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Looking for manipulative hobbies as being shuttered in closes upon us

 
 
 
Mumbles said:
Malintent said:
LEGOS! I almost forgot the Legos! I am too old to be playing with Legos... That what my wife said. She's wrong.

I am fascinated with the Lego Mindstorm EV3. I want to make this:

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xCd55oSgO4[/YOUTUBE]
Click to expand...

I'd love to look into that sort of thing, but the EV3's price, even used, is always just a bit rich for my tastes.
Click to expand...
I would love a lego mindstorm kit! I played with them as a science/technology teacher years ago!
 
I agree, Legos are super overpriced in general. Considering you are getting a couple of servos with stepping motors, an assortment of sensors, and a programmable "brain"... the price is not too bad.. for Lego.

one could buy an Arduino and all of the robotic components for about half that price... but it wont just "snap together" in limitless forms.
 
It's actually almost absurd of me to complain too much about the price, given the Lego sets I already own (a freaking Helicarrier!?), but yeah, when I consider it versus just implementing things with a simpler board (I was considering something like a Teensy would be enough for many simpler programs), and I'm sure others have though of, and likely done, the same.

Might be something to look for on Youtube at some point. the only show I regularly watch that does anything similar is Ben Heck, and I don't think he does Lego at all, but I'm sure there are others out there. And while a simple "Ultimate Machine" is easy enough, one that can retract it's switch, dodge an incoming hand, and so on is a bit more complex than that.

(Although, being an engineer, my brain *immediately* began thinking of how I could use parts around my house to do this, what else I'd need, and so on. a few sensors, a toggle, a few motors? Sounds kinda simple in practice.)
 
Underseer said:
I like to kidnap Republican legislators, tie them up, and molest them by jamming Star Wars figurines in their rectums.

Does this count as a hobby?

More importantly, what I am doing is legal, isn't it? I probably should have checked first before starting, but you know how it is when you get excited about a new project[ent]hellip[/ent]
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Time passes and the plague moves west. Oregon democrats fashioned a cap and trade bill after California. Republicans in the house where they have enough seats to stop the bill if they don't vote skedaddled. Looking high and low, now getting ready to fine them $500 a day for shirking responsibility. Still no Republican House members anywhere. I think democrats tried something like this in Wisconsin with bad result a few years back.

Our local rep, a republican naturally, tried to spread some pretty tall fibs in an OP ED in a local paper. Tried to say we don't need to do this because oregon doesn't pollute. Of course he cited a stat showing Oregon produces only 0.0014% of world pollution.

How dumb does he think we are. Apparently many down here ate it up until I noted that Oregon has about 0.0005 percent of world population living on 0.0005 percent of land in world making Oregon responsible for three times it's share of pollution in the world.

Eyup. Safe to say republicans here aren't any smarter than Trump.

In conclusion it is a hobby here in oregon hunting down hiding representatives. Maybe they aren't hiding in an adjacent state - average income suggests they can't afford it - but they sure are trying to build a dung pile where Big lumber, yes lumber, runs amok clear cutting forests increasing fire and flood dangers and selling it to our Chinese friends.

Meanwhile I'm spending many hours whittling with my small hand tools a 3"x3"x8" vertical grained hardwood block into a standing river otter. As a result of little progress other than wearing out my thumb recently I went out and bought a larger tool and a mallet. Things are progressing faster now.
 
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Gee. It's been a year now. Shuttered in has taken on a whole new meaning.

Block looks a bit like the beast I see within it. Going very slow though. That's mostly because we've been sheltering in place since February. Seems loss of fellow whittlers makes things slow way, way, down. I really miss the companionship of like minded old pfarts wielding knives and other sharp tools in the name of "Let me out."

But here we are.
 
Mumbles said:
It's actually almost absurd of me to complain too much about the price, given the Lego sets I already own (a freaking Helicarrier!?), but yeah, when I consider it versus just implementing things with a simpler board (I was considering something like a Teensy would be enough for many simpler programs), and I'm sure others have though of, and likely done, the same.

Might be something to look for on Youtube at some point. the only show I regularly watch that does anything similar is Ben Heck, and I don't think he does Lego at all, but I'm sure there are others out there. And while a simple "Ultimate Machine" is easy enough, one that can retract it's switch, dodge an incoming hand, and so on is a bit more complex than that.

(Although, being an engineer, my brain *immediately* began thinking of how I could use parts around my house to do this, what else I'd need, and so on. a few sensors, a toggle, a few motors? Sounds kinda simple in practice.)
Click to expand...

If you are going to get a Teensy for 16 bucks, might as well shell out 35 bucks for a Raspberry Pi:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-4-model-b/

Pretty crazy specs given the price:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-4-model-b/specifications/
 
Talked to my six year old grandson whose in Japan where his parents are teaching at an AF base.

He was interested in how mommy and daddy made babies. I ducked. After talk he's going to look into what a fish has to do to become a land animal. My hint was for him to presume that fish more or less could be a land animal if they adapted what they had going for them as fish. The idea is to see the fish as a hand thumb up and the land animal as a hand thumb right. I said he should concentrate on going from fins to legs and from swim bladder to lungs - No he doesn't know anything about getting from fins to legs or even that bony fish have swim bladders. - that's what his parents are for. It helps to be 7000 miles away. He and his parents are going to work on that and report back in about a week.

Then he began talking about planets. This became my christmas present query. It came down to he wanted to see the moons of Saturn and Jupiter. He knows I have a telescope. He was wondering if he could use it. I explained it was quite a big telescope. over six feet long, heavy, and on a mechanical tripod. Also it's down in LA where my son, now retired, is using it.

So I explained to him and his mum that stargazing is pretty dependent on both weather and one's ability to spend time freezing outside. We decided it would be better if he got a reflector scope that had a motorized mount and video camera. That way, clouds permitting, he could sit in the comfort of his home and see the planets remotely.

That got him going on another topic, building and controlling moving things like RC cars and robots like his uncle is doing in LA.

Yeah he's average. NOT.

So now bride and I are planning on either sending him about $1500 worth of telescope HW and SW or about $700 dollars of RC car modules. Most of you are probably saying "Well that's excessive." It's not. His birthday is December 18. He's a Jewish Catholic. They celebrate both.


He and parents are going to get back to us on which one this year. OK now that's excessive.


No. We're not spoiling him. His parents are. We're just the Money Guy.

Cummon.
 
Manipulative hobbies?

How about close-up magic, especially card magic?
 
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