Well, I _think_ I'm on a "gentleman's contrace" (e.g. oral agreement) to do a major Make article for March 4th (though I meant the 3rd, and they asked for the 1st -- it's all the same more or less). So this weekend I was going to do the first bits of the project.
Oops!
I didn't; so subtract one goal from the weekend. So, I'll have to work extra hard on it during this week, so I can get a full weekend on it next week.
Except I'll be a bit dead next weekend. Flying out to Palo Alto (they are paying me to be smart!) for a day; leave Thursday night, fly back Friday night, don't get in until 3am. And then I have class at 9:30 Saturday! Fortunately, Matt has been driving us, so I don't have to be too conscious.
This weekend -- class. The art welding class sucks down a lot of time! However, my project is turning out pretty neat. I tack-welded (so far) a flat-stellated (Stellated, but the points don't protrude) Icosohedron, and I made hinges and clasps for the bottom pentamid (pyramid, but with five sides) so it can open and close.
Inside of this platonic iron cage, I am going to suspend one of my large silicon brains, and I'm going to wrap _that_ in fine bell wire, and I will attach _that_ to ... a stun gun! Or the guts thereof.
I did some testing today on the concept, and I can get good sparks around the brain, and with the right spacing, there can be several discharge points that move around the wiring.
All I have to do now is finish the welding, mount the brain, and find a way to trigger the electronics so it doesn't run all the time.
So I did that. After that, I worked on the Tesla schematics some (learning MultiSim still, and entering the McCauley schematics). I think I will just buy his circuit boards, but I wanted the circuits too, to play with and to modify for later work. I was hoping to get the rest of the circuits in and verified against the part list, and then sent to my partner in crime (Derek), but no, didn't happen.
Then, Saturday evening, we had "old school" gaming. I pretty much played Mexican Train Dominoes all night -- did really really well for about the first four hands, and then did pretty meh for the rest. Ah well, we had fun, drank beer, and hung out. It was good.
Sunday - some running around to buy cat furniture supplies and new pens, and an accordion file for this year's receipts. I also wanted to get new grid pads, but they are really hard to find! The Office Whatevertheheckitwas that I had a coupon for didn't have any reasonable grid pads. I'll foray out again to the Ofice Otherplace and get some later.
Then, I worked a bit on the fire pillar thingy, and then spend a few hours building the cat bed - slash - scratching post (it looks really good; this is the add one) and then I finished the legs for the fire pillar. They also look really good!
Didn't get the legs mounted (drill three holes, tap three holes, bolt into place) but that will be easy enough later. Didn't fire it up either. Dang. Things are going too slowly. I hope I get _something_ done before flipside!
Between classes and social commitments, my project time has been pretty reduced. I'll still get stuff done, I always do, but it won't be as much as I would like.
But then again, what else is new?
Posted by Edwin at February 10, 2008 10:01 PM