Playing With Real Boy's Toys

My family went to my cousins' house in Redding, Ca. for Thanksgiving this year.  My uncle designed and built his house, an energy-efficient straw-bale home.  He owns a concrete fabrication business called Universal Precast Concrete, Inc.  We went out to visit the shop and got to play with some real man's toys.  Below are some examples:

Gary brought out his shotgun and let us shoot some clay birds.

It turns out I'm terrible with a shotgun.

Below is a really large CNC (computer numeric control) machine that Gary uses to cut molds out of styrofoam.  Once the molds are cut, they're sprayed with polyurethane.

The cement is mixed with a variety of chemicals, shown below, in the 1.5 cu. yd. mixer shown further below, to create the concrete that is then pored into the styrofoam molds yet further below.

Now we get to the most exciting part for me:  MIG welding.  Gary has a MIG welding rig that he let me play with.  He showed me how to lay a bead and let me play around with some scrap steel.

Here we see Gary showing me how leaving space between the plates when making a butt weld allows greater penetration of the weld metal.

The two weldments below are the sheets I practiced on when initially getting the feel for how welding worked (right) and the butt weld that Gary demonstrated the beginning of and had me finish.

Gary eventually got fed up with his workers breaking the hammer handles so he replaced this one with some #7 rebar.

To see more, with more complete descriptions, see the facebook album I posted with these pictures.  And Happy Turked Day.

~KMarsh

Tweet Tweet

Fitting, that just before turkey day I should break down and try twitter. My clinic team, for unknown reasons, decided to hop onto twitter. I think it was iPhone1 and iPhone2 (I try to call them that to their faces whenever possible. Half my team and our advisor have iPhones) wanting to check out the twitter apps. Whatever the reason, my twitter screen name is askForCharon. I've got a feed to it on the sidebar and who knows what else I might do.

Perhaps I'll write a script so I can tweet from the command line. Perhaps I'll write a script that posts messages both to twitter and to my facebook status. Perhaps I'll write a script that parses a file with timestamps and messages and automatically sets up my first script to post the messages when the proper time comes! You never know!

If I do write these scripts, I'll post about them here and, of course, on twitter. I wonder if I'll find μ-blogging addicting enough to keep at it. Have a nice thanksgiving.

~KMarsh

Oh, and give my regards to the ferryman.

Enormous Kites

Gliders are kind of like enormous kites. You attach a big string and then run really fast to get it into the air. Normally, to help you run fast enough, you get in a powered airplane and use that instead. The Barnstormers finally got to go gliding this month and we're very excited about it. Following are some pictures of the event. These are the three gliders we were flying in and one of the tow planes.
My feet are shown on the pedals of the glider I flew in. Notice the overall lack of instrumentation and controls. There's the big red tow cable release knob in the middle, the pedals at my feet, the stick between my knees, and the trim and spoilers controls at my left hand. And the AC vent, but that was somewhat broken. As for instrumentation, we have an altimeter, a variometer (rate of climb indicator) and airspeed indicator. And a piece of string taped on the outside of the bubble as a slip-slide indicator.
Below is Larry's high performance glider. It's worth >$100,000 and has significantly more bells and whistles than the others. And a reclined seat. With parachutes if you want to do aerobatics, and oxygen if you want to make high-altitude flights.

Larry is the man who runs Sailplane Enterprises out of the Hemet airport and he was one of our tow pilots. He gave us an excellent deal that let us use club funding to get as many students as wanted to out flying.
My co-leader getting ready to glide. She and I were lucky enough to get to fly on both the trips we took. On my second flight the instructor let me try flying while we were still on tow, which is quite the experience. I also got to stall the glider and practice some steep-bank turns. It's a bit of a difference from the Cessna 172 I've flown with Iris, but probably not quite as different as some other aircraft could be.
One of the students in the first group to fly with us is working on his private pilot's license. Larry let him help taxi the tow plane out to the runway after refueling. We also had a private pilot in the second group who got the glider instructor she flew with to sign her log book towards a glider rating.
There are more pictures and stories, but I'll let it go for now with the following group photo of the first group who went out with us. Iris Critchell is the lady at the head of the glider, and my co-leader and I are on the far left of the picture.
If you want to hear more, let me know. Until then, have a great time.
~KMarsh

No Two People Are Not On Fire

Fortunately, contrary to what Strong Bad would have you believe, we at Mudd are not, in fact, on fire. There are plenty of fires to go around right now (fairly common in Southern California around this time, actually), but they don't usually come very close to Mudd. Just close enough to make us smell smoke for a few days and occasionally drop ash on us when the wind blows the right direction. Look for a more substantial update when I have more time. (Yeah, like that ever happens). No, really, I still have to give you pictures of my freeze ray, for instance, and talk about the glider trips I led the Barnstormers on. (You just keep telling yourself that). I'm not talking to you anymore. (Isn't that was I was just saying?). ...huh.

~KMarsh

Now the Nightmare's Real

Now Dr. Horrible is here! My Halloween costume was, indeed, Dr. Horrible. The gloves are the very same kind that were used in the video, Tillman 750's. The boots I got from McMaster-Carr
rather than spend the $70 on the authentic Morton Safety boots used in the video. The goggles are old Willson brand welding goggles from the days before arc welding that I got on e-bay last summer. The freeze ray was built from some cardboard boxes, various kinds of tape, bits of pipe from Home Depot, spray paint, and a camera flash (more on that in the next post). The most important part, the coat, was made by my girlfriend, who is an exceptional seamstress as well as being a Mudd engineering student. She modified the McCall 2233 pattern (the original pattern is for a chef's coat) and watched the film countless times to get it right. My Captain Hammer also agonized over his costume, finding
cheap alternatives to the gloves and boots that he needed. Another group had Dr. Horrible people, including the entire Evil League of Evil. More pictures are below. The semester is pretty busy right now, so I'll have to owe you the rest of what should be in this post (more halloween pictures and stories, and an explanation of my awesome freeze ray).

Above: Tie Die and Professor Normal of the ELoE. As a side note; welding goggles make amazing sunglasses.

Catch you later,
~KMarsh