Buddy of mine inherited JPL's hobo hoard of Lego Mindstorms when they shuttered one of their outreach programs. As in, literally a steamer trunk of Mindstorms. He does not, as yet, have children. As such, my daughter may well create Skynet before she's 12.
I just looked those up. Holy shit, those look way more involved than the Legos I had as a kid. They look like a ton of fun. Looks a bit safer than an Erector Set. Actually, I just looked those up too. Those also look way safer than what I had, which were essentially pieces just waiting to be turned into shivs. Anyway, if Skynet goes live via toys, at least our robot overlords will be kind of cute (compared to Terminators).
Mindstorms are dope. Legos you can program? Sign me up, coach. I was actually pretty pissed off because when he was getting his grad degree in film, he had to take a course in "robotics" involving Lego Mindstorms. Me? Degree in fuckin' Engineering and the coolest thing I ever got to do was build a see-saw out of chopsticks. And I had to do 30 pages of equations on it. Erector is the bastard stepchild of Meccano, which for the longest time was banned from sale in the US. Nowadays Erector is Meccano, proof positive that it's way cooler. I mean, nobody has ever bothered making a Riefler Escapement out of Erector.
I remember as a kid playing with Meccano sometimes, but mostly as the metal / pro version of K'nex, which has just 8 connector pieces and 6 lengths of beams but lets you make insane stuff like this: Obviously not as refined and complex as Meccano but it was stupendously easy to build a solid structure. Especially fun building towers to see how high you could go. I still have a large box of the stuff lying around somewhere. Did you guys have that too in 'Merica?
Yeah, no. We had Erector, which fucking sucks. 1) It's a step above pot metal. Literally scrap steel. Yield strength of zero, which means when you bend it, it's bent. And it bends really goddamn easily. 2) So structural integrity is added by stamping it. So all your "i-beams" are these dimpled pieces of shit that go straight, straight or straight. Want to put them together at an angle? Guess what? You just bent it. Irrevocably. 3) Nuts are square. Bolts are round-head slotted screws. Threads on nuts are deliberately looser than threads on bolts, so you can't fully attach shit. 4) Plates were plastic, and brittle plastic at that. They'd bend until they broke. Or, if you left them out in the sun at 7,000 feet, where I lived, the UV damage would reduce them to autumn leaves in a day or so. Erector is such shit. I'm so glad it's dead dead dead. You could try and build the shit on the box, but the erector set you got for $30 would build, like, nothing.
Oh no, K'nex was must've been made out of a new plastic-titanium alloy because I don't remember it ever bending. That, or I wasn't a very strong kid. Bonus: if you had some money (I didn't) you could make some really cool looking rollercoasters out of it: Too bad it always goes way too fast through the track. Still, you try building this out of Erector:1) It's a step above pot metal. Literally scrap steel. Yield strength of zero, which means when you bend it, it's bent. And it bends really goddamn easily.
Yeah. Did I mention the rusting? I mean, I lived in the middle of the goddamn desert at 7,000 feet. cars don't rust. Erector? If you didn't rub that shit down with WD-40 it'd rust. Now I'm pissed off about the missed opportunities of my youth due to the shitpile that was Erector. ;-)
Mindstorms, yo. Mindstorms. I also found my wife's old Robotix set in her mom's garage. She's got some Capsela, too. We're already messing around with her Little People. They're dope. They're, like, wood. They were used when grandma got them and that was '75. I mean, Mr. Hooper.
Haha, oh man that's kind of a raw deal . . . but I guess knowing how stuff works is pretty important, something I wish I knew more about (as we've discussed). I've heard the name Meccano from my UK friends, but never really knew much about it. Just took a quick peek at the WikiPedia page. Lots of connections there. I had no idea that General Mills was a toy company. Thanks for the link. I hadn't heard of a Riefler Escapement before and I certainly didn't know that there were clocks so accurate that they could measure changes in gravity caused by tides. That's pretty dope.Degree in fuckin' Engineering and the coolest thing I ever got to do was build a see-saw out of chopsticks. And I had to do 30 pages of equations on it.
In my never-ending quest to become an old man before I'm 40, I've taken an interest in ridiculous wooden clocks. I suspect they're primarily to justify my interest in owning a laser cutter, but nonetheless, I'm into it. The Riefler escapement is pretty much the pinnacle of design for "regulator" clocks until you start invoking electromagnetism. Of course, none of them hold a candle to a 25 cent vending machine quartz watch, but that's not the point. The point is that gears are fucking cool. I mean, jesus.
I really love the look of some of those clocks and the fact that one of those plans utilizes marbles and another is an orrery, really appeal to me too. Plus, you've gotta love a set of plans called "Weird Gears plans". Building one of those might be a lot of fun! I do wonder though, if humidity would affect their precision since they are wooden. I'll admit that I laughed a bit when I saw the Yarn Lover's Package. Given your engineering background, have you ever built a Rube Goldberg machine? I've always loved seeing those and I'd imagine that they're a great time, but a great time like sledding is a great time: it's great when it gets going, but at some point you have to trek back up the hill. I suppose that's figuratively true for a lot of things though. My other question to you is: if you can envision yourself using a laser cutter as part of your hobby or personal interest stuff and if you could afford one, why wouldn't you get one? I'd love to be able to have a workshop where I could just tinker with things and though my tinkering is limited, it always sucks to run up against that wall of lacking a particular tool and not being able to improvise a way around it.
Drastically. Temperature, too. We've got a mantel clock that runs fast or slow depending on the temperature. I'm talking "ten days of warm weather? You're four minutes fast" effects. Pretty sure if you dig deep into that site it'll tell you that if you do it perfectly, you'll be lucky to get them tracking a minute per day. Something to keep in mind: engineers are lazy. Rube Goldberg machines are the maximal effort necessary to accomplish something, usually in an inelegant fashion. They're also characterized by a lack of sturdiness. Neither characteristics are those coveted by engineers. Have I invoked rube goldbergian principles in my work? Mutherfucker, there are 150 Jack In The Box restaurants across Texas and Washington that, at one point, used a thermostat to switch channels on their radios according to schedule. That's only because the guy who sold the systems put in zero dollars for a $1500 dayparting DVD player, though. Am I glad it worked? Yeah. Do I wish I coulda done it right? Oh yeah. So I grew up with a carport full of shit and down at my grandparents' house, a 1500 square foot garage with an A-post lift, a drill press, a metalworking lathe, a cutoff saw, a grease pit and four kinds of welders. Right now, however, I live in a 1200 sqft condo with five flights of stairs between me and my two tandem parking spots. I have an f'ing gas can in my closet because I have nowhere else to put it. Wanna see what I accomplished with my "garden?" Fuck yeah. So. There will come a time when I have room to indulge my hobbies. Until then, I have to put a sheet over the client couch when I dismantle my A-80 because there isn't enough room on the coffee table.I do wonder though, if humidity would affect their precision since they are wooden.
Given your engineering background, have you ever built a Rube Goldberg machine?
if you can envision yourself using a laser cutter as part of your hobby or personal interest stuff and if you could afford one, why wouldn't you get one?
That's not so bad, all things considered. Yeah, I hear you on the space issues. I just wish I didn't have to trade off between access to things I want to do and space that I want to have to do things in. Who knows, maybe I'll win the Powerball . . .Wanna see what I accomplished with my "garden?"