The Talik

DIY MacBook Pro stand

dweider — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 05:12:32 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve done any engineering/DIY posts so today I’ll change that and show you how to make your very own MacBook Pro stand.

Here are the materials you will need:1.5×1.5 foot sheets .25inch of Acrylic (2)Acrylic glueTable sawsandpaper First start by getting out you acrylic sheets and marking where you need cut. here are the dimensions for the various pieces:

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After marking down the lines on the acrylic it’s time to visit the table saw.This is by far the hardest and most dangerous step in constructing the stand, but with a little common sense you should be fine. Obviously one of the most important parts of the saw is the blade. Websites that I have read suggest that you use a carbide tipped blade with ~ 5 teeth/inch. Despite this suggestion I ended up just using a normal carbide blade with ~ 2 teeth/inch and everything turned out fine (just had to do a little more sanding). Most of the parts are pretty simple to cut except the legs. To compensate for this I made a simple jig that allowed me to make the cut.

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After cutting all the pieces it is time to sand the edges so they can be glued. To do that I suggest starting out with fairly rough sandpaper, something around 50 grit should work. From there move to 100 grit and finished it all of with 320 grit paper.

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The final step is to get everything glued together. Because this was my first time I used a general acrylic glue made for aquariums. It’s more forgiving and easier to work with in my opinion, however it doesn’t look as good nor is it as strong as glues that actually melt the acrylic pieces together. So after you have decided which type of glue to use just put all of the parts together according to my diagram, let the glue dry, and you’re done!!!

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Though the stand has a old G4 PowerBook on it the stand was actually made to fit my MacBook Pro which I got soon after.

Hope you enjoy your Stand!!!

More pictures…

Fermilab

dweider — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 06:50:56 +0000

Hey all, this is just a quick post to keep you all entertained while I prepare more in depth posts.

Last year I took a little weekend trip to Fermilab with my school. Needless to say it was pretty cool. We got to see a lot of the equipment that makes the lab run as well as a bunch of free swag. Here are some pictures from the trip…

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more pictures…

Unicycling

dweider — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 16:24:01 +0000

As I’m sure many of you are aware of, over the past year I have really started to take a liking to the sport of unicycling. So how did I get into this strange sport you might ask and how am I doing at it? Well here we go…

It all started in September of 2007. I had come home from school for the weekend and was looking for something to keep myself busy. It was a warm sunny day so I really wanted to do something outside. I could have ridden my bike like I normally do, but this time I decided to go for something a little different. I grabbed this old unicycle that I remember praticing (unsuccessfully) on as a kid.

After briefly reading a few articles on how to teach yourself to ride I felt I was ready so I headed outside to practice.

I knew from past experience that learning to ride wouldn’t be easy. After a couple of hours the appropriately named “savage” saddle was doing a number on my legs, and I found that it was called a children’s unicycle for good reason (my knees were just about touched my face every time I peddled). After a few hours of practice I had made some progress. I found that I was much more comfortable with being on one wheel than when I started and was getting a feel for the how to ride the uni.

After a few hours of practice I decided to call it a day and headed back inside. The next day did more of the same, keeping myself up with the help of the wall, then eventually going off on my own. Before long I was able to go ~20ft without the reassurance of having anything supporting me.

All to soon the weekend was over and it was time to head back to school. Since I now knew that it was possible unicycle I soon decided to get one that would fit me better a Torker Lx 24″ in this case. I continued to practice in the halls of my school dormitory to the amusement of my fellow residents.

After a couple more weeks I was jumping up and down stairs and the like try to keep things interesting (a form of riding known as trials). As a result my hard riding the Torker Lx ended up getting pretty beaten up and eventually the axle/hub snapped leaving me without a unicycle to ride. Instead of just replacing my broken unicycle I also now felt that it was appropriate to upgrade as well. This time I bought a Torker DX 20″, a unicycle synonymous with beginner trials riders.

Finally we come to my latest unicycle purchase, a Coker 36″ unicycle. This unicycle is a by far one of the funniest and most terrifying unicycles I’ve ever ridden. By going to a bigger wheel I found that you loose a lot of the control that you have with a small wheel like a 20″. It becomes much harder to maneuver than a standard unicycle while at the same time you are going three to four times faster. The result can sometimes get you in trouble if you are not always paying attention to your surroundings. The payback however is something that is enormously fun and amusing to ride.

All of this brings us to where I am currently. It’s February and summer with its warm weather is on its way. I can’t wait to get out riding on a consistent basis so I can start trying new things.

Here are a few things to keep you busy:

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more pictures…

Wildlife Photography

dweider — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 06:20:54 +0000

While I continue to work on some upcoming posts here are some wildlife pictures at school last year, hope you enjoy:

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more pictures…

NIU shooting

dweider — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 03:53:28 +0000

So, by this time I’m sure that many of you are at least aware of the what happened at NIU on thursday. It was a crazy day there were all sorts of things going on. Over the course of the day I took a few pictures to document the tragedy.

I hope everyone starts feeling better

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more pictures…

What is it like to be a Lego designer?

dweider — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 05:31:14 +0000

if you are anything like me you have probably wondered what it’s like to work as a designer at Lego. Well I just read this interview that boing boing had with Lego Bjarne P. Tvskov a designer for lego during their heyday. Check it out!

Toroidal Internal Combustion Engine

dweider — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 23:21:17 +0000

So I just read about this company called Rotoblock. The company is basaed in Santa Rosa California and is working on a type of engine called a toroidal internal combustion engine. The torodial engine made by Rotoblock is an evolution of the oscillating piston engine (O.P.E) designed by Dr. Monti Farrell.

As skeptical as I am that any of the large auto manufactures will adopt the revolutionary engine I can’t help but root for the small company.

The O.P.E seems a promising alternative to traditional reciprocating piston engines mainly because of it’s increased power to wight ratio.Given that Mazda has been using Wankel engines for some time now maybe their is some hope for Rotoblock.

How ever it turns out it’s always great to see innovation alive and well.

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Legos

dweider — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:23:45 +0000

So in an effort to get back into this whole blogging ordeal I’m going to start of with a nice interesting post.Over winter break my brother, mom, and I decided to organize our Lego collection. At the end of the tedious process of assembling and finding the various legos I took a few pictures with my camera and the awesome tripod from my aunt and uncle this christmas.Without further adieu:

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more lego pictures…

Abandon hope all ye who enter here

dweider — Sat, 27 May 2006 02:33:17 +0000

My sister’s room has always been quite a mess. Just recently when she was cleaning she came downstairs with an obscene amount of plastic water bottles. I saw this and was reminded of Dantes Inferno and the Horders of the forth circle. Pretty funny so I thought I’d post it.

If you have some spare time: Dantes Inferno Quiz

It Goes To Eleven!!!

dweider — Mon, 01 May 2006 05:01:07 +0000

Those of you who haven’t seen Spinal Tap may not to apreciate this find to its full extent, but I recently stumbled upon this dial at school. The special thing about it of course is that the numbers don’t just stop at ten, no no they go all the way up to eleven. So I brought my camera back a few days later and got a picture of it. The dial is on a table and it must have something to do with audio but I don’t understand why it’s mounted on a table, any ideas? Pretty cool though Watch the Clip