Category Archives: toys

My office is too small for a mobile robot

Posted on February 24, 2015 by paulwallich

Why four-wheel drive is a bad idea for ostensibly simple bots Continue reading →

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30 years ago seems like yesterday

Posted on January 28, 2015 by paulwallich

Okay, no, it seems like 30 years ago. 20 years ago seems like yesterday. My spouse has wanted a Macquarium for years, and maybe three or four years back she got an old mac on ebay. And finally the other … Continue reading →

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Cupcake Half Aria

Posted on January 10, 2015 by paulwallich

Everyone seems to be printing Aria these days, and it has a high rating for printability, so I figured on putting it to the acid test: my old cupcake.  Darned if it didn’t work OK. I had to scale it … Continue reading →

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Reducing cognitive load

Posted on January 8, 2015 by paulwallich

For christmas, my delightful spouse got me an Eggbot kit. And since one of the resolutions this new year is to build kits instead of just getting them, putting them on a shelf in the basement and dreaming about how … Continue reading →

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Like kids in a candy store

Posted on December 18, 2014 by paulwallich

This morning I had a short meeting with the Cardboard Teck Instantute (aka Ben Matchstick and Pete Talbot), who have a residency at Generator next month.  These guys are so good at building toys, games, vehicles, whatever entirely out of … Continue reading →

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I am amazed that this works

Posted on December 1, 2014 by paulwallich

I knew those clip-on magnifiers were good for something other than soldering. That’s an 0603 surface mount LED, held down by wire glue. The traces are silver conductive ink, and those huge-looking red and black conductors are 22-gauge hookup wire. … Continue reading →

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A dumb but nice thing I did

Posted on November 22, 2014 by paulwallich

Here’s what I like about having a 3D printer in the basement. Tonight the 9-year-old had a friend over, and we all got some pizza, and on the pizza were a couple of those little legged-spacer things that keep the … Continue reading →

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My hallowe’en costume

Posted on October 31, 2014 by paulwallich

Yes, I’m going as a bar graph. I’m an ex-physicist, a tech writer and a geek, so it’s perfect. I have to admit that after 30 years of working on technical illustrations that ended up on magazine covers and people’s … Continue reading →

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