Robot Claw – Page 405 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

The Great Bear-Off

December 19, 2014

And so we begin the second half of

This is hard work you know! I hope everyone is enjoying the marathon of posts 🙂

The above is a photo taken from Bernard’s blog. He is, as we all know, a master of origami. If you’re unfamiliar with his talents, refresh your memory with some examples of his skill.

But I bet you didn’t know that he was once the student, and I the master?

It’s an undisputed fact that, way back in the days of yore, my brother’s interest in origami was ignited by my very own passion for paper folding. Indeed I was so proficient that people ~~never~~ used to call me ‘The Wizard of Whitebridge‘. In those days I could fold boats and hats and even a crane like a savant.

However I let my talents slip, and haven’t folded in quite some time. I started to wonder: could I still do it? Was I still a master, a wizard even? It was time to find out!

But what to fold? Well here’s where my buddy SFL enters the picture, since she suggested ‘bears’ as a blog topic for this 12-day marathon. Even though she may have been deliberately trying to sabotage me (bears?!?!?!?) all of a sudden it was clear: I would fold a bear!

The rules were simple: make an origami bear without consulting any pattern and instead using a fold that was completely and originally my own. I chose gold paper and started folding, using just the plans in my own head.

There was lots of pre-folding and scoring and initially it started to look more like a boat (or hat) than a bear. But that was not a problem, since I was once the god of folding paper hats! As I continued with my 100% original pattern, I ran into some difficulty when I got to a step that required a type of fold I chose to name a ‘petal fold’. But I soldiered on, and managed to complete the folds by myself and entirely without the assistance of a calmly-spoken Englishman and his channel of origami videos on Youtube.

You can see by this point I was being guided simply by the vision on my own mind, and the paper had started to resemble a bear! To allay the stress, I watched some completely unrelated videos on my iPad as I folded.

The entire process took maybe an hour to finish. I’m proud to say I did a wonderful job, and here is the result:

Magnificent isn’t it! A beautiful golden sun bear, that looks absolutely nothing like a pig! Critics may claim that the choice of paper size suggests the actions of a rank amateur, and that some of the folds leave a bit to be desired. But I can assure you they were intentional, as if to suggest ruggedness and victory against the forces of the wild.

Here’s another artistic shot of my superb creation that doesn’t look anything like a swine:

So as to compare against my skills, I asked my brother to fold a bear as well. He made some blathering claims of not having enough time and not having a suitable pattern, but this morning I received his version accompanied by the comment: “Best I could do given the short notice“:

…

He’s just showing off now isn’t he?

A Piece Of Christmas Magic

December 18, 2014

Most of you know how much I like these things:

These two were purchased last week at the dollar store. Had I not already sent/wrapped the Christmas gifts you may have received one too! I quickly set them up and found they weren’t the most well-constructed of kits:

They are made of porous cardboard with the edges dipped into food colouring (or in the case of the snowman, not dipped). A small packet of liquid is included, which is poured into the reservoir at the bottom.

It doesn’t take long for the liquid to move up the cardboard until it reaches the tips, where crystals begin to form. If the crystallization occurs where the cardboard contains food colouring, the crystals themselves are coloured as well.

So what’s happening? Well it’s actually quite complex. The solution contains water and a mix of alkaline and ammonium salts. Since it is a liquid, capillary action causes it to move into the cardboard. Once the water evaporates (which is most likely at the edges) the remaining salts form crystals. The process is quite quick (less than 6 hours) and once completed the crystals are fairly rigid and the ‘tree’ can survive for years if protected.

We actually have a few (better) ones in our curio cabinet, including a panorama of Mt Fuji that we must have had for a decade now! I sent many of you trees like this a few years ago. I wonder how many of you still have them?

There are many good explanations of the science behind such trees online (this is a good one), and you can even find instructions on how to make your own. If I taught chemistry instead of physics, I think I’d certainly work this into one of the lab experiments!

Into The Dungeon!

December 17, 2014

Some months ago I purchased this at a con:

This is the Dungeon! board game, based on Dungeons and Dragons and originally released in 1975. This is the 1989 ‘new’ version, which added a couple of player classes but in all other respects is identical to the original. Our set is in fantastic condition except for one omission: the rules are missing! Luckily they were only an internet search away!

Here’s the board all set up and ready to go, with only the player selection yet to happen:

Each room has a treasure and a monster. The rules are simple: kill the monsters, take the treasure (each of which is worth a gold coin value), and collect as much as is required by the character you are playing. Here’s what we chose:

Both these classes require 30,000 gold to win. The wizard (me) can cast spells but is weak at melee combat. The Paladin (KLS) is a melee fighter than can heal themselves. Within a few minutes of play we had easily plundered most of the level 1 treasures and KLS had obtained two +1 swords (making her more powerful at combat):

It’s a fun game since both the monsters and treasures are hidden, and there’s an element of strategy involved in planning your route and deciding if you’ll take it carefully and stay on the upper levels (with the paltry treasures) or delve deeper and risk terrible foes for big treasure rewards. I mostly did the former, but KLS dove ever-deeper in search of big ticket items.

Here’s me fighting off a green slime on level four:

The yellow ‘-‘ means it is immune to fire, which was half my arsenal. Luckily I had a lightning bolt (grey) and took it out easily. While I had amassed a kings bounty of treasures, their average value was low and KLS was fast catching up as she entered level five.

And then she entered this room:

Now on paper this battle didn’t seem that bad for her. With her two swords she only needed to roll 8 or better on two dice to kill it. She didn’t though, and the dragon counterattacked. This meant it got a 2d6 roll of it’s own… and it rolled a 2! This is the only way a character can die, and it has only a 1/36 chance of happening. Madelyne the (alliteratively named) Paladin was dead!

This meant all her treasure – about 15k worth – stayed in the room with the dragon. KLS had to restart with a new character, and she picked:

The warrior is a no-fuss type, lacking special skills but needing much less treasure to win. With her powerful melee attack, KLS planned to mop up the remaining level 2-4 rooms for a quick win. There was also a big pile of treasure in a Wight room that the wizard had dropped fleeing from a failed combat.

The race was on – me heading toward the dragon to cheese it to death with spells from outside the room (and therefore avoid counter attack) and KLS barreling to the wight to get the stuff I had dropped. As it turns out we both reached – and defeated – our monsters about the same time, but since I was closer to the dungeon exit I made it out first and was very narrowly crowned victor.

We both enjoyed the game far more than we thought we would! For such a simple design it’s a lot of fun, especially with the uncertainty of which monsters and treasures are where. We didn’t even venture into the deepest level (6), since the level 5 beasts were challenge enough. But next time we play we’ve decided to play cooperatively, and go for the full dungeon clear of all 80 treasures. That will be fun 🙂