Category: Uncategorized

Fake Batteries

Posted on by Brian Garthwaite
Fake battery spacers.
Yellow’s a fun color!

What to do when a battery-powered device would function better with fewer batteries? In our case, a dead-simple DC motor that gives better results when operating at 4.5 V instead of 6 V – but the holder that completes the circuit is sized for four AA batteries.

The answer: a battery-shaped slug of aluminum, which happily conducts current, fits in the place of a functional battery, and has some adorable bright-yellow heat-shrink tubing to stand out! Mostly because bright colors are easier to identify when you drop something on the floor. Round things have a habit of rolling off of surfaces at inopportune times.

Desk Toys

Posted on by Brian Garthwaite
Floating magnet desk toy.
It spins! It floats!

Ah, physics. Where we have an eclectic assortment of desk toys and mostly-useless gimmicky trinkets because their very nature, the quirks of physics they embody, are helpful explainers of scientific principles.

And while their appeal is typically short-lived – how many times before the levitating magnet loses its novelty? – that ooh! factor only needs to work the first time.

Classroom Key

Posted on by Brian Garthwaite
Key with handwritten label: Classroom door key
Just one in the pile.

“Classroom door key.” Matter-of-fact, handwritten on a torn adhesive label. No need for building or specific room number identification. (The other side has no markings.)

Maybe there was only one classroom at the time? Maybe they were all keyed identically? Maybe the original bearer was only concerned with one specific classroom, one which needed no elaboration? Who knows?

Keys

Posted on by Brian Garthwaite
Coffee can full of old keys.
Keys to locks which no longer exist.

Another coffee can, this one half-filled with old keys, most unlabeled, almost certainly all of them to locks long gone. Not like “bucket of keys” is a prime organizational strategy, so one supposes these can be used for some exciting new arts and crafts project?

Handwritten key tag reads "Breathing Apparatus Cabinets 2nd Floor"
Are those still important?

Apparently, at some indeterminate point in time, the second floor held cabinets with a breathing apparatus inside. Respirators? SCBA systems like firefighters use? SCUBA systems like divers use? Pretty confident that those’re long gone.

Handwritten tag reads "etc."
Seriously?

This one has become disconnected from its key, so your guess is as good as ours. What useful information could that possibly offer? Like, even if we knew which key it identified?

Can of Screws

Posted on by Brian Garthwaite
Coffee can full of tiny screws.
In case you were wondering: it’s heavy.

It’s an old coffee can full of tiny screws. The ones on top appear to be #3-56 (fine thread) in stainless steel, though the variety beneath is diverse. All in all, weighing in at approximately 3,063g. Individual screws weigh in – from a coarse sample – between 0.11g and 0.67g each.

Not going to throw them out, but just as unlikely to know when they might ever be put to use. Or how, precisely, we’d expect to find the necessary screws buried in such a mass.

Just, please, don’t drop it on the floor.

Iterations

Posted on by Brian Garthwaite
Lens holders and a series of 3D-printed parts, each very slightly different.
Getting there.

One of the key benefits of a 3D printer is the ability to create prototypes rapidly. Doesn’t quite fit? Adjust the model, re-slice, and set the new print to go. When you’re down to sub-millimeter tweaks with each iteration, it’s a relief to let the machine whir and ooze out the next version.

If at first you don’t succeed, try again and again and again and again…

Targeted Marketing

Posted on by Brian Garthwaite
Advertisement for life insurance.
“Satisfied policyholders”?

A collection of advertisements in the latest package of toys for our toy kits. The new catalog – buy even more of our stuff! – makes sense. The Doordash bit seems unrelated, but they’re probably just spraying everywhere and hoping for a connection.

But “burial insurance you can afford” seems… a step too weird? There’s an awful lot to unpack here, and to be honest, we’ve got more important work to do.