Elser Family Blog

3D printer class, Horses and more.

Rockwell and Melinda have been Racing the fall BMX series.. they are doing great!

Our friend Charles taught a 3D printer class last weekend.. Melinda, Rockwell, AND Hannah, from Switzerland, attended! Hannah skyped in.

We had 6 different 3D printers to work with during this class.. pretty interesting!!

Proof!

Melinda has been attending some horse riding lessons. He thought she was riding western the whole time in St Croix, but it turns out her teacher there taught her a few English things along the way. Teacher: “Melinda! you are posting! There is no posting in western riding..!”

Another nice picture.

I just found this one on my computer… I don’t even know how it got there.. but its a awful good one! Somewhere in the VI.

Melinda has been helping me help some friends with a Haunted house. (Plantation Blood) She has painted and even buried a mattress! Here she is with a new fiend.. I mean friend.

Melinda taking after her older sister.. This is how I would find Hannah almost every day I would pick her up from school..her nose in a book.

I ran the Quacks and stacks 5k last weekend.. I came in 3rd out of about a dozen people.. But in the 50 and over class!.. I’m 49 for another two weeks!! I don’t know how that happened.. but someone got cheated out of 3rd place! If I was in the 31 to 49 class, I would have come in 10th place out of about 20 people.. still not that bad for an old man.

Summer activities

Melinda, Rockwell and I took a nice ride yesterday afternoon. Hannah was disappointed that I waited until she got out of the shower to ask if we wanted to go for a ride… Oops. sorry.

 

 

Yesterday morning we went to the Zoo in Columbia.. It changed a LOT in the last couple years! We met Christine there and dropped Ethan off.. We also had a lot of fun checking out the “new” zoo.

 

 

Cool Nannyrama shot in the penguin house.

 

 

Saturday Melinda and I went to the Paddlefest. Its a river event that benefits the Savannah River Keepers.  It rained half the way.. but it was still fun. Couldn’t get any pics in the rapids… because…

 

 

It looks like she is not paddling, but for some reason that is how she held the paddle.

 

 

Rockwell attended his first Hackathon. He and a friend built a “voltorb”.. Did not quite compete it unfortunately. But He got some time in with a razor knife!

 

 

Some interesting cleanup from when the girls plasma cut out the letters for the Little Library.

 

 

And someone added some books!

 

 

Melinda’s first time at Soup Kitchen… The other girls (Hannah and Amber really) gave her cruddy jobs.. so she did not enjoy herself… I guess it was a initiation.

 

 

Last weekend we went to the Saturday morning street fair in Augusta on 8th street.

Little Free Library Complete!

Walking it out from the shop! I gave them no quarter.. lol.

Tori just manhandles stuff. She is going to make a great boss some day.

Attaching the “Little free library” sign that they made yesterday.

Mounting it onto the post! They did it all.. I did not even help them carry it over. I was too busy taking pictures and video..smile.

Screwing it in!

Proud Accomplishment!!

Almost done with the Little free Library!

Meredith designing the sign.

Tori was the first to try the Plasma torch! The others where a little leery, but Tor just jumped right in. To be honest, I was wondering how they where going to do.. but they were Awesome!

Melinda’s turn. They actually enjoyed doing it.

Mere’s turn. tehy all got to practice before they cut.. but they hardly really needed to, the really did well right off the bat.

Rockwell’s turn!

Rockwell grinding the excess off of the nuts holding the hinges. I smithed the hinges.. I meant to have the girls do that also, but we did not get a chance.

Here it is! I think it’s Awesome in all its rough beauty!

Summer activities! Catching up, and a “Little Library”.

We started out the 4th Holiday weekend with seeing Hannah and Sterling off on an adventure to RTX, (Rooster Teeth Convention) Hannah has really been working on improving her Cosplay of Yang. (Check out the chain mail)

Oh, the day before Hannah left for RTX, she was interviewed as the “Fox 54 Kid of the week”!

The kids love Swimming over at the banks.. This picture is almost in the dark, sorry for the poor quality.

The SnoCap drive in had a car show on the 4th. Check out this crazy custom!

Had to get my picture with it..

End of one of the pool parties at the Banks.

So today I recruited the Girls and Rockwell to help Build a “Little Library” for the park out in front of the house! They really got into it! More Young Makers!

 

Gluing as Nailing. The nailgun does really help.

 

I think they were enjoying the nailgun a tad too much. That little library is built like a tank now!

 

 

 

 

 

THe only thing I did was cut the wood.. the kids put the whole thing together.. For real, it was all on them.

 

And they did a great Job too!

 

 

Painting is next!

 

It’s going to look great! The door and the roof goes on tomorrow, and then we will mount it in the park!

 

Melinda got to ride the Motorcycle for the first time this week. She is a natural.

 

I kid you not, she did not even stall it once. She asked to go to Arthur’s to ride in the woods.

 

 

Last weekend was the Pride Parade in Augusta. Wow, I was impressed with the size, and also the participants. Lots of Businesses where represented.

 

 

Big Parade! And there was a party in the park across the street afterward. Fun!

I’m a Ham.

Hah, not that kind of ham..
A radio Ham (Amateur Radio) operator.
After 30 years of telling myself.. “I should probably take that test and get my Ham License” And you know, being the Chief Engineer at a broadcast Television station and all.. (It used to be that you where required to be a “licensed” radio operator.)

My Call Sign is : KM4AQW

Now all I need to do is buy a radio. 🙂

More Projects. (Firewalker, Rose)

Hannah’s finished firewalker shoes using the Adafruit Flora (round) microcontroller. It’s meant to be sewn on things. Hey, they turned out way better than we expected when they where gluing them, I will tell you that!! (Can I get a witness, Cor?) See the previous post for the sewing and gluing session that happened the day before.

Here is a video of them in action..  The LED’s on the perimeter are individually addressable, and move a animation from the back to the front at each step.  Sorry for the cruddy i-video.. Iphone is all I got.

 

 

Here is a picture of Hannah’s third rose from two days ago… It is the best yet. practice makes perfect, what do you know.

Edo And Cori Visit!

Cori and Edo are here visiting! We like their company. We have gone to the clubhou.se a couple times, and we have eaten out, and we have made something in the forge: One more time.. Copper Roses!, They are so satisfying to make, even for beginners, that it makes it fun with out trying. We worked on these Wednesday. Here is Cori is hammering out the copper to make it flat. Edo is marking where he will cut with the plasma torch.

 

Here is Cori, cutting out her patterns with the plasma cutter!

 

Cori, Brazing the petals onto the stem.

 

Lets take a break and feed the chickens while everything cools off. (OK, I’m making things up now.)

 

Edo getting artistic on us.. you can tell by his expression.

 

Cori and her friend Amber made some roses too! I think this is rose number 3 for Hannah.

 

Definitely perfecting the petal shaping process.

 

ANNNND, somehow, I don’t have pictures of he finished products! I will make sure to get a picture before they leave.

Last night, while Edo and I sort of “jammed” (I played two chords on the banjo, and Ed played things around those two chords that made it actually sound like music.. very satisfying) Cori was helping Hannah create her “firewalker” shoes. They are going to be awesome! Here they are sewing the Flora microcontroller circuit board onto the shoes. I have to admit, we where all ready to hurt someone after trying to glue the LED strips onto the side of the shoes…. OMG.

Oh.. Cori fed the chickens too…

🙂

 

The fete and an Anniversary.

Join me in fete-ing Hannah in her 1st place finish in her High school science fair. She got a 1st place in the Physics category. Way to Go Hannah! You put a good amount of work into this one, what with going out to the lake with the local Amateur radio folks to attempt to launch that second balloon. I won’t mention the “last-minute-finish-the-night-before-the-project-was-due”…

Here it is: Hannah Science Project final 20142

🙂

Also, this is the 10th anniversary of this Blog.

How about that.

Young Maker Shop projects.

We have some young makers around here. Last night was plasma cutting and welding night. Hannah and Rockwell designed some small objects that would let them practice plasma cutting and welding a angle. Rockwell didnt want to actually do the cutting or welding yet, but he designed a dragon wing that he is going to paint. I cut that out for him and will post it after he is done painting it. Melinda is still designing her item.. we might cut it out tonight. Hannah designed a flame.. Inspired by the the last airbender series I think it turned out pretty well! At first I was going to correct her for moving the plasma cutter too fast, but then I said to myself.. “ehe.. just see what she comes up with”.. I’m glad I did! That carving affect is cool!

Cool, huh? Hannah cut 100% of it, and welded 100% of it.. the only thing I did was prep the metal with a grinder to clean it for welding. I can’t wait to see what Melinda comes up with!