This week’s What-if? from xkcd answers the question of why microwave ovens heat food unevenly, and links to our article Microwave Oven Diagnostics with Indian Snack Food.
EggBot in Budapest
Kitti in Budapest has a thoughtful blog about her EggBot. She’s posting her experiences, modifications, and challenges. She is putting up designs on Thingiverse, starting with the Hungarian Folk design shown above.
My first design was inspired by my Mom. I told her about my plans to draw something in Inkscape to be printed on an egg later. She immediately ask if I am planning to do a Hungarian folk pattern.
We’ll be looking forward to seeing what comes next!
GeekDad on the EggBot
Mark has posted a nice writeup at GeekDad about receiving an EggBot as a birthday present:
It was the perfect gift for a GeekDad–something I wasn’t expecting and might not have bought for myself, but is so much fun that I wish I’d bought one years ago.
He used it for his daughter’s preschool:
In almost no time, I had a box of 30 Valentine’s ping pong balls for her to take to school. Her teachers were fascinated when they saw them and I was told had been debating whether we had somehow hand-drawn them all. The head teacher asked my daughter how we made them and she naturally replied: “No, a robot drew them!”
Linkdump: February 2015
- Arithmographe, a ca. 1900 French mechanical calculator (via John Overholt)
- Vintage TV to Bookshelf conversion by John Edgar Park
- Was Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ inspired by a scientific drawing?
- Download and (3D) print: New Horizons Spacecraft. “My other vehicle is on its way to Pluto”
- Watch magnets make an apple disappear
- Open Source Syringe Pump: an excellent example of documenting a hardware/software project.
- The journey of the Mars Curiosity rover, in photos, from orbit.
- Ittyblocks @ shapeways: Tiny 3D printed city blocks
- Mystery plumes on the surface of Mars
- A list of Single-line fonts at imajeenyus
- A brand-new 1950s kitchen, preserved to perfection.
From the Mailbag: Long-term Lego Storage
This great question came in via email:
I was wondering if you are still using the Lego stacked storage system you blogged about 3 years ago?
We are (it’s actually been eight seven years since we wrote that post) and it’s still working well. Last time I went to do a Lego project, I was particularly pleased to find that our parts were still mostly sorted and easy to get at.
Othermill Valentines
Valentine EggBot Design
Amanda has been posting EggBot designs to thingiverse that are based on quilting patterns. Both sewing machines and the EggBot benefit from designs with long continuous lines. This Heart Vine one in particular is perfect for Valentine’s day!
Art Controller Box
Buddadweet posted a design for a custom box to house an Art Controller board to thingiverse:
Here is a box to house the Evil Mad Scientist Art Controller. I have made it with and without holes for 3 and 4 pin connectors…
Evil Mad Scientist Valentines: 2015 edition
For each of the last two years, we’ve released sets of “Download and Print” cards for Valentine’s day. The 2013 set had six equation-heavy cards, and the 2014 set was a set of six symbol-heavy cards. This year, we’re releasing six new cards, bringing the collection up to a total of 18 cards. This year’s new cards feature love, hearts, and arrows (but no bows or cupids):
For when your love is complex, but not whatsoever imaginary.
For that moment when you want to express that not only is the first derivative of your love positive, but so is the second.
(Just in case there was a danger of none of these being sufficiently cheesy.)
Not sure how we missed this one in last year’s set of symbols. Alternate caption: “You light up my life.”
And what better way to say “I love you,” than with the gift of a math problem?
You can download the full set here, which includes all 18 designs from the three years (a 765 kB .PDF document).
As usual, print them out on (or otherwise affix to) card stock, and [some steps omitted] enjoy the resulting lifelong romance.
Update: New cards have been released! Please check out the 2019 set, which contains all 42 cards from 2013 through 2019.
WaterColorBot as a laser engraver
Our friend Schuyler posted on twitter that he got a laser working with his WaterColorBot. He uses the brush/up down function to move the laser up to defocus when he doesn’t want to engrave/cut.
He even posted sample output: paperboard marked with the word “Laser(s)”. This isn’t the first WaterColorBot laser mod we’ve seen, but it’s the first with demonstrated output!
