm resistor, so I opt to use a 470ohm which is pretty close.
Next I want to build an enclosure for my little project, but I only have measurements in inches, and I want mm (because I’m an engineer 
). This time I type “9 in in mm” and get “9 in = 228.6 millimeters”. Great!
To celebrate my project I decide to bake a cake, but I don’t have the correct measuring jug. The recipe says 2 cups, and I can only measure in fluid ounces. No problem, Google calculator has me covered! I type in “2 cups in fl oz” and get my answer “2 US cups = 16 US fluid ounces”, Doh!, of course it is, but I’m curious to know what that is in gallons. Now we type “2 cups in gal”, and get “2 US cups = 0.125 US gallons”.
Now I’m obsessed with gallons and have some time while my cake is baking, I decide to find out how economical my truck is. I know a full tank is about 15 gallons, and I can do about 225 miles before I need to refill. I head over to google and type “225 miles / 15 gallons”, and I’m surprised by the result “(225 miles) / (15 US gallons) = 6.37715558 kilometers per liter”, what kind of measurement is that? Never mind, I can specify the units I want the results in. I retry with “225 miles / 15 gallons in mpg” and get “(225 miles) / (15 US gallons) = 15 miles per gallon” - ouch! Hmm, I need a new truck!
Maybe it looks better in different units… time to try something wacky! This time I tried “225 miles / 15 gallons in mm per fl oz” and got my result “(225 miles) / (15 US gallons) = 188 595 mm per fl oz”. Looks much more impressive now 
Also, google calc does currency conversions, 99 gbp in usd, gives “*99 British pounds = 195.2676 U.S. dollars”.*
You can even do clever stuff like working out what people in the UK pay for gas in your local currency and measurements…
“0.89 gbp per liter in usd per gallon” gives us
“*0.89 (British pounds per liter) = 6.64504815 U.S. dollars per US gallon”
Ouch! $6.64 a gallon - It’s a rip off!*
Google calculator for makers… - Link.
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I know its not facinating or anything, but I have to fix my circular saw. Most of the time I wouldn’t think I could fix it, but in this case, I’m pretty certain I can. I was cutting some wood for use in repairing the back steps and wasn’t being careful. The power cord drooped in front of the saw and I sliced right through it.
Moments later the saw stopped working.
Being smarter than your average bear, I made the connection between the severed cord and the lack of power in the saw.
So I suppose I COULD use this as an excuse to get a new saw. But I know I can repair the wire - there’s nothing to it, really.
On the other hand I could use this as an excuse for a new saw!
Sphere: Related Content1. Quiet is something that I’m looking for in a new house. I’m sick and tired of the roar of main street.
2. Quiet also describes the weekend. I came down with an acute gout attack on Friday. It was so bad I had to stay home from work. Well, I worked from home, really. That’s one of the nice things about my job - as long as I’m mostly lucid I can continue to work.
On Saturday night I was supposed to go to my company’s anual winter gala, but I was still laid up so I had to cancel the babysitter. I spent a lot of the weekend on my ass watching TV.
But I also spent a lot of it cleaning up the yard, the store room and vacuuming out the dungeon. The spiders hate it when I do that. But I did a really through job and was very impressed with my shop vac. The old one had to get replaced last fall and I haven’t had a chance to do any substantial vacuuming with it until this weekend. I vacuumed up spiders, webs, dust, dirt, pebbles, rocks, slate, leaves, screws, zipties. All kinds of stuff!
We also went to see “Arthur and the Invisibles”. Parts were cute. Mostly it wasn’t that great, but it was a compromise for everyone. It wasn’t so young that everyone would hate it and it wasn’t for people so old that a four-year old wouldn’t be entertained.
The football game. oi. the football game. The patriots played a mostly great game on Sunday night against the Colts, who played a really great second half. The pats owned the first half and dominated the colts so thoroughly that it didn’t look like the Colts could dig out of a 21-6 defiicit. They came back and beat the pats by four points (34-38) in a painfully disappointing defeat. Nonetheless it was easily the best game I’ve watched all year long.
Today’s Monday and I’m back at the office trying to catch up on what I missed and get my projects moving along.
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