As on day 02, I tried to make a soma cube, this time milling it out of aluminium on a milling machine.
The Soma Cube is a 3D, tetris-like puzzle -- picture credit 2ndlook.nl
I picked up some aluminium from a local supplier, and headed to Hive13, the local hackerspace, to use their milling machine.
The Hive13 metal mill
After about 7 hours, despite hard work, I had almost finished cutting the blanks, and that was it. Milling is no joke, especially for a beginner!
correctly sized blanks to make the pieces
And had to call it a night, both because I was tired and because the weekly meeting was starting. I was feeling pretty rough after this one -- three, nearly four failed projects in a row is not a great start to a hackathon.
Today's project was to make a healthy, shelf-stable food that I could eat every day, and take care of meals for the rest of the month. In the process, I realized my initial goals didn't quite make sense, and I also (again!) ran out of time. But I made a little progress.
First, I spent a couple hours researching foods like what I wanted to make. I started with "survival" foods -- hard tack, military rations, disaster food, pemmican and wasna. Commons themes I saw were:
The foods lasted a long time
They were cheap to make (then, not now)
They were dense (physically compact) and could stand being thrown around
They were high-calorie.
They didn't need cooking, and often you could get by with no heat or utensils if needed.
They were something people would eat (and often, the bare minimum standard)
They contained some reasonable macronutrient balance, although usually not an ideal one
They were often meat-heavy
Then I branched out a little to other calorie-dense foods:
Trail mix
Fudge
Energy bars, meal squares, and granola bars
Biscotti
I started realizing my goals didn't quite align with what I was seeing. I didn't really need my food to last years -- one month outside a fridge would be fine. I cared a lot more about taste. And eating calorie dense food was not really a great idea, as someone mostly sitting in a chair rather than than hauling gear cross-country all day.
I did a circuit of local stores -- a grocery store, a restaurant supply store, an indian grocer's. I also picked up enough frozen food at Trader Joe's to last me most of the month, rather defeating the point. Oops!
I came home with a lot of flours and flour-adjacent things. Very carb-heavy. I had several flours: corn, chickpea, and wheat. I ground up a few more.
grinding dried peas into flour one jar of peas makes one jar of flour completed flours. quinoa, chickpea, corn, green pea, oats, lentil, pigeon pea chocolate chips, coconut, cheese, sausage, flax, sunflower seeds, sugar, shortening, and boullion
At this point, I had a wide variety of cheap ingredients. I went to the USDA food database and wrote some notes about macronutrient balance, and did the math on how much things cost.
Then, I started experimenting. I had previously made hard tack, which I found kept forever and I liked pretty well. So I started by experimenting with hard tack, using non-wheat flour recipes. I was worried (rightly so) that non-wheat flours would not hold together as well.
experimenting with non-wheat flour ratios
I tried ratios of quinoa and wheat flour, and also tried adding a few ingredients. I found that 1 part in 3 of wheat flour was plenty to hold things together--it just wouldn't be puffy any more. That seemed fine. I also discovered that it was really important to aim for a consistent thickness, because some of the pieces ended up soft and some hard or burnt. Luckily, non-wheat flours are a lot springier, so this was easier in the second batch.
experimenting with ingredients -- 23 tests total
In the second batch, I kept the same 1:2 ratio, but tried a wide variety of flours, as well as the rest of the additives.
My findings, and my ending point for the night:
A 1:2 ratio of wheat flour to another flour seems to consistently hold together well. The amount of water needed varies just a little. The squares cook with 20 minutes per side.
Quinoa, green pea, oat, and chickpea flours are neutral to good. Corn and wheat flours are excellent. Lentil flour smells too strongly. I forgot to test pigeon pea or make rice flour.
Coconut (un-powdered) is also excellent. I like the smell and a little fat. Shortening was not as good, and I didn't test other fats.
Adding extra salt didn't change the flavor.
Adding fat (via coconut or shortening) makes the wafers a little messier.
Sugar is great. Whether a dusting on top, a little added, or chocolate chips, it's a definite winner. Sugar mixed in should improve shelf life.
I was originally trying to invent a single food I could eat every day, which if you know me was a very stupid mistake. Instead, I'm going to have the final version be something more like my experiments--a wide variety to pick from.
If I continue another day (and I likely will), I'm going to further optimize taste. The most compelling result of all is that I didn't eat the leftovers--I went for frozen food instead.
The Soma Cube is a 3D, tetris-like puzzle -- picture credit 2ndlook.nl
Today I tried to design a laser-cut set of Soma cube pieces. The pieces (shown above) are (conceptually, and sometimes actually) made of 3D blocks glued together.
I've seen a particular style of joinery for acryllic, called finger joints. Those looked easy to cut and easy to put together (if hard to design).
Acrylic box made with finger joints -- photo credit txoof
I wrote a python script that takes a description of a piece, like this:
Piece E
xx x-
x- --
-- --
And draws all the flat faces I need to cut.
Flat faces for the soma cube
I was already running far behind, time-wise. I ran out of time before I could get the joinery working. Honestly, I don't think I'm very close, either.
Finger joins drawn incorrectly with turtle graphics
How to do a three-piece corner join was especially confusing me.
I wrote a player for #ircpuzzles, a yearly puzzle hunt hosted on IRC. Many people who might like to try the puzzles don't know how to use IRC. So, now you can replay past years online.
I didn't have time to finish this one. It only has one year, and is missing a little polish. I'd call it about 80% done. It worked as a warmup for hack-a-day, my yearly project to complete one project a day in November.
So I’ve decided on my next project! I’m going to spend a month learning new things. Unlike hack-a-day, where the focus was mostly on doing something every day, here I’m trying to cultivate a different attitude. So the following are all encouraged:
Being curious about stuff
Getting distracted
Having fun
New experiences
Being goofy, even if I don’t “learn” anything from goof experiences
Naps
Hanging with other people
And these are discouraged:
Completionism
“Grinding” through a nonfiction book I’m not that into
Hack-a-Day is a challenge to complete ~30 fun new projects in 30 days. In my case, I aimed for 20, because I knew I was getting a job and moving. I just barely made it with this last entry, a collaboration with nsh.
Music of the Spheres lets you hear songs on different tonal scales. Listen to the warped melodies. Watch the pretty planets orbit. Surely their sizes and orbits are significant and connected to the tonal scales? Go mad with afterimages of… okay, well it’s kinda fun, anyway. Demo is here, code is on github.
Yesterday’s project was Speed Reading. Experience what it’s like to read Don Quixote faster than you’re comfortable with. Source is on github as usual.
