Happy Halloween! My housemates and I fulfilled a long-term dream of mine to create a completely pitch-black maze. It wasn’t meant to be inherently scary — no ghouls jumping out at you. Just dark and alone. Some could find it peaceful. I found it a to be a rush, scary yet intriguing. I framed the maze with this poem by Dana Gioia which touches on this … Continue reading Maze without a Minotaur
I had a painting kick over the summer. I started with a large frame on which I did an abstract painting. This was mostly a gateway. Afterwards I wanted to do something bigger and had my mind set on a jellyfish, in particular basing it on a photograph I took of a jellyfish in an aquarium years ago. Okay, actually, I took about 50 photos of … Continue reading Apparently I’m a Painter
At some point I became interested in doing giant paintings. I think it harkens back to my time as an undergraduate where I was allowed to paint murals on the walls. I painted a lot of murals over the four years I lived in that dormitory, most of which I’m proud of. Painting murals in apartments I’m renting is definitely less kosher, so instead I … Continue reading Making a Giant Canvas Frame
I read recently about a question someone got asked in a technical interview for a mechanical engineering position at Apple. It went something like this: Suppose you had a rotating plate, like a lazy susan, and put a glass of water on it towards the edge of the plate. Suppose the plate started rotating, getting faster and faster, though the acceleration is slow enough that … Continue reading Spinning Glass Simulation
I wanted to make a good friend of mine a house-warming gift. I wanted something that was elegant, useful, and took advantage of the free tools I had available: 3D printing, laser cutting, vinyl cutter. I saw some very cool 3D mandala designs on Thingiverse, but didn’t think they were particularly practical as coasters, neither do I think 3D printing coasters is particularly cost effective. However, … Continue reading Mandala Coasters
Inspired by a geodesic planter I saw on Thingiverse, I went about trying to make that shape in OnShape. I thought I might make the same thing out of wood, so I wanted to know what the composite triangle component was, which meant I had to CAD it starting with creating the correct triangular shape. In the end, the CAD was far more fun than … Continue reading Icosahedron in OnShape
I realize I don’t have anything here about the art project Lauren Gust and I did for Steer Roast of 2011. It was an awesome set of hard acrylic tubes filled with water with air stones at the bottom which were controlled by a micro-controller. Visually we wanted to evoke a tree, with the hard tubes as the trunk and small flexible tubing reaching up … Continue reading A Synaesthetic Arboretum
I wanted to letterpress some of my poetry onto notecards. It was both a crafting project and a poetry one: figure out how a letterpress works and create a chapbook to distribute to friends and family. Unfortunately, I have yet been able to achieve a result I’m proud of and am on the verge of giving up the endeavor entirely. So here’s what I’ve tried … Continue reading Letterpress Endeavors
One of my goals for the IoT light sensor was to explore graphing live data. Phant, the Sparkfun service I’m using to post my data online, has an example of graphing live data with Google Charts. Since I know nothing about coding for the web save some outdated html and css knowledge, I used their example code as a template for what I wanted to … Continue reading IoT Light Sensor: There is Data!
I finished my second crocheted stuffed animal over Christmas for my newborn nephew. While I’m not convinced I made it more quickly than my last one, I definitely better estimated how long it would take. I ran out of grey yarn close to the end, hence the green ear and tail, but I’ve decided it’s all for the better. The head, again, is droopy. I … Continue reading A Crocheted Interlude
Like Math, But Louder 