This is a toy rocket Launcher for SAFE take-off. This is for small rockets such as the ones from Apogee.
I built mine around an Arduino.
The code is very simple and good introduction to micro controller coding in general.
Also built a few parts with the Makerbot, using TinkerCad for the design.
This weekend it was the First communion of my youngest son, Noe.
We made a feast with the family, I roasted a small piglet in the BBQ. It was my first roast and it was very nice. Very sweet and nicely cooked all the way through but still very juicy and tender. I am very pleased with the results.
We also had some very nice wine…
Made some foie gras from a fresh duck liver. The recipe is very simple.
1- Leave raw foie gras in milk overnight in fridge.
2- Take out of fridge, let it rest 30 minutes then separate the lobes and remove the veins. There is a big lobe and a small one, the veins travel differently in each. Simply use fingers or small knife. This is an important part, a thorough job here will make a very smooth foie gras at the end.
3- Put all the foie bits in a terrine and poor a couple of table spoons of Ports and a couple of table spoons of Armagnac. Sprinkle a few spoons of spices as you like. (I like 5 spices and pepper). You can put salt now but would recommend salt on the finished product rather than in the cooking. Back in fridge for the liquids to get absorbed in the liver.
4- Cook in the terrine in the oven at 160 degrees celsius, “au bain marie” ( poor boiling water around the terrine in a bigger container). I cook with the terrine “open”, so I can see what is going on and check the temperature of the foie. I usually wait for the foie to get to at least 55 to 60 degrees celsius. This might take 20/30 minutes ()?
5- Take the terrine out and let cool down. You can press the foie slightly so that the meat is all at the bottom and the fat comes to the top. For this you can use a small piece of wood of the appropriate size wrapped in cling film and let it rest on top of the terrine with a small weight on top.
5- When cooled, put in fridge overnight. The fat will go solid on top and provide a “air-tight” protection for the foie gras.
6- Eat the foie gras on a toast of bread with a bit of salt and a sweet wine.
Just an other robot I purchased for Easter….from the evil scientists here….good fun, all Arduino based, open source and simple to use as an extension to Inkscape.
We had a few goes at CNC drawing on the eggs of we had in the fridge…including this Nutrition Facts for the eggs.
Less than an hour build time.
There is nothing like coming back home (in London) from a long trip down to my parents.
The car is always full of souvenirs to eat or drink…
Unloading the car is always a bit of a pain and always marks the end of some sort of holiday but the first drink from one of the “souvenirs” is always there to boost the spirit as a starter.
Cheers until next time.
A few days in Alpe D’Huez at the Club Med., very nice weather and great relaxing with the family.
Snow was rubbish and slopes disappointing because the nicest runs were closed. (Sarene and the Tunnel)
Next year, back to Park City.
I had a problem today, I solved it and I learned a few new skills, it was a good day.
I recently added a secure bolt to the bottom of one of my outside doors to make it more difficult to simply break-in for any wannabe thief.
Although the bolt is effective to secure the bottom of the door, the way it is setup is annoying as the bolt constantly catches the step at the bottom as you open and close the door.
Essentially it needs something to keep the bolt “high” so that when you open or close the door it does not drag on the floor.
I thought I could solve this problem easily with a 3D Printed Part of my Makerbot.
I started with a quick design on Tinkercad. What a great piece of cloud computing…
Then downloaded the part to my computer, send it to the printer and… “et voila!”.
The workflow :
Problem -> Idea -> TinkerCad -> STL File -> ReplicatorG -> GCode on SD Card -> 3D Printing -> Physical ABS Part -> No Problem anymore.
See the pictures for more detail.
I have recently discovered the Processing programming environment, following some more experimentation with Arduino hardware.
It feels like I am back in front of my TRS-80, but with GHZ of power, the door seems to open again to plenty of fun app.
The integration for Graphical fun and support for modern file management such as export to PDF etc… make it a great tool to learn a modern programming language with very little complexity initially.
However, the language is fully capable of more sophisticated behaviour once you include a few additional libraries such as the GUI of ControlP5.
I recommend. See an example here.
Simply wave around the mouse in the window and watch your creation….you will be gone for 10 minutes at least…
Again a good old family traditional.
Shallots / Spring Onions
A few cloves / Ground Ginger / Pickling Spices
Malt Vinegar.
Very nice with “Hate Levee”, to be done next week sometime once the shallots have pickled a bit more.
I said I would do it, so I did.
My Grand Dad recipe for fruit liqueur.
Recipe is on the box, just need to wait 30 days now…
Our elders did not teach us to flap our wings but to fly wherever we want to go.
[Update 15 March 2012]
Now time for the next step. I squashed the fruits using a sieve, trying to keep most of the juices, most of the fruit juices had already come out and the fruits were just finer and pulp. Then I filtered 3 times using a coffee filter. The coffee filter was clogging quite a bit, so lucky I was using a washable one rather than paper. All looks nice and clear at the moment.
Create a sirup with sugar and Cahaca (sugar cane alcohol) to “dilute” the overall and finish the “liqueur”.
This is another Arduino project. I am using an Arduino Ethernet with a prototyping shield. Everything is in a Radio Shack box. I also use 2 Stainless steel led buttons. A green one, which is wired so that it is flush with the box when it is “on”. The Green led shows that it is working and pulsates when the Arduino is in PAUSE between checks of the TWEET feeds. The Blue Button, is also a Stainless steel button, but is a momentary button, allowing for interaction with the printer. At the moment it is only to switch between 2 different Tweet accounts. I intend to extend the use of this button to allow for more general uses of the setup.
I love the concept of Hard-Copy of a TWEET, which sounds like the complete opposite of what an Internet object should be.
Cave Stone => Egyptian Paper => Tweets => Internet Thermal Printer => What next ?
CNC Stone Engraver? -maybe a next project…
Here is a video of the Printer waiting, then pulling the latest Tweet.
This morning it is raining. Well it’s the UK so what do you expect. Actually, we played almost all winter, cold and windy it is still ok, rain …no.
Note that in the UK there is less rain than in most European countries. Actually London does not even make it to the top 10…(???) How can that be, I hear you say. Well, it is all down to how you measure it. If you measure the amount of rain or the number of days of rain. London gets less rain than Paris, but if you measure the number of days of rain, then London is 3rd after Copenhagen and Oslo. Check it.
Although London is thought of as being a “rainy” city, the top city of Zurich, Switzerland receives almost twice
as much precipitation as London (42.3 to 23.3 inches). London is among the driest of Europe’s capitals.
So, I was bored by 7h30 this morning and decided that if I could not get fit, I should get fat. So I decided to make some butter. Yes, real butter from scratch.
Recipe is very straight forward :
- Take some double cream and pour in mixer. Add Salt to your taste.
- Beat the cream until fat separates from the buttermilk, this will take probably 20 minutes. So go and watch the rain fall on the garden…
- Rinse in a muslin under cold water
- Squeeze and Shape into a small cube. Keep the butter cold by rinsing it under cold water as you shape it.
- It’sReady !
- Put on warm toast…watch rain falling on garden and think about summer hosepipe ban…
This is my new Thing.
It is connected to the internet and is checking at regular intervals if there is any Tweets FROM my Twitter account or TO my twitter account. If it finds one, it retrieves it and print a hard copy of it for posterity…
All this is powered by the Arduino Ethernet, and a fairly simple sketch. I had the various bits required in my parts box and used the tutorials section of Ladyada website. The excellent Arduino cookbook from O’Reilly is also a great reference. I used the steps here to adapt for the bits I had and change the code to my needs. At this point it is all nice and functional it only needs a few LED buttons and a nice box.
This is a test to see if I can link a post to a Processing sketch.
It works on my local system. I Need to test remotely, very cool !
This week boat build for my 7 years old school project. I know it is not very clever but I was given a total build time of about 2 hours and only 12 hours “notice”. (including office time)
It floats, it has a white skull and bones, and that is about it.
Still we managed to get a “tie” in the race on the class water tub race track…
When I shared with the Office colleagues, I got some much stick ! My boss threatened of calling the child abuse support line…
