Sons first attempt at a walking robot

My son needed a skill to do for his Duke of Edinburgh Bronze award. He decided he wanted build a walking robot. This was a big step from the basic electronics he had learned at school. Before attempting this he had played with motors and LED's but he has never done any programming or touched a servo in his life.
Ever enthusiastic he worked out a design he wanted to attempt after looking at some walking robot videos on Youtube. he decided to make a 4 legged robot. here is
the first attempt at testing the basic principles of his design.



as you can see from the video the table is very slippery and he established he needed to add feet to help with the grip. Next step to tidy up the wiring and add feet. progress will be shown in a future video.

Teardown Liff Wrappa electronic water conditioner

Here is my tear down of the Liff Wrappa water conditioner that i found attached to my pipes when i moved in the  house. It didn't seem to be making any difference to the water quality so I removed it and decided it might be interesting to see whats inside.

100 Billion barrels of oil in the uk :(

100 billion barrels of oil found under the south east countryside ok England.
However only 15% of it can be recovered because that amount is in shale rocks that have naturally fractured.
This still sounds like a lot of oil to get out the ground. But what happened to renewables ?  Surely it would be better to be concentrate on researching ways to create renewable energy. We have a big badass sun in the sky and money spent to improve the conversion rate of solar cells and collectors would be a much better solution to run along with wind and wave technology.
I think this new find and the mentioning that its held in fractured shale is again the start of media manipulation to quietly push the public to accepting fracking.

I live up at the northern tip of England and am glad they have discovered this well away from me. In a few years lets see if the fat cats of London and the surrounding area are being poisoned by their greed by the polluted water table they create.

Why rubbish such a lovely area of the country !!!

My workshop

It became obvious that my small 4 x 8  cupboard was becoming almost impossible to work in for space and the lighting was pretty drab.
 I needed to get more space. Working on the kitchen table was not an option as its pretty annoying for everyone in my house having to share breakfast with soldering irons and perfboard (not something that bothers me).
I considered buying a bigger shed, maybe 10 x 8 but and putting all my electronic and tools in but security worried me so I decided to take a deep breath and clear out the garage.
After about three weeks and seven trips to the local tip, I had enough of a room that I could turn into a decent workshop.
I added extra lighting at the bottom end of the garage which made the whole length of the garage a useable space. To further enhance the lighting I painted most of the visible walls white to reflect more light.

 



A concern with any concrete garage floor was the amount of dust the surface throws up. I went to Screwfix and bought a tin of garage floor paint.  This stuff is brilliant. It sealed the surface and has completely stopped any concrete dust. I put two coats down, a third coat is supposed to make it glass smooth but that isn't  a look or surface I'm after as being a health and safety disaster on two legs I would probably end up on my butt more than on my feet.
Here's a video tour of my workshop



I must admit after using the space for a couple of weeks its made me much more productive and with the addition of a heater has meant I can work in there till well into the night.

Why a corpse would make a good husband

11 reasons a corpse would make a good husband.

1. Corpses never leave the cap off the toothpaste.
2. Corpses don't grind their teeth and snore in bed.
3. Corpses don't leave the toilet seat up.
4. Corpses don't pick their nails while watching tv.
5. Corpses don't channel hop.
6. Corpses don't hoard.
7. Corpses tell better jokes than me.
8. Corpses don't want sex.
9. Corpses never waffle on about geeky stuff.
10. A corpse would never expect someone to go for a 3 mile walk in the freezing cold.
11. A corpse listens without being judgmental.