Saturday, September 15, 2012

Raspberry... P.I.

Raspberry... P. I.
Another joke gone horribly wrong. Overheard someone describing a raspberry pi as a "raspberry pee eye" and then decided this needed to be celebrated with a raspberry sporting a Tom Selleck 'tache.

Friday, September 14, 2012

Giant T-Rex

Oh so funny... something that was vaguely a joke...

Somehow on the trip back from Derby Mini Maker Faire, we came up with the Amish T-Rex as a description for me. T-Rex because I have short arms and I have to ask other people to get things off of high shelves for me. Amish because ... well, I like to think I had a hippy upbringing but maybe it was more coddled/sheltered/not allowed to do fun & dangerous things. Also all the previous domestic skills tend towards being "amish".

Somehow I found a 6ft t-rex made out of plywood on Instructables. This idea escalated to Let's Build This For EMFCamp then ... it must glow. Yes it must. I originally thought I'd use UV paint but then decided glow in the dark pigments would be better... It'd react to light and also to the UV Lights.

I gathered a budget, I got granted a budget (materials only), bought plywood, begged for base-coat paint from friends, and somehow... it all came together. Under a bridge under the M1 in Milton Keynes.



Sunday, September 9, 2012

Mobius Pizza


This was actually TomW's idea, I just helped with construction and making.

It still occasionally boggles my mind that even a year ago I had convinced myself I just cannot collaborate with anyone and now I do so on a regular basis without being a control freak.

So, last Thursday I mentioned I was making pizza and Tom suggested making a Mobius pizza. I mixed up the dough in my kitchen-aid mixer and brought some into the hackspace along with other pizza ingredients.

Actual construction was interesting but we've now worked out that we should just wrap/layer the dough in foil before pre-baking it. We had issues with losing the twist in the dough due to slumping.

I have a really weird way of making pizza sauce... it involves using tomato puree from a tube then sprinkling with dried herbs and seasonings. This actually works pretty well as it won't make a soggy pizza base ever. It also works pretty well for a mobius strip where the sauce has to defy gravity at some points. Also good to know for next attempt: Mix in the herbs into the puree before trying to apply. I doubt the pizza was well-seasoned in all places.

Cheese application was strangely easy... Just squish it on in a two-handed fashion to "both sides" ... Mobius strips only have one side technically.

Next came the toppings. or bottomings. or... somethings... This is very mindblowing stuff when you realise the pizza only has one side. Tom stuck on the pieces with some cocktail sticks. Once the cheese had melted in the oven, it acted like glue to stick the toppings on it.

It somehow disappeared very rapidly after being photographed. I assume this means it didn't taste too bad despite the double-baking and squishing the dough after it had been halfbaked and the sauce not being very flavourful etc etc. Mobius Pizza 2 will be much, much better. There is also plans afoot for Mobius Cookie(s)... We shall see if that works out.

Devil Hoodie


My completed project for July. What's sad is that I did so much to this and the only obvious thing is the horns. I bought a cheap hoodie off of ebay, modified it so it fitted better, put a tail, wings (which looked pretty rubbish) and the horns on it. Then decided the tail and wings had to go, so seamrippered them out. I really want to learn to make amazing wings that will somehow stand up to daily use but I guess wings will always be a bit delicate and get in the way of normal life.

Picture thanks to Will Green who came along on the previously mentioned Cable Car trip.