Year: 2015

Odiorne State Park

Sean and I went out to Odiorne State Park on Monday. We checked out the Seacoast Science Center (small, but cool) and took a walk along the shore. At the far end of the rocky beach was a small peninsula where people had made lots of rock stacks. This one in particular caught my eye, with its window-like shape.

Another Bookcase

I built another bookcase for under my electronics workbench, to handle some of the excess stuff that was starting to encroach on my workbench space. It's not even half full yet, but I'm sure it won't take me long to fill it up.

Lego Mindstorms

Sean and I had a deal - if he saved up half the money for a Lego Mindstorms robotics set, we would pay the other half. Surprisingly, he did it! Which is strange because the joke is that whenever he has two nickels to rub together, he spends them. But somehow he did it. He was in a summer camp this year (and one last year) that was based around Lego Mindstorms, so he knew what he was getting into and couldn't wait to have his own set. He's been building all kinds of stuff ever since it arrived. The picture here is what he calls the R-Pet v2.0 ('R-Pet', as in 'Robotic Pet'). It can play fetch, detect different colors and has a 'favorite' color, wag its tail, respond to touch (pat it too many times and it will growl), and dance. He's been brainstorming what to add to it next!

Whale Watch

Lori went on a whale watch with her dad yesterday - they didn't see many whales, but they did see a whole lot of sea lions, and a pretty nice lighthouse.




Laser Engraver Anti-Blindness Shield

While noodling around with my laser engraver to make the front panel for the photobooth enclosure, I finally got to the point where the old shoebox I tacked up in front of it to prevent people from going blind just didn't seem good enough. So I made a wooden drop-down shield to block the view, and laser-engraved this little plaque for the front of the shield. They aren't wired up yet, but the idea is that the two red lamps will be lit up when the engraver is running.


RPi Photobooth – Mark 2

For this year's Father's Day cookout, I rebuilt the Raspberry Pi Photobooth from the ground up. This time I built a nicer enclosure too - one with a laser engraved front panel (using my homebuilt laser engraver!) and the RPi camera module. It worked out great - it was light enough to mount on a tripod, which made the whole thing a bit more functional and polished. Soon I plan to post a bunch of the photos we captured with it!



CRT2015 – Selfies

I found these on the camera once we got back home. She must have been taking them in the backseat while we were on the road. I especially like the one of her giving *herself* bunny ears - I don't think she gets the idea of that joke. :)



CRT2015 – Niagara Falls

Next stop on day five was Niagara Falls State Park. It was pretty impressive - the falls just seem too big to be real. Although hilariously, Carter's first comment on seeing the Falls was "I thought they would be bigger". I don't know what she was expecting, but I was pretty impressed. She was burning out and knew we still had a pretty long drive ahead of us that day, so I couldn't convince her to try the Maid of the Mist boat tour. I'll have to come back with Lori sometime and give it a try.


CRT2015 – Buffalo Museum of Science

First stop on day five was the Buffalo Museum of Science. It was pretty cool, but some parts were being renovated and under construction, so we only got to see a subset of the museum. But the parts we *did* see were pretty awesome. They had both a tornado simulator and an earthquake simulator that Carter really enjoyed, plus some really cool hand's on exhibits about the human body.


CRT2015 – Lake Erie

As our final stop on day four we visited Erie Bluffs State Park right outside of Erie, Pennsylvania. I've never seen one of the great lakes, and it was pretty impressive. You can't see the other shore, so it must have been difficult for early explorers to determine whether this was a lake or an ocean (aside from taste, I suppose). The rocks along this part of the coast of Lake Erie are all wave-polished shale - or in other words, the *perfect* stones for skipping. They were flat, smooth, and palm-sized. We stood on the shore skipping rocks for quite a while - I just wish it had been less windy so the waves would have died down some. It was pretty tough to skip rocks with the swells.