Ollys Bloghttps://olly.fawcetts.nz/2023-07-30T00:00:00+12:00Today I Printed: A Tumble Sander2023-07-30T00:00:00+12:002023-07-30T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2023-07-30:/today-i-printed-a-tumble-sander.html<p>Today I <span class="caps">FINALLY</span> completed my tumble-sander! It’s a tumbler (a spinning jar),
that I run with sand in it, and when I put something in it (like a 3D print), it
will slowly sand down the rough edges.</p>
<p><img alt="The humble tumbler" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/tumble_sander_front.jpg"></p>
<p><img alt="A side on view" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/tumble_sander_side.jpg"></p>
<p>It …</p><p>Today I <span class="caps">FINALLY</span> completed my tumble-sander! It’s a tumbler (a spinning jar),
that I run with sand in it, and when I put something in it (like a 3D print), it
will slowly sand down the rough edges.</p>
<p><img alt="The humble tumbler" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/tumble_sander_front.jpg"></p>
<p><img alt="A side on view" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/tumble_sander_side.jpg"></p>
<p>It’s been a bit of an adventure - originally I tried to 3D print the entire
thing. Turns out printed bearings aren’t good long-term, and jars of sand are
heavy enough to cause significant wear on all the moving parts 😥</p>
<p>My mark <span class="caps">II</span> build is a complete redesign, an I turned the jar into a giant gear.
The motor drives it directly, while it rests on four <span class="caps">TPU</span> wheels (with real
bearings this time!).</p>
<p><img alt="The base of the sander (sans jar)" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/tumble_sander_top.jpg"></p>
<p>Another fun bit was preparing the sand. I’m trying first with beach sand
(sifted, washed, and baked), which is composed of fairly round grains. I’m
hoping that since I’m sanding soft substances that’ll be fine, but if I need to
I can graduate to proper sand-blasting sand, which has sharp edges.</p>
<p>Here is a blurry phone shot of my sand under a microscope - it’s hard to
appreciate in freeze frame, but moving the focus through some of the
transparent silicates is quite beautiful.</p>
<p><img alt="Sand grains under a microscope" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/beach_sand.jpg"></p>
<p>And finally, here it is in action, sanding a test print and some scrap wood!</p>
<p><img alt="Sanding a test print and some scrap wood" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/tumble_sander_in_action.gif"></p>
<p>This has so many parts that I’m not going to put them up for download - you’ll
have to design your own!</p>Today I Printed: A Hook For The Shower2023-07-22T00:00:00+12:002023-07-22T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2023-07-22:/today-i-printed-a-hook-for-the-shower.html<p>Nothing fancy, just a simple clip on hook to fit the vertical bar in our shower.</p>
<p><img alt="Tidy!" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/shower_hook.jpg"></p>
<p>I made this with OpenSCAD for the clip, and Blender for the nice rounded hook.
You can get the file <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6145077">here</a> on thingiverse.</p>Today I Printed: Yet Another Vegetable Christmas Decoration2022-12-18T00:00:00+13:002022-12-18T00:00:00+13:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2022-12-18:/today-i-printed-yet-another-vegetable-christmas-decoration.html<p>Grandma felt left out of the Christmas vegetable fun, so I made her a christmas avocado!</p>
<p>As usual, modeled in Blender and hand painted.</p>
<p><img alt="I'd smash that!" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/avocado.jpg"></p>Today I Printed: A case for my soldering iron tips2022-09-20T00:00:00+12:002022-09-20T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2022-09-20:/today-i-printed-a-case-for-my-soldering-iron-tips.html<p>A quick and simple one: I got a new soldering iron for my birthday, and I needed somewhere to store my extra tips.</p>
<p>I thought I’d try for a magnetic egg design, which morphed into this:</p>
<p><img alt="The finished product" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/soldering_iron_tip_holder_open.jpg"></p>
<p>I had to …</p><p>A quick and simple one: I got a new soldering iron for my birthday, and I needed somewhere to store my extra tips.</p>
<p>I thought I’d try for a magnetic egg design, which morphed into this:</p>
<p><img alt="The finished product" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/soldering_iron_tip_holder_open.jpg"></p>
<p>I had to do some fun maths to get the wave in the middle, which stops the two halves twisting around.
And it snaps together very nicely too!</p>
<p><img alt="Oh snap!" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/soldering_iron_tip_holder_snap.gif"></p>Today I Printed: A Headtorch Mount2022-06-25T00:00:00+12:002022-06-25T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2022-06-25:/today-i-printed-a-headtorch-mount.html<p>I bought a light for my bike the other day, the <a href="https://www.blackburndesign.com/p/dayblazer-550-front-bike-light/350140000100000049.html">Blackburn Dayblazer 550</a>.
It seems like a great little torch - lightweight (60g), waterproof (<span class="caps">IP</span>-67 submersible), and plenty bright enough to see by (up to 550 lumens).
Sadly, since …</p><p>I bought a light for my bike the other day, the <a href="https://www.blackburndesign.com/p/dayblazer-550-front-bike-light/350140000100000049.html">Blackburn Dayblazer 550</a>.
It seems like a great little torch - lightweight (60g), waterproof (<span class="caps">IP</span>-67 submersible), and plenty bright enough to see by (up to 550 lumens).
Sadly, since it lives on my bike and only gets turned on when it’s dim, it doesn’t get used very much.</p>
<p>Then, as I was throwing out an old headtorch who’s batteries had exploded all through it, inspiration struck! ⚡️</p>
<p>Why not mount my Dayblazer on my head, using the old headtorch straps?</p>
<p>Being quite long, I would have to mount it up on top of my head, something that I’ve never seen before.</p>
<p><img alt="The bottom of the torch is actually fairly complex" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/headtorch_mount_fitting.jpg"></p>
<p>I’m pretty happy with the result:</p>
<p><strong>Pros</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Well balanced, not front heavy.</li>
<li>Easy vertical adjustment - just pull the buckle it’s mounted on forwards or backwards.</li>
<li>No blazing white light at the edge of your vision, since it’s mounted further back.</li>
<li>Can get ridiculously bright, though that eats the battery faster.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Cons</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>No red light.</li>
<li>Rechargeable, can’t bring spare batteries.</li>
</ul>
<p>Now I just need to take it out for a spin!</p>
<p><img alt="The fitting room" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/headtorch_mount_equipped.jpg"></p>
<p>Here is the <a href="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/scad/headtorch_mount.scad">OpenSCAD file</a>, or here it is <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5418758">on thingiverse</a>.</p>Today I Printed: A DingBox2022-06-12T00:00:00+12:002022-06-12T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2022-06-12:/today-i-printed-a-dingbox.html<p><span class="dquo">“</span>What is a DingBox?” I hear you ask. Quite simply, its a box that goes “<span class="caps">DING</span>”! </p>
<p>I’m sure there are lots of designs for these already, but I wanted to make one that was as silent as possible - no …</p><p><span class="dquo">“</span>What is a DingBox?” I hear you ask. Quite simply, its a box that goes “<span class="caps">DING</span>”! </p>
<p>I’m sure there are lots of designs for these already, but I wanted to make one that was as silent as possible - no servos whining in the lead up, just a nice clean bell.</p>
<p>With this latest iteration of annoying office doodad, we hear a beautiful “ting!” whenever anyone makes a payment using Dolla.</p>
<p><img alt="I just know I'm going to enjoy smashing this in a few months!" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/dingbok_complete.jpg"></p>
<p>I feel a little ridiculous, using a Pi Zero to power this, but it makes it extremely simple to ssh in and change the criteria for dings 🤷♂️</p>
<p>I took a bit of a detour making this, where I wrapped my own electromagnet. Sadly my copper wire was too thick, meaning I couldn’t keep it to an acceptable size without the resistance being tiny (so it drew too much current). I ended up buying a cheap little 5v solenoid that does the trick, although it’s a bit noisier than my homemade one.</p>
<p><img alt="The inners" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/dingbok_open.jpg"></p>
<p>Almost everything you need to make your own can be found <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5412912">on the thingiverse page</a>.</p>Today I Printed: A handle for my screwdriver2022-06-12T00:00:00+12:002022-06-12T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2022-06-12:/today-i-printed-a-handle-for-my-screwdriver.html<p>My little screwdriver has finally given up the ghost, but luckily it came with an extension shaft.
A quick print later and I have a (slightly short) handle - the day is saved!</p>
<p><img alt="A bit short, but since it's printed solid I don't want to waste the filament to redo it a bit longer" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/screwdriver_handle.jpg"></p>
<p>Here it is on <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5412898">Thingiverse</a>, and here’s …</p><p>My little screwdriver has finally given up the ghost, but luckily it came with an extension shaft.
A quick print later and I have a (slightly short) handle - the day is saved!</p>
<p><img alt="A bit short, but since it's printed solid I don't want to waste the filament to redo it a bit longer" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/screwdriver_handle.jpg"></p>
<p>Here it is on <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5412898">Thingiverse</a>, and here’s the <a href="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/scad/screwdriver_handle.scad">OpenSCAD</a> file.</p>Today I Printed: A Reflector Clip For My Daypack2022-05-30T00:00:00+12:002022-05-30T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2022-05-30:/today-i-printed-a-reflector-clip-for-my-daypack.html<p>It’s getting dark and wintery here! To help make myself more obvious on the roads I attached a cheap bike reflector to my backpack.</p>
<p><img alt="Quick and simple" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/reflector_clip_apart.jpg"></p>
<p>It’s designed to fit any of those cheap reflectors that you find on most …</p><p>It’s getting dark and wintery here! To help make myself more obvious on the roads I attached a cheap bike reflector to my backpack.</p>
<p><img alt="Quick and simple" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/reflector_clip_apart.jpg"></p>
<p>It’s designed to fit any of those cheap reflectors that you find on most bikes, but the gap for the webbing is fairly precise - you’ll need to customise it to fit anything else.</p>
<p><img alt="Snaps in perfectly!" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/reflector_clip_side.jpg"></p>
<p>Here it is on <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5412899">Thingiverse</a>, and here’s the <a href="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/scad/reflector_clip.scad">OpenSCAD</a> file.</p>Today I Printed: Super Slick (Bright Orange) Sunnies2022-02-05T00:00:00+13:002022-02-05T00:00:00+13:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2022-02-05:/today-i-printed-super-slick-bright-orange-sunnies.html<p>So this all started when I lost my first pair of clip-on sunnies on my honeymoon. At the time I thought it would be no problem - I’d just buy a new pair from the same place that sold my …</p><p>So this all started when I lost my first pair of clip-on sunnies on my honeymoon. At the time I thought it would be no problem - I’d just buy a new pair from the same place that sold my glasses.</p>
<p><strong>It was not to be. 😥</strong></p>
<p>My glasses are no longer being made! In fact I should never have been able to buy my glasses in the first place! Needless to say, a new pair of sunnies was out of the question.</p>
<p>I fell back to my default solution to <em>“I can’t get something I want”</em>.
Some reference photos, a bit of 3D modelling, multiple failed prints, and I was starting to get results!</p>
<p>It turns out that the way to get a perfect fit was to print the frames out flat (which is also much neater to print), then soften it with a heat gun and mold it to the glasses. Thankfully whatever the glasses are made of has a much higher melting temperature than <span class="caps">PLA</span>!</p>
<p><img alt="Getting the perfect fit" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/sunnies_heat.jpg"></p>
<p>I bought some car window tints, and cut them into the right shape. After a few failed attempts with super glue, I found a much easier way to attach them, using a soldering iron around the edges.</p>
<p><img alt="Attaching the lenses" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/sunnies_soldering_iron.jpg"></p>
<p>With that done, I just had to glue the magnets in and presto! A lightweight, bright orange pair of sunnies!
Of course now that I knew what I was doing, I had to make another couple of pairs - now they can be stacked for extra sun protection!</p>
<p><img alt="The finished product" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/sunnies_complete.jpg"></p>Today I Printed: Another Vegetable Christmas Decoration2021-11-22T00:00:00+13:002021-11-22T00:00:00+13:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2021-11-22:/today-i-printed-another-vegetable-christmas-decoration.html<p>It wouldn’t be Christmas without another stupid print for people to roll their eyes at. This year I even bought a particularly fine paintbrush to help me get the details right.</p>
<p>This year I thought I’d go for …</p><p>It wouldn’t be Christmas without another stupid print for people to roll their eyes at. This year I even bought a particularly fine paintbrush to help me get the details right.</p>
<p>This year I thought I’d go for a little brussel sprout!</p>
<p>As usual, modeled in Blender then painted by hand.</p>
<p><img alt="A Christmas Brussel!" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/brussel.jpg"></p>
<p>Here it is on <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5232463">Thingiverse</a>, because who could resist wanting to print their own?</p>Today I Printed: An OctoHook Skipping Rope Holder2021-10-15T00:00:00+13:002021-10-15T00:00:00+13:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2021-10-15:/today-i-printed-an-octohook-skipping-rope-holder.html<p>Before the advent of this truly historic print, our problems were twofold:</p>
<ol>
<li>As our skipping ropes hung drearily from a hook behind the door, the middle of the
rope quickly developed an unsightly kink, making them hard to use.</li>
<li>The …</li></ol><p>Before the advent of this truly historic print, our problems were twofold:</p>
<ol>
<li>As our skipping ropes hung drearily from a hook behind the door, the middle of the
rope quickly developed an unsightly kink, making them hard to use.</li>
<li>The handles hung bereft of any support, noisily bashing into everything whenever we opened or closed the door.</li>
</ol>
<p>If these problems sound familiar, then behold the solution!</p>
<p><img alt="Behold the OctoHook" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/octohook_1.jpg"></p>
<p>In one cute and bright orange swoop, the <strong><span class="caps">OCTOHOOK</span></strong> will <strong>save</strong> your skipping
ropes! No more unsightly kinks! No more tumultuous crashing at the merest movement
of the door.</p>
<p><img alt="All hail the OCTOHOOK" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/octohook_2.jpg"></p>
<p>Print one today!</p>
<p>I designed this in Blender, the STLs can be found <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5021652">Here</a>.</p>Today I Printed: A Mudguard2021-10-09T00:00:00+13:002021-10-09T00:00:00+13:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2021-10-09:/today-i-printed-a-mudguard.html<p>These mini-mudguards are called “Ass Savers”, and the idea is that while you still get muddy legs, they keep your back reasonably clean.</p>
<p>This one comes in a beautiful eye-catching orange, for extra safety!</p>
<p>It has a very neat way …</p><p>These mini-mudguards are called “Ass Savers”, and the idea is that while you still get muddy legs, they keep your back reasonably clean.</p>
<p>This one comes in a beautiful eye-catching orange, for extra safety!</p>
<p>It has a very neat way of bending to attach to pretty much any seat:</p>
<p><img alt="Here it is flat" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/mudguard_1.jpg"></p>
<p>Is it long enough? I guess I’ll find out next time it rains! <em>Update: it’s not! 😬</em></p>
<p><img alt="On the bike!" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/mudguard_2.jpg"></p>
<p>I found the design <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2268135">Here</a> on thingiverse.</p>Today I Printed: Clip-On Spirit Levels2021-07-15T00:00:00+12:002021-07-15T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2021-07-15:/today-i-printed-clip-on-spirit-levels.html<p>Spirit Levels that I can attach to my drill, to make sure I’m drilling straight. They actually work really well, and I use them all the time! I highly recommend making a set for whichever portable drill you own …</p><p>Spirit Levels that I can attach to my drill, to make sure I’m drilling straight. They actually work really well, and I use them all the time! I highly recommend making a set for whichever portable drill you own.</p>
<p>I don’t have a drill press, but that no longer means I can’t drill straight holes! After one-too-many slightly wonky hinges I printed these clips for my drill, to make sure I’m either going straight up and down, or flat sideways.</p>
<p>They actually work really well, and I use them all the time! I highly recommend making a set for whichever portable drill you own.</p>
<p><img alt="The flat one" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/drill_spirit_flat.jpg">
<img alt="The vertical one" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/drill_spirit_vertical.jpg"></p>
<p>Here are the OpenSCAD files for the <a href="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/scad/drill_spirit_flat_clip.scad">Flat One</a> and the <a href="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/scad/drill_spirit_vertical_clip.scad">Vertical One</a>, and here it is on <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4908889">Thingiverse</a>.</p>Today I Printed: Wedding Invitations2021-04-30T00:00:00+12:002021-04-30T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2021-04-30:/today-i-printed-wedding-invitations.html<p>Ok, so I didn’t actually print the invites themselves, but I made a set of stamps that let us mass-produce nice looking invitations. The biggest problem was actually finding a blue ink pad that was big enough for the …</p><p>Ok, so I didn’t actually print the invites themselves, but I made a set of stamps that let us mass-produce nice looking invitations. The biggest problem was actually finding a blue ink pad that was big enough for the larger stamps. In the end we got a big blank pad online, and filled it with some ink from the local stationary store.</p>
<p><img alt="The stamps" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/stamps/stamps_in_progress.jpg"></p>
<p>It took a few tries to get it right, so here are the tips I picked up:</p>
<ul>
<li>Use <span class="caps">PLA</span>. I tried <span class="caps">TPU</span> first (because rubber stamps, right?), but it turns out that it wicks ink, so you’d end up with spotty stamp coverage.</li>
<li>Lightly sand the face of the stamp. This helps it pick up more ink, giving you a more even print. It will also even out any bumps from your printer.</li>
<li>Don’t over-extrude. This kind of goes without saying, but since you’re printing lots of small, tall letters, you really want to tune the linear advance so that you don’t get stringing.</li>
</ul>
<p>Here are a few prints as I worked that out. You can see some of them are absolutely terrible!</p>
<p><img alt="What fun!" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/stamps/test_stamps.jpg"></p>
<p>Finally I ended up with some stamps I was happy with. I put some wood on the back to make holding them easier, and to ensure that pressure was distributed evenly.</p>
<p><img alt="We're ready to go!" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/stamps/stamps_complete.jpg"></p>
<p>Making the invitations was very satisfying after all that, and went pretty smoothly (apart from an accidental upside-down stamp!).</p>
<p><img alt="Beautiful" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/stamps/invites_complete.jpg"></p>Today I Printed: A Shock Absorber2021-01-21T00:00:00+13:002021-01-21T00:00:00+13:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2021-01-21:/today-i-printed-a-shock-absorber.html<p>Now that I can print with <span class="caps">TPU</span>, I thought I’d test it out by making a shock absorber for my tennis racket. In an eye-catching green, it almost matches the tennis surface we play on!</p>
<p><img alt="Here it is!" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/tennis_shock_absorber.jpg"></p>
<p>It works pretty well …</p><p>Now that I can print with <span class="caps">TPU</span>, I thought I’d test it out by making a shock absorber for my tennis racket. In an eye-catching green, it almost matches the tennis surface we play on!</p>
<p><img alt="Here it is!" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/tennis_shock_absorber.jpg"></p>
<p>It works pretty well, reducing some of the small vibrations when I hit the ball. Whether I’m good enough for that to make a difference to my game… Not so sure.</p>
<p><img alt="On the racket" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/tennis_shock_absorber_racket.jpg"></p>
<p>Here it is on <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4731381">Thingiverse</a>, and here’s the <a href="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/scad/tennis_shock_absorber.scad">OpenSCAD</a> file.</p>Today I Printed: A TPU Feed2021-01-18T00:00:00+13:002021-01-18T00:00:00+13:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2021-01-18:/today-i-printed-a-tpu-feed.html<p>I’m breaking my rule of not posting printer upgrades, but I’m really proud of how well this turned out.</p>
<p>A filament feed for my tarantula pro extruder, with tighter tolerances and extra bits to keep flexible filament from …</p><p>I’m breaking my rule of not posting printer upgrades, but I’m really proud of how well this turned out.</p>
<p>A filament feed for my tarantula pro extruder, with tighter tolerances and extra bits to keep flexible filament from going in the wrong direction and getting stuck. A pain to design and iterate on because it meant unloading the filament and taking the extruder off between each print.</p>
<p><img alt="That's it" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/tpu_feed.jpg"></p>
<p>It fits nice and snug in the extruder.</p>
<p><img alt="That's it" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/extruder_inner.jpg"></p>
<p>Now I can finally print with my new <span class="caps">TPU</span> filament!</p>
<p><img alt="TPU Cube" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/tpu_cube.jpg"></p>
<p>Here it is on <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4728232">Thingiverse</a>, and here’s the <a href="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/scad/TPU_feed.scad">OpenSCAD</a> file.</p>Today I Printed: A Magnetic Bin Latch2021-01-11T00:00:00+13:002021-01-11T00:00:00+13:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2021-01-11:/today-i-printed-a-magnetic-bin-latch.html<p>A magnetic bin latch to replace a broken mechanical one. I glued in a magnet and embedded a nail in the lid to stick to it.</p>
<p>The bin lid has a spring built into it so that it always springs …</p><p>A magnetic bin latch to replace a broken mechanical one. I glued in a magnet and embedded a nail in the lid to stick to it.</p>
<p>The bin lid has a spring built into it so that it always springs open. By getting the size of the nail just right the lid will now stay down until it’s lifted with a small amount of force, at which point it pops open.</p>
<p><img alt="That's it" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/mills_bin_latch.jpg"></p>
<p>Here’s the <a href="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/scad/mills_bin_latch.scad">OpenSCAD</a> file.</p>Today I Printed: Screw Covers For My Dishwasher2021-01-10T00:00:00+13:002021-01-10T00:00:00+13:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2021-01-10:/today-i-printed-screw-covers-for-my-dishwasher.html<p>We had a plumbing leak in our kitchen last week, and while we were investigating we unscrewed the dishwasher to look behind it. The little covers they used to hide the screws were single-use, so I made these reusable covers …</p><p>We had a plumbing leak in our kitchen last week, and while we were investigating we unscrewed the dishwasher to look behind it. The little covers they used to hide the screws were single-use, so I made these reusable covers that just clip into place.</p>
<p><img alt="Here it is!" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/dishwasher_screw_cover_1.jpg"></p>
<p>And the other side</p>
<p><img alt="Here it is!" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/dishwasher_screw_cover_2.jpg"></p>
<p>Here’s the <a href="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/scad/dishwasher_screw_cover.scad">OpenSCAD</a> file.</p>Today I Printed: Vegetable Christmas Decorations2020-12-04T00:00:00+13:002020-12-04T00:00:00+13:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2020-12-04:/today-i-printed-vegetable-christmas-decorations.html<p>These were fun to paint, and I ended up giving one to my friend too!</p>
<p>The gherkin is based off “Pickle Rick” from a disturbing episode of Rick and Morty, which I didn’t realise when I first printed him …</p><p>These were fun to paint, and I ended up giving one to my friend too!</p>
<p>The gherkin is based off “Pickle Rick” from a disturbing episode of Rick and Morty, which I didn’t realise when I first printed him…</p>
<p><img alt="Pickle Rick" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/rick.jpeg"></p>
<p>He looks great bursting out of a box!</p>
<p><img alt="Suprise!" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/rick_present.jpeg"></p>
<p>The parsnip is all my own, modelled in Blender.</p>
<p><img alt="Parsnip" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/parsnip.jpg"></p>
<p>Here is rick on <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2718298">Thingiverse</a>, and here is the <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4728758">parsnip</a>.</p>Today I Printed: Lawnmower Wheels2020-08-30T00:00:00+12:002020-08-30T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2020-08-30:/today-i-printed-lawnmower-wheels.html<p>No pictures of this one sorry, but I made my neighbour a couple of new wheels for his lawn mower. He was stoked!</p>
<p>I also got to try out pausing the print part-way so that I could embed a couple …</p><p>No pictures of this one sorry, but I made my neighbour a couple of new wheels for his lawn mower. He was stoked!</p>
<p>I also got to try out pausing the print part-way so that I could embed a couple of nuts into half to make for a secure join.</p>Today I Printed: A Sheep Toilet Roll Holder2020-08-28T00:00:00+12:002020-08-28T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2020-08-28:/today-i-printed-a-sheep-toilet-roll-holder.html<p>Easily the biggest thing I’ve printed to date, I thought this toilet roll holder looked great! He looks even better with larger rolls.</p>
<p><img alt="That's it" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/shaun_filled.jpg"></p>
<p>He currently sits proudly in my parent’s toilet.</p>
<p><img alt="From an angle" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/shaun_angle.jpg"></p>
<p>Here it is on <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3705577">Thingiverse</a>, though I …</p><p>Easily the biggest thing I’ve printed to date, I thought this toilet roll holder looked great! He looks even better with larger rolls.</p>
<p><img alt="That's it" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/shaun_filled.jpg"></p>
<p>He currently sits proudly in my parent’s toilet.</p>
<p><img alt="From an angle" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/shaun_angle.jpg"></p>
<p>Here it is on <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3705577">Thingiverse</a>, though I had to make some modifications to make the face print nicely.</p>Continuing a Stalled Print2020-08-27T00:00:00+12:002020-08-27T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2020-08-27:/continuing-a-stalled-print.html<p>Sometimes your printer will stop part way through a print (power cut, filament problems), and you don’t want to waste the part you’ve already printed. Here’s what I ended up doing.</p><p>Sometimes your printer will stop part way through a print (power cut, filament problems), and you don’t want to waste the part you’ve already printed. Here’s what I ended up doing.</p>
<h2>You Will Need</h2>
<ul>
<li>The original gcode (eg. from the <span class="caps">SD</span> card or uploaded to OctoPrint)</li>
<li>Space to home all axis (can do each axis independently if we want)</li>
<li>Half printed model with clean top layer. Snap off down to where it’s all flat if you need to</li>
</ul>
<h2>1. Work out what layer you stopped on</h2>
<p>To do this, home the Z axis, then raise it a bit higher than the needed height.
Disable steppers and move the print head over the print.
Using a bit of paper to test clearance (just like bed levelling), lower slowly until the print head is at the correct height to continue printing.</p>
<p>Note the Z height you’re at (this is in mm).
Divide by the layer height (usually 0.2 mm/layer) - this gives you the layer that you stopped at. You may need to round to the nearest <code>layer_height</code>.</p>
<h2>2. Find the layer in the gcode</h2>
<p>You can do this by searching for <code>LAYER:XXX</code> where <code>XXX</code> is your layer number.
Copy the last Z value from the second-last <code>G0</code> code the layer before - this is where you will start from.
Note the most recent extruder value from the last <code>G1</code> from the layer before.</p>
<h2>3. Start editing!</h2>
<p>Remove all the commands above the <code>LAYER:XXX</code> line, up to the <code>M107</code> at the start of the file.</p>
<p>Insert the following snippet in place of everything you deleted:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="nv">G28</span> <span class="nv">X0</span> <span class="nv">Y0</span> <span class="c1">; move X/Y to min endstops</span>
<span class="nv">G0</span> <span class="nv">F180</span> <span class="nv">X178</span> <span class="nv">Y172</span> <span class="c1">; Send to safe spot for z homing ### YOU NEED TO SET THIS</span>
<span class="nv">G28</span> <span class="nv">Z0</span> <span class="c1">; move Z to min endstops</span>
<span class="nv">G1</span> <span class="nv">Z15</span>.<span class="mi">0</span> <span class="nv">F9000</span> <span class="c1">; move the head up 15mm</span>
<span class="nv">G92</span> <span class="nv">E0</span> <span class="c1">; zero the extruded length</span>
<span class="nv">G1</span> <span class="nv">F200</span> <span class="nv">E3</span> <span class="c1">;extrude 3mm of feed stock</span>
<span class="nv">G0</span> <span class="nv">Z76</span>.<span class="mi">8</span> <span class="c1">; Send Z to where it failed ### YOU NEED TO SET THIS</span>
<span class="nv">G92</span> <span class="nv">E8627</span>.<span class="mi">12365</span> <span class="c1">; Set extruded length to where it failed ### YOU NEED TO SET THIS</span>
<span class="nv">G1</span> <span class="nv">F9000</span>
<span class="nv">M117</span> <span class="nv">Trying</span> <span class="nv">again</span><span class="o">!</span> <span class="c1">; Put printing message on LCD screen</span>
</code></pre></div>
<h2>4. Run it!</h2>
<p>The first movements will run really slow so you can watch it and press the stop button if it starts doing anything wrong.</p>
<p><strong>Good Luck!</strong></p>Today I Printed: A Pen Plotter Attachment2020-08-24T00:00:00+12:002020-08-24T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2020-08-24:/today-i-printed-a-pen-plotter-attachment.html<p>Despite having this fancy 3D printer, our household doesn’t have a boring 2D printer. I decided to get about halfway there with this clip-on pen holder. Once a pen is attached, we can print anything we like! I had …</p><p>Despite having this fancy 3D printer, our household doesn’t have a boring 2D printer. I decided to get about halfway there with this clip-on pen holder. Once a pen is attached, we can print anything we like! I had to make an inkscape extension to output the correct gcode, which you can get <a href="https://bitbucket.org/ollyfg/svgplotter/src/master/">here</a>.</p>
<p>The clip is made to fit stabilo fine point art pens, but it shouldn’t be too hard to tweak it for other pens.</p>
<p><img alt="Here it is!" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/pen_holder_empty.jpg"></p>
<p>And with a pen in it…</p>
<p><img alt="This looks like a crossbow" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/pen_holder.jpg"></p>
<p>Now I can make pretty labels for my jars of marmalade!</p>
<p><img alt="Marmade" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/marmalade.jpg"></p>
<p>Get the clip <a href="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/scad/tarantula_stabilo_clip.scad">here</a>.</p>Today I Printed: Fun coat hooks2020-07-26T00:00:00+12:002020-07-26T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2020-07-26:/today-i-printed-fun-coat-hooks.html<p>Today we made some fun hooks to go around the house. Laura picked the elephant while I picked the giraffe. I’m a little bit worried about how strong the elephant’s trunk is…</p>
<p><img alt="Painting the giraffe" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/giraffe_hook.jpg"></p>
<p>Don’t ask me why the …</p><p>Today we made some fun hooks to go around the house. Laura picked the elephant while I picked the giraffe. I’m a little bit worried about how strong the elephant’s trunk is…</p>
<p><img alt="Painting the giraffe" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/giraffe_hook.jpg"></p>
<p>Don’t ask me why the elephant is blue…</p>
<p><img alt="Painting the elephant" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/elephant_hook.jpg"></p>
<p>The finished product!</p>
<p><img alt="Here it is!" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/hooks.jpg"></p>Today I Printed: A Wheelie Bin Hinge2020-07-09T00:00:00+12:002020-07-09T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2020-07-09:/today-i-printed-a-wheelie-bin-hinge.html<p>Our bin got broken this week - the rubbish man must have been a bit rough. No problem! An easy print fixed it up good as new. It’s a bit of a funny shape, which meant I could print it …</p><p>Our bin got broken this week - the rubbish man must have been a bit rough. No problem! An easy print fixed it up good as new. It’s a bit of a funny shape, which meant I could print it on it’s side, making it stronger.</p>
<p><img alt="That's it" src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/prints/wheelie_bin_plug.jpg"></p>Sweden - Second Impressions2017-10-08T00:00:00+13:002017-10-08T00:00:00+13:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2017-10-08:/sweden-second-impressions.html<p>It wouldn’t do to leave you with the impression that Sweden is full of angry farmers, because we have found lots of other lovely people here since our <a href="bleedin-sweden.md">disastrous introduction to Sweden</a>.</p><p>It wouldn’t do to leave you with the impression that Sweden is full of angry farmers, because we have found lots of other lovely people here since our <a href="bleedin-sweden.md">disastrous introduction to Sweden</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Malmo</strong>
Malmo is situated right across the water from Copenhagen, and we got to know the city pretty well since we arrived there with an extra 2 weeks to spare. Like many Scandinavian cities, Malmo has a lot of cyclists. This means that nearly all of the streets have physically separated cycle lanes (normally as part of the footpath). The hosts of our lovely AirBnB lent us two bicycles to explore the city on, which made quick trips to nearby parks much easier.</p>
<p>Overall, the city had a very spacious and open feel to it, with wide roads and not many tall buildings.</p>
<p><strong>Copenhagen</strong>
When our two weeks with Ozi and his wife was up, we got back on track with our plans and checked in to our hotel in the center of Malmo. The main excitement here was that the hotel had a deal with a nearby gym, which I’d certainly been missing! Sore days ahead as we made the most of it!</p>
<p>We’d already explored Malmo but had intentionally not been over to Copenhagen, since we were staying right by the train station now.</p>
<p>Copenhagen seemed like a very “happening” city, and as we walked out of the train station I decided that Danish people must have good taste - there was a “Kiwi Pie” stall outside!</p>
<p>Tivoli gardens was pretty cool - it was all really well decorated and looked pretty. The rides were a bit expensive though - something like \$20 each to go on the bumper cars!</p>
<p>Most of the time we just wandered round, enjoying the scenery, and we went up a big tower which had a good view of the city.</p>
<p><strong>Gothenburg</strong>
Gothenburg was a bit dreary to be honest, it was quite grey and rainy the whole time we were there. There was a great big park that had a zoo in it that we visited one afternoon, and the Universeum (a big zoo/museum) was very cool.</p>
<p><strong>Stockholm</strong>
Stockholm was a beautiful city, built on lots of islands. We had a great stay in a hostel-boat, which was very cool!</p>
<p>On our second day we went out to a big open museum, where they had lots of ancient Swedish buildings imported, and combined with a great zoo. We saw wolves, bears, seals, wolverines and reindeer. There was also an <span class="caps">ABBA</span> museum, which was <em>oh so sadly</em> closed.</p>
<p>Our third day was spent on a cruise out into the archipelago proper, and we saw lots of beautiful islands (apparently they are rising by about 3cm each year).</p>
<p>And that was it for Sweden - we enjoyed our time there (except the start, of course) and I really liked the cooler weather. My one grouch was that it seems to rain <em>a lot</em> there, but that’s our fault for visiting in autumn!</p>Bleedin’ Sweeden!2017-09-01T00:00:00+12:002017-09-01T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2017-09-01:/bleedin-sweeden.html<p>Looking back on it, we had already struck gold once, <a href="woof-woof.html">wwoofing in france</a>, so were were probably due a really terrible one. Fate did not disappoint.</p>
<p>We arrived in Smållandsstenar at 9:00, and it was already dark as pitch …</p><p>Looking back on it, we had already struck gold once, <a href="woof-woof.html">wwoofing in france</a>, so were were probably due a really terrible one. Fate did not disappoint.</p>
<p>We arrived in Smållandsstenar at 9:00, and it was already dark as pitch. Luckily for us, Marcus was waiting to meet us right by the station. He seemed nice enough, if a bit gruff, but being farmer what would you expect?</p>
<p>Back at the house we met his wife, Freida, and Mike, a friend of theirs. We were shown our room in a small prefab outside, although we weren’t sure why we couldn’t sleep in 2 of the 3 beds in the house. Oh well.</p>
<p>Our first day was a market day, so Laura and I couldn’t do a lot - we couldn’t really help sell the vegetables, because we couldn’t speak Swedish, so we had a pretty chill day poking round town, looking at all the red Swedish houses. Mark told us that this is because of the copper mining in Sweden; a by-product of the ore purification step is a coppery-red pigment, which is widely used in paint.</p>
<p>We were also introduced to a new breakfast experience (for us, at least), which was salad for breakfast. Was this normal? Was it just because they had heaps of lettuce at the time we were there? Who knows? I’m leaning towards the second hypothesis, because we had lettuce with every other meal too.</p>
<p>That night, another wwoofer arrived, Hannah a German girl just out of school who had come wwoofing to practice her English while deciding what she wanted to study at university.</p>
<p>The next morning, breakfast was delayed, as we first had to get breakfast for the animals. This entailed a trip to the local supermarket, where we thoroughly sorted through the dumpster for any nice rotten fruit (for the pigs), old meat (for the dogs or for us, depending on how green it looked), or anything else packaged that we might be able to eat. We managed to find about 30 jars of lemon curd that were only just out of date, so this was our new breakfast spread.</p>
<p>We got back in time to say goodbye to Mike and Freida, who were going to Belgium for a few days, then had breakfast and got stuck into our work. Most of the day was spent picking peas and digging up potatoes, so we finished up exhausted! We made a quick dinner where we learned (from a rather angry Marcus), that they <em>never</em> cooked on the electric stove, and that they used the gas stove on the other side of the house (we should <em>obviously</em> have guessed that), and that we were <em>never</em> to turn the gas up past the halfway mark.</p>
<p>I went to bed that night thinking wistfully of John and Joyce in France, who would actually compliment us on our work for the day and our cooking, and who didn’t expect us to know the ins and outs of their household right from the start.</p>
<p>The next few days passed more or less the same - maybe we would be planting seedlings or picking beans, and cooking whatever we could find for dinner. It was a bit rough, but not too bad, and I thought we could probably get through our 3 weeks. We had a nice day off where we went for a big walk to a nearby lake, which was nice.</p>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/xW-zsGAQ3MCstRTPlYh8TfrK0c2yldABHAkTPSrH3bCLidsuybxMj_l58LQ8cCCiHvzArq9IeeoEJ_7uTWfFFfENmalkLbU0bGsSkq1PMo1UzFBcqnmYvva-dfPNCV12NJ588-M5Ww=w1193-h672-no" alt="Laura and Hannah at a lake" class="med">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/nUllmBhwKrTtmie7T68lhCKNx_TPd2wL_4PyNkTlxdh8hiZ0dpUHbp7CMGmfb-BBEE_AqV3udXI3K2qmWlLLngA2OyDWZMWqRNALeY8n3NB4CMmM6sJA37gfUCu-_ovOSC4Ho7vLHQ=w1193-h672-no" alt="A typical Swedish farm house" class="med">
</div>
<p><strong><a href="https://youtu.be/iB_6faWv-k4">Then Freida returned.</a></strong></p>
<p>At first I was willing to put it down to the long trip she had to take to get back - after a long journey none of us are in the best of moods. So I more or less ignored her stomping round shouting in Swedish, even when she got angry at us for not knowing where her dustpan and brush were (how should we know - we’d never <em>seen</em> the thing?). She also shouted at us because we didn’t speak Swedish, despite their wwoofing page saying that they welcomed English, German and French speakers. Our sins also included having put one of the pots away in the wrong place and not finishing the tray of ~30 courgettes that she had decided we would eat while she was away.</p>
<p>The next morning things didn’t look much better. Laura was shouted at in Swedish for a while, as Freida became increasingly angry, before she decided to try English: “Good Morning”. “Oh!” said Laura “Good morning to you too”.</p>
<p>Things came to a head when we set the table for breakfast, and brought out a big bowl of lettuce, for the salad that they seem to enjoy for breakfast. We had done this every other day and nobody had batted an eyelid, but today, as Freida saw it, she exclaimed “Do you think Marcus is a pig?”. “No” we all replied, but that was it, she was off! As she was lambasting us about being useless city-dwellers, Marcus walked in and told us that we should leave.
Well that was fine by me, I think we had all had about enough.</p>
<p>We packed our bags and got ready to go, and Laura asked if we could be dropped off at the nearest train station - she received an earful of Swedish followed by “F*** you!”. So the tree of us made our way along the side of the road for a few hours until we eventually got back to Smållandsstenar, where we hoped to find somewhere to stay for the night. Unfortunately for us, the camping ground was closed, and the town hotel had been shut down and used to house refugees, so we got on a bus and ended up in Halmstad (a small city), where we collapsed into a Best Western for the night.</p>
<p>Hannah had met a fellow German wwoofer on the train, who was going to a farm near Stockholm. She got in touch and (after checking that it was a nicer place), set off for there the next day. We found a cheap (for Sweden) airbnb in Malmo, which is where we are hanging out for the time being!</p>Making My First PWA With Vue2017-08-29T00:00:00+12:002017-08-29T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2017-08-29:/making-my-first-pwa-with-vue.html<p>With some of the recent hoo har about React’s licensing situation, I decided that it was a fine time to look into alternatives - the major player being the shiny new VueJS.</p><p><strong>tldr; I made a <a href="https://ollyfg.github.io/sheCs">chess app</a> using Vue. Overall Vue impressed me. Making the page into a <span class="caps">PWA</span> was surprisingly painless.</strong></p>
<p>With some of the recent <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15050841">hoo har</a> about React’s licensing situation, I decided that it was a fine time to look into alternatives - the major player being the shiny new <a href="https://vuejs.org/">VueJS</a>.</p>
<p>Vue appealed to me for a few reasons:</p>
<ul>
<li>It’s lightweight. Not just in size, but in <span class="caps">API</span> complexity.</li>
<li>It’s standalone. Just drop one script into the page and get going - no react+react-dom+babel (I understand that one doesn’t <em>need</em> these three, but in practice they’re what everyone uses).</li>
<li>It has <a href="https://vuejs.org/v2/guide/">really good</a> documentation.</li>
<li>And of course, the <a href="https://github.com/vuejs/vue/blob/dev/LICENSE">license</a> situation is a whole lot better.</li>
</ul>
<p>So, getting started, I wanted to keep things as simple as possible. That meant no build systems, just a <code><script></code> tag in my page. Of course, looking back, I’m kicking myself for this decision - I missed out on all the goodness of <a href="https://vuejs.org/v2/guide/single-file-components.html">Single File Components</a>.</p>
<p>Coming from a React-ey perspective, I found Vue’s component concept familiar, with a few small adjustments to the names of things. The biggest learning curve was Vue’s template syntax, which felt verbose and clunky compared to <span class="caps">JSX</span>.</p>
<p>I know that it’s possible to use <span class="caps">JSX</span> with Vue, but partly for learning purposes, and partly because of the afore-mentioned lack of a build step in my chosen workflow, I trundled on with what Vue gave me out of the box. In the end I didn’t mind it so much - it’s just something to get used to and once you know the big three (<code>v-bind:</code>, <code>v-if:</code> and <code>v-on:</code>), life tends to get easier.</p>
<p>I’ve seen it mentioned that doing more complex templating is difficult with Vue’s syntax, but when (for example) I wanted to display a filtered list, it felt fairly natural to make a new computed property called <code>listWithNoXs</code>.</p>
<p>A personal pain point for me was the styling. There is no <a href="http://formidable.com/open-source/radium/">Radium</a> equivalent (that I could find) for Vue, which for me meant that my styles were split between the components (most of the styles), and a <span class="caps">CSS</span> file (for styles with pseudo-selectors). I believe that Single File Components would fix this, but it would be nice if there was some other way - I’m imagining something like:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code> <a v-bind:style="styleA" v-bind:style:hover="styleB">
</code></pre></div>
<p>Overall though, I got a very favorable impression of Vue. It leaves the odd feature to be desired, but in the end it’s just a tool - it’ll never be perfect, but if it does the job and you use it enough, you’ll learn to love it just the same.</p>
<p>Lastly, I want to mention the process of turning this website into a fully fledged <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_app">Progressive Web App</a>. In this case, it was all pretty simple, even for a first timer like me. Because I had bundled the <span class="caps">P4WN</span> chess engine with the page, there was no backend I had to worry about caching requests for.</p>
<p>Basically, I copied some example Service Workers to cache my files, and wrote a <code>manifest.json</code>. After some testing with <a href="https://developers.google.com/web/tools/lighthouse/">Lighthouse</a> to winkle out some accessibility issues, I was set!</p>
<p>You can visit my app <a href="https://ollyfg.github.io/sheCs">here</a> - any problems, feel free to file an issue on the <a href="https://gitlab.com/ollyfg/sheCs">GitLab</a> or <a href="https://github.com/ollyfg/sheCs">Github</a> repositories!</p>Connecting an Iphone to the Nikon D72002017-08-18T00:00:00+12:002017-08-18T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2017-08-18:/connecting-an-iphone-to-the-nikon-d7200.html<p>After fairly extensive research on the Internet, I still couldn’t find what was going wrong when trying to get the D7200 to connect to the Iphone. Here is how I finally got them working together - I hope it helps!</p><p>After fairly extensive research on the Internet, I still couldn’t find what was going wrong when trying to get the D7200 to connect to a Iphone. Here is how I finally got them working together - I hope it helps!</p>
<p><strong>Background</strong></p>
<p>Yesterday we were staying with <a href="https://www.instagram.com/buzzed44/">Ed Buziak</a> - helping out in the garden mainly and just enjoying the scenery (and the company!).</p>
<p>Ed is an artist and a photographer for a living, and had just gotten a new <a href="http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/dslr/d7200/">Nikon D7200</a>. He bought it mainly for the fact that it was WiFi enabled, which would let him react instantly to anything newsworthy he saw (take a photo, transfer to his phone, send to the studio).</p>
<p>It turned out that his Iphone (which he had bought just to use with this camera), wouldn’t connect to the camera. After some investigation, I finally got it working! I figured I’d share how I did it in the hope that it helps someone else.</p>
<p><strong>Method</strong></p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>Get your hands (temporarily) on an Android phone. Beg, borrow or steal one from a friend or family member - as long as you can install apps on it.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Install Nikon’s <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nikon.wu.wmau">WirelessMobileUtility</a> app on the android phone. You might have already installed this on your Iphone (and you will need it later), but we need it on the <em>Android</em> phone at the moment.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Turn on the D7200, and let it start up.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Press the D7200’s <span class="caps">MENU</span> button, and scroll down to the WiFi settting.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Press the <span class="caps">OK</span> button to go into the WiFi settings, then make sure that WiFi is turned on. It might take a second or two to turn on, so there’s no need to rush to the next step.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>On the Android phone, go into Settings. Usually this can be done by swiping down on the top bar and looking for a gear icon.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Tap on Wireless Networks (or WiFi - whatever the phone calls it), and make sure that it’s on.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>You should see a list of available networks, and hopefully one of them starts with “<span class="caps">NIKON</span>”. If you see more than one, you will have to go onto the D7200 and, in the WiFi settings look at the “View <span class="caps">SSID</span>” option - you want to connect to that one. If you don’t see any WiFi networks starting with “<span class="caps">NIKON</span>”, make sure you’ve done the first few steps correctly, and check the “View <span class="caps">SSID</span>” in the D7200’s WiFi settings - you want to connect to whatever name shows up there.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Ok! Launch the WirelessMobileUtility app, on the Android phone! Hopefully, it should all work. You should be able to take photos through the <em>Android</em> phone, and see all the photos on the camera.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>In the app, navigate back to the homescreen, where you have the option to either “Take photos” or “View photos”. Looking at the top-right corner of the screen, you should see a blue gear - press it!</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>You’re in the settings now, and you want to look for the “Wireless Mobile Adapter Settings” section. Find and tap on that.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>Optional:</em> At this point, you can change the name of the camera’s wireless network from the default “<span class="caps">NIKON</span> [really-big-long-number]” to something more sensible, like “Oliver’s Nikon”.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Tap “Authentication/encryption”, and in the popup, select “<span class="caps">WPA2</span>-<span class="caps">PSK</span>-<span class="caps">AES</span>” and tap <span class="caps">OK</span>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Select “Password”, and in the popup enter an easy to remember password. It has to be over 8 characters long. Press “Save”.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Press the back button on the phone, until it pops up asking you if you want to save your changes. Of course we do! Press “Ok”.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Okay, you’re done with the Android phone. You can uninstall the WirelessMobileUtility app (if you want to), and give the phone back to whoever it came from.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>On the <em>Iphone</em> now, make sure you have the <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/wireless-mobile-utility/id554157010">WirelessMobileUtility</a> app.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>You’re nearly there now! Go into the “Settings” on the Iphone, and then the WiFi Settings.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Connect to the D7200’s network, which will start with “<span class="caps">NIKON</span>”, unless you changed it in step 12.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Close settings and open the WirelessMobileUtility app - this time on the Iphone. It should all work! Hooray!</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p><strong>So what was the problem?</strong></p>
<p>As far as I can tell, the Iphone doesn’t like connecting to the unsecured WiFi network that the D7200 sets up. By changing that to a secured network, the Iphone can then connect and the app can do it’s magic.</p>
<p>The real problem is that you can’t change the network security setting on the camera itself, but must first <em>connect to it via WiFi!</em> A rather ridiculous design that leaves people without access to android phones out of luck.</p>
<p>Anyway, I hope that helps someone!</p>The Upriver Adventure2017-08-12T00:00:00+12:002017-08-12T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2017-08-12:/the-upriver-adventure.html<p>Our adventure trying to build a sailing boat to explore up the river in.</p><div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/jPZfoMD4pYVp52hroE7Q1e-3UfA9cuOtXDBcQxB4XEKM9pWQRELkLp_turzWDq1uguz2ivGL9SVuCJGcz-nwYNNDTRq-v8HMoVxgfFE8FeUVt0WYLDqhm3OvkwnN4SIp9kqW5pdKug=w505-h673-no" alt="Our trusty vessel as we first envisaged it." class="med">
</div>
<p>The weather was perfect - overcast with a light breeze.</p>
<p>The boat was perfect (or so we thought) - two inflatable canoes lashed together with a bamboo pole sticking up from the middle.</p>
<p>All that remained were the sailors, and they were pretty perfect too. Two experienced seamen, who had sailed all the way from Athens to Israel. They have sailing in their blood - both of them hailing from the country <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/sailing/40412255">that just won the America’s Cup</a>.</p>
<p>Today was definitely going to be a day to remember.</p>
<p>After a light lunch, the intrepid explorers set off!</p>
<p>Or more precisely, one explorer set off. Laura didn’t want to hop in until I had thoroughly tested the vessel and made sure it wasn’t going to capsize.</p>
<p>We put the boat together, lashing everything as tight as possible, went to pick it up, and realised that we still had to get it under the washing line, and over a wall. A hurried de-construction and re-construction later, we were on the ramp, and I was pushing off into the water, Laura cheering me on from the bank…</p>
<p>And now a brief interlude, to discuss the difficulties of keeping a mast upright. Front to back is not too difficult - a rope from bow to stern via the top of the mast does the trick quite nicely. Side to side, however, is quite another story.</p>
<p>Suffice it to say that at this point, the mast slipped sideways and we barely managed to abort the launch before I was swept away to my certain demise.</p>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/EmeLzKCnGpGdq7GWj7wkii2ecmXZwYQ6inRu-xgLw7sKOiJJo_oS1Ev4zHVI9nkonWw1KDzhcCFXpxSkHg7ukyfpe3FzQZ6IZOcaEtTBZUbSnFRfIBr8Eg4KiG17qYpnMz1TuHqD6Q=w404-h538-no" alt="Uh Oh!" class="med" >
</div>
<p>We then went through some rapid prototyping of different ways that we could keep a mast upright, which led to the discarding of one canoe (they were different sizes, which made life very difficult). A few knots later and we had rigged a beautiful looking little vessel.</p>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/jJv8lpmY7cGcvE1riCm2o86oP18tOgzCIDNfceRfB_34KOLM7a_cJ6hf0P3iXHyMkhVRJu0b00_2vCPdtre5eMXoEsoj1Ywg5HUeMkyo7ATvyYKIbVtjYcE0_kOqolXwcOjpTkxDEw=w505-h673-no" alt="That's looking much more like a real boat!" class="med" >
</div>
<p>This time the launch went as planned. I got out onto the water, put my two rudders down (two because we were trying to negate our lack of centerboard), and drifted outwards onto the river. The first gust of wind, guess what happened? The mast fell over sideways. As I was inexorably pushed towards the edge of the weir (no centerboard, remember?), Laura’s shouts of encouragement turned into hoots of laughter.</p>
<p>Eventually I managed to salvage the situation by freeing a rudder and paddling back upstream, while holding the mast up on one shoulder.</p>
<p>A little bit more experimentation, and we hit upon our final design. This one was like the last one, but with additional horizontal reinforcement. I convinced Laura to join me in this one (“We need more weight at the front!”), and we set off!</p>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/FFp1g0IZpDs2ZGi7aoDFAYJ1dEgSKG4Ksfik1eh5NlNXZQIlnqluOz5N6cbzJAwQo9lZVvydQJ4r1eXNVlP2052QxB2RqzhbJDZIOXjLLbcyjLygmU5_DRyaxDna-EV9p9l-dAT3dg=w505-h673-no" alt="Our original design." class="med" >
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Ei8ELn_YB6rzXKnt8Mgnsx_BR2I7P33U1txrB28jKYRrrZv40_93Dw-caAlxJFxPU2z3FE9W--FimHRYmwUeXztOrx9JHA_WbV1bvRTy3nVz-jeJIHVOLTX6EfIZPreGZKJJP7MA0Q=w505-h673-no" alt="Our improved design!" class="med" >
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/83-bROxJ_YpRaS9iL0EBJyOFeJHWzHgk0LIaKSoaDHEjT2T5S59YV7UKEGK2YVMdVBqVwFaCc4VLxmzhPFXJJCFEiCj00P3i8BBsku03Rxx_UBcAvGMPGgYaI-DMzUcV6ymWQCM9fQ=w505-h673-no" alt="Sailing! Finally!" class="med" >
</div>
<p>This time, we were met with the scourge of all sea-goers - we were becalmed! the wind had totally stopped, even when I paddled us out into the river!</p>
<p>With a grumble we turned for shore and de-constructed everything. Now that we had the right design, nothing could go wrong next time, could it?</p>Shecs2017-08-07T00:00:00+12:002017-08-07T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2017-08-07:/shecs.html<p>I’ll start this with a disclaimer: I’m not very good at chess.</p>
<p>That’s not too big an issue, thanks to the great number of chess engines that have adaptable difficulty, just set it to easy, and keep …</p><p>I’ll start this with a disclaimer: I’m not very good at chess.</p>
<p>That’s not too big an issue, thanks to the great number of chess engines that have adaptable difficulty, just set it to easy, and keep putting it up until you have trouble winning.</p>
<p>The problem with this approach is that difficulty is typically graded in pretty large steps - I might be better than ‘Easy’, but worse than ‘Medium’.</p>
<p>To this end, I was inspired by <a href="http://reallybadchess.com/">Really Bad Chess</a>, which is a mobile game that learns how good you are and gives you worse pieces the better you get.</p>
<p>Shecs is a <span class="caps">PWA</span>, so it is playable on a desktop as well as on mobile, and plays nicely offline. It lets you set the difficulty as a percentage, and randomises your pieces depending on that.</p>
<p>The actual difficulty of the engine itsef is constant, and I made use of the <a href="http://p4wn.sourceforge.net/"><span class="caps">P4WN</span> Chess engine</a>, mainly because it’s so lightweight (), so can be sent to the client for offline use.</p>
<p>It took a few attempts to make a good randomisation algorithm, because I needed an approach that would satisfy two criteria:</p>
<ul>
<li>It must allow weighting by difficulty</li>
<li>It must make the game <em>exciting</em></li>
</ul>
<p>The latter item is somewhat subjective, but what I mean by an <em>exciting</em> game is one that pits, for example, a standard side against a side with an additional 2 rooks. A boring game, on the other hand, would be one that pits an entire side of pawns against a side of pawns with 3 knights.</p>
<p>My first approach was simply to give each piece a score, then multiply the difficulty by a random number and see which piece has the closest score. This failed, because with a difficulty of 50%, you would never get a random number higher than ½, and so would never get a queen. It produced properly weighted sides, but they were <em>boring</em>.</p>
<p>What I settled on in the end was the technique of picking three random pieces from a bag (containing infinite pieces), and if the random number was smaller than the difficulty, the player’s side would get the best piece, while the opposing side would get the worst piece. With this technique, we get a fairly random (but weighted towards the extreme end of the scale) selection of pieces, satisfying my second criteria, as well as distributing these pieces based on difficulty, fulfilling my first criteria.</p>Woof Woof!2017-08-05T00:00:00+12:002017-08-05T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2017-08-05:/woof-woof.html<p>Arriving at the train station, we weren’t sure what to expect. Would they only speak to us in French? Would they expect us to work 12 hour days, feeding us only gruel?</p>
<p>It turns out none of that was …</p><p>Arriving at the train station, we weren’t sure what to expect. Would they only speak to us in French? Would they expect us to work 12 hour days, feeding us only gruel?</p>
<p>It turns out none of that was a problem, and as we were driven away in a grey Honda, we started getting to know Joyce and John - and a more lovely pair you couldn’t find anywhere!</p>
<p>Joyce is an American, and has just written a book (<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27163112-entwined">Entwined</a>) about her sister who had downs syndrome (and then turned out to be an amazing artist). John is a jolly ecologist, with a special interest in spiders. He has been involved in a number of nature documentaries and is a very good cook.</p>
<p>Our first mission was to weed the vege patch, and just generally tidy the place up. After that we were sanding and re-painting shutters, and I was helping Joyce out with computery things for a little bit each afternoon.</p>
<p>The work wasn’t much to talk about, but in the afternoons and weekends we had some grand adventures!</p>
<p>There is a beautiful town about 45 minutes bike ride away called Angles (pronounced <em>“ongles”</em>), which is one of the top 10 most beautiful villages in France! We went there a lot, trying different back roads, or using it as a break-point where we could stop and have crêpes (or the <em>amazing</em> orange gelato).</p>
<p>After a whole lot of wheedling, I convinced Laura to come for a <a href="https://www.strava.com/activities/1120057949">longer ride to Tournon</a>, which weighed in at a whopping 40km!</p>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/2I_YnJEugES6rJC44ycY9YK8xGz1_x9-BRWdTChMVfDRhrU0nq09VM9XeIekWzvHTdR0kEf7UM9Dy9gs9nELcLNJtjm8SsdMy8ae3hr773Ho2LVq2084paBIdg6KlTEP8VIAHRfkbA=w1193-h672-no" alt="Laura, very proud of the vegetable garden" class="med">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/BmTiQRDmueAPzJw4qQzjryQ_ZjlqMKp5IiDCkox8BGArO-g0O61lQfjeijV4iXCKDKcEEn_pIXKaazgAX86MzQE2niWjF6oqHaChI78zvKg1WPgus70yFvPLvebKygpElCRCDyTE8g=w1193-h672-no" alt="On the bridge in Angles" class="med" style="object-position: 0;">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/lTD2k1ZWPwnQn8Kp_WvzgqRuiw6YfY5aPlSXdOeNGyKAcjXt4d8B00fZ_XXHdxlHEkQ24eYGRdrWwKhQWusK7OZRobUDZTJbEOweMmFQHHsTH-F5tMA2KgTRvzj1VZtumysxU_V7Ug=w1193-h672-no" alt="There were lots of fields of sunflowers" class="med">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/GtnUBp_WvBxdtaDmBf0B2vnNSp9naaYcC3KpWWJgq1dxuFLqf75DKM0DVTrewAmXVWcUagHSPWmiEOCgbIWduod_Rnp5sY_D0GwbwwF9MB9wM3Dyf-GPyN2Cchcoz9-JB4Qtk1pqNA=w504-h671-no" alt="Enjoying ourselves on the river" class="med">
</div>
<p>Then there was my rather eventful final <a href="https://www.strava.com/activities/1159453982">trip back from Montmorillon</a> - a 32km ride. It started well, I was feeling fresh and fit and zipping along the backroads - stopping only to check my directions on Google Maps. About half way back the trouble started…</p>
<p>I reached what was shown as a crossroads on my map, but which was actually a T-junction! “No problem, there are lots of roads for detours, it should only slow me down by 5 minutes”, I thought. Well, it turns out that was a bit optimistic - the roads going around were ancient forest tracks, with lots of slippery rocks and not at all suitable for my road bike!</p>
<p>Still, 15 minutes later I turned back onto a real road and carried on, vowing not to trust Google maps again.The fun didn’t stop there though - oh no! The next surprise Google had planned for me was a trip through some random farm (complete with barking dogs), and through a backroad that the farmer used to get to his friend’s farm - suitable for an all terrain vehicle, perhaps!</p>
<p>Not too big a deal though, it only slowed me down a bit, but I should still get home for 11 o’clock right? I was feeling ever more optimistic as I got closer and “St. Pierre de Maille” started to appear on road signs. 12km… 8km… 6km… And suddenly - <strong>Road Closed!</strong> “Noooo!” I cried out in dispair. I had to turn about and go back the way I had come for a few kilometers before I could even start curving round back the way I wanted to go (missing my turn off, because <em>of course</em> it was another tiny country path).</p>
<p>Finally getting close to home again, then <strong>wham!</strong> “<strong>Road Closed</strong>“! Not again! I was so close! At this point I was getting sick and tired of country backroads and so, lifting my bike bodily over the road block I scurried across the forbidden road (it was a crossroads here, and I wasn’t staying on the closed road), then started the glorious downhill all the way home! Somehow, despite my ride turning out to be a <em>slightly</em> longer 53km, I beat Joyce home and had time for a quick lunch, ready for the afternoon! Phew!</p>
<p>When we weren’t having exciting cycling adventures round the countryside, or walking along feasting on the blackberries that lined the paths, we could probably be found on the river, drifting along in an inflatable canoe. We even came up with a way to pull the boat up weirs, which Laura didn’t really like - although she did enjoy coming back down them! And of course we had our rather <a href="the-upriver-adventure.html">chaotic attempt at building a sailing boat</a> - all foiled due to the lack of a centerboard (more rope would have helped too).</p>
<p>We had a lovely time staying with one of John and Joyce’s friends, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/buzzed44/">Ed Buziak</a> who was quite the character - in his 70s, but biking round everywhere (he didn’t own a car) and basically acting like a 40 year old. Ed is an artist and a photographer, so we got to see some of his amazing art, and we also enjoyed his house, which was in a tiny hamlet in the middle of nowhere. After doing some weeding we were off exploring the hills nearby (there were pheasant farms!), or racking our brains to come up with ways to use his practically unlimited supply of Mirabelle plums.</p>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/1pspjZ8pTGjXOgnC_T8E6MgXYvpZijTXNu1xGQM8eo5c-pf_J8hYRxtNlN9XQ2fa22yeb5Zhvh4vpcddcO1n0_uPGGqpqGcxh3tElRmnMQfx9OLqjjRbkdF7BPLSYKhe7-T7KqYCIA=w378-h671-no" alt="Where we were staying this whole time" class="med">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/W3TWtAyClU7_IX2X0V19HgTz8i1l59drwW7uKxn9aEOJX97rBTQ-2K25Gy0Sni5ZwpWpFPtZD5HWQocLLSGXjBmqkw73-J5I6h6FUG9GiNDZVMPA4S7aFLFP17TWLpAzGP2mztGAPQ=w1193-h672-no" alt="I took this when we first arrived - beautiful!" class="med" style="object-position: 30%;">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/gVWIEbkee04q_ZNyi4BJtAYC78kkyOW0HMmnMx00XZXbfhRwnpEXklqpRwfmZoqRueb5TF3qH7SeMkyk_zhZfrvV3nej9djZkKA_mkoNDfWcca05ySkGbyjV6WiMW7spM6zbh-TLlA=w1193-h672-no" alt="A nice chateau we saw from the river" class="med">
</div>
<p>All in all we had a wonderful time, and felt sad leaving (though we might just have been tired - it was 5:00!), on to our <a href="bleedin-sweeden.html">Swedish wwoofing</a>!</p>The Big Cruise2017-05-03T00:00:00+12:002017-05-03T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2017-05-03:/the-big-cruise.html<p>I was pretty impressed with the <a href="all-alone-on-the-rhone.html">river cruise</a>, so I didn’t really know how this cruise could top it - but somehow it did!</p><p>I was pretty impressed with the <a href="all-alone-on-the-rhone.html">river cruise</a>, so I didn’t really know how this cruise could top it - but somehow it did!</p>
<p>On boarding, I was blown away! The ship was huge! It was like a huge hotel, except it floats! We had a quick stop in our room (with complimentary champagne, and fancy soap and stuff!), which was way bigger than our river boat room.</p>
<p>The only real downside compared to the river boat was that the wifi wasn’t too good, and only one of us could use it at a time.</p>
<p>Then we all met up to go exploring - there were so many cool things!</p>
<ul>
<li>A mini tennis court</li>
<li>A proper gym</li>
<li>A pool!</li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuffleboard">Shuffleboard</a> (I’d never come across this before)</li>
<li>A mini-golf course (Laura won)</li>
<li>An exclusive front-deck spa place (but the spa was too hot most of the time)</li>
<li>Afternoon Tea, which was <em>amazing</em></li>
<li>A casino</li>
<li><em>Lots</em> of good food. Seriously, the food was so amazing, and there was basically as much as you want!</li>
<li>Competitions for table tennis, putting, shuffleboard, bag-o-bean (throwing bean bags at targets - I got pretty good at this).</li>
</ul>
<p>Sam got a bit competitive with a guy called Steve during table tennis, so naturally we had to beat him at everything else too. Lots of big O points for us!</p>
<p>So really, there was no chance of us being bored at any point.</p>
<p>We set off during the night, and we hardly felt a thing! The ship is so big and stable, the only movement we really felt was big swells when we were on the open sea (and you could see the pool sloshing, which was cool). We also got a few vibrations when we docked and undocked, which gave me a fright during the night!</p>
<p>It was such a cool feeling waking up in the morning and looking out at empty sea!</p>
<p>Our first stop, in Crete, was a bit of a disappointment. It was too wavy for the tender service to launch, so we didn’t get off the boat! All good though, there were lots of fun things to do on board. We spent the next day sailing, so we were soon very well acquainted ourselves with all the fun parts of the ship.</p>
<p>Next stop, Israel!</p>
<p>In Israel we were greeted by our <em>very</em> talkative guide, and took a van journey across a whole lot of the country. One of my favorite spots was the dead sea, which was so floaty that you could just stand up and bob, not even treading water. Getting in was tough, because there were lots of sharp salt crystals covered in oozy mud, and you really don’t want to cut yourself in that water! It was so salty that when I tried it, it burnt my tongue, and I couldn’t get the taste out for ages! It was also funny afterwards, when we got out and the water dried a bit, we got white scales of salt all over us. My black togs turned grey!</p>
<p>Another highlight was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masada">Masada</a>, which was an ancient fortress built on a mesa overlooking the desert. Water was collected in big underground cisterns, so the whole place was really well prepared for a siege. Eventually the (invading) romans made a big enough ramp up one side that they could get in, and that’s still there today!</p>
<p>We also visited Jesusalem and Bethlehem (of course), and lots of other religious sites, but most of them had been buried by the sheer number of temples built on top of them, which I didn’t find particularly interesting.</p>
<p>Waving Israel goodbye, we turned our prow to Limassol! The main event here was…</p>
<p><em>The terrible…</em></p>
<p><em>horrifying…</em></p>
<p><strong><span class="caps">FLESH</span> <span class="caps">EATING</span> <span class="caps">FISH</span>!</strong></p>
<p>Seriously though, it was awful, I had to sit there with my feet in a tank of little fish that come and nibble at your feet - it tickles <em>sooo</em> much!</p>
<p>We also popped into a local castle, which wasn’t bad, though it had a strange design that meant that if people got up to the base of the walls, the archers couldn’t really hit them.</p>
<p>With nothing more exciting, we turned to Rhodes, where we had a nice walk around the walls and town. Simon got an… <em>interesting</em> new t-shirt, featuring Hercules wearing what may or may not have been grapes, while we sat down and I had a go at one of the beer boots. Not a bad day, although Simon decided to wear his new top to high tea, which earned him a few funny looks.</p>
<p>The next day we were in Santorini, which was very very hot, but well worth the trip out to see. It’s the place you see at all the travel expos, where the buildings are bright white, with blue domed roofs and the blue sea behind. It’s all situated on a big volcanic hill, so you get great views too.</p>
<p>Our final stop was in Mykanos, which was sort of like Santorini-but-not-as-cool, but was still fun (and a lot less hilly) to wander around. Though we kept an eye out, we didn’t see the local pink pelican, who is supposed to wander around town.</p>
<p>And then we were back in Athens!</p>
<p>We stayed in Athens for a few nights, before a tearful farewell to Sam and Simon. We stayed another night or so, before heading to Naples!</p>All Alone On The Rhône2017-05-02T00:00:00+12:002017-05-02T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2017-05-02:/all-alone-on-the-rhone.html<p>Ok, we weren’t really alone - we had about a hundred oldies to keep us company the whole time! Anyway, despite Sam and Simon’s protestations…</p><p>Ok, we weren’t really alone - we had about a hundred oldies to keep us company the whole time!</p>
<p>Anyway, despite Sam and Simon’s protestations (“It’s only a little boat!”, “There’ll be lots of old person things!”), I was mighty impressed with our river cruise.</p>
<p>On the day we boarded we took a coach from Lyon to Dijon, stopping in a little town called Beaune. There we ditched the oldies to do some wine tasting!</p>
<p>Excitingly, Laura decided that she likes (some) white wine (Côte du Rhône).
Also, the tasting place had run out of glasses, so we got special wine tasting dishes that they used in the old days (when they didn’t care about the smell or the colour, just the taste). We are planning on making them into candlesticks when we get home.</p>
<p>Back on the bus, until we arrived at the boat! The bus had very cool back seats, all around a table, which was fun.</p>
<p>The boat was lovely, and bigger than I expected considering it had to go through locks and everything. The crew were all very friendly, and because there weren’t too many of them we got to know a few of them (the receptionist managed to learn everyone’s faces in about 2 days!).</p>
<p>I was very impressed by the food, which was very nice, and also the size of our rooms.</p>
<p>We saw lots of little towns (just look on the map at the top!), which weren’t too touristy, which was very cool, and also the boat had some bikes that we borrowed a few times to go for nice cycles.</p>
<p>It was very exciting in Lyon, we biked to a big park and found a zoo there! Also, we found a little self-driving bus that went around the area where we docked, which was lots of fun! We even got to experience an emergency break as someone walked out right in front of it!</p>
<p>The other high point was when we were in Tournon, and we found the Valrhona chocolate factory, along with it’s shop. Free samples of all the types of chocolate! As much as you want! Yum yum yum! We all ate a bit much, especially Simon, who I think felt a bit ill afterwards. Of course, back on the boat that evening there was a full boat chocolate tasting session, with more Valrhona chocolate, which made me feel a bit queasy. I powered through it though - you can’t turn down chocolate!</p>
<p>The locks were heaps of fun, especially the really deep ones. It felt like we were sinking, seeing the walls rising up around us! The brave ones of us would go out on the front deck, and try to stand in a patch that wouldn’t get soaked by falling drops as we went under the gates.</p>
<p>We finished the tour a day early, and caught a plane to Athens, ready for our <a href="the_big_cruise.html">second cruise</a>!</p>Paris2017-04-10T00:00:00+12:002017-04-10T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2017-04-10:/paris.html<p><strong>🗼</strong> And we’re in Paris! Sam and Simon have joined us, after their stint in Iceland. Apparently it was much colder for them, so they got snow while we didn’t. Not fair!</p><p><strong>🗼</strong> And we’re in Paris! Sam and Simon have joined us, after their stint in Iceland. Apparently it was much colder for them, so they got snow while we didn’t. Not fair!</p>
<p>We’re staying in a really nice hotel, which is where the river cruise leaves from. It has a great breakfast!</p>
<p>On the day before Sam and Simon arrived, we went to see Versailles, which was very gold. It was amazingly extravagant, but we especially liked the gardens, with all the cool little unique places. At one point we got to a pretty boring looking lake, only for it to erupt into a big fountain display complete with music!</p>
<p>Then, with Sam and Simon in tow, we did The Great Montmartre Food Tour - run by a very enthusiastic French guy called <span class="caps">PJ</span>. We went about picking things up for our lunch, like bread (lots of types of traditional baguette), meat (all sorts of animals, I enjoyed all of them), and cheese (I did not enjoy all of them, although I did at least try most). Oh and wine of course.</p>
<p>As we went he was telling us all sorts of cool French history and things like the fact that if a place has “Boulongerie” signs up, then it means that they legally have to make the bread on site. I also learned that the way they make salami is stolen off the Egyptians (it’s basically mummified mince).</p>
<p>Once we had our supplies, we went to a little hotel bar, which had some sort of historical significance… But I was more excited about the food at that point and wasn’t listening properly. We tried all the sorts of bread and meat and wine and cheese (I even had a little bit of Roquefort! It was just as disgusting as I remember - I think Sam took a photo of me eating it).</p>
<p>Then we went for dessert at a crêperie, then a chocolate and macaroon shop, and also a little place that makes profiterole things. Dessert was great, although we were all a little full by that point. At the end of the tour we headed up to sacré cœur for a bit but then started feeling sleepy and went home.</p>
<p>The next big exciting thing was the Eiffel Tower! I missed going up the last time I was in Paris, so this was going to be my first time! Sadly, Sam had developed a rather nasty ear infection, so her and Simon went to a doctor’s, instead of coming with us. We had to go up with a tour group, since all the regular tickets were booked out, but the tour was actually pretty good. I bent the rules a bit and brought up my big <span class="caps">NZ</span> flag, which proudly flew from the tower before it was hidden away again. The views were, of course, amazing, and on the way down we took the stairs, which was much nicer than the cramped lift up.</p>
<p>Also, my main tip for Paris-goers: Go when you’re under 25!
You get free entrance to so many things! We got into:</p>
<ul>
<li>Versailles, the gold-covered palace</li>
<li>The Arc de Triomphe, which was very close to where we were staying.</li>
<li>Napoleon’s Tomb, which was interesting. Apparently there are 8 progressively smaller tombs inside it, all made of different things. The outer one is huuge, but we thought it rather ugly.</li>
</ul>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/YibQuFC-HqlFPmUTRd5rgfNqkuszbp9A7JvagWH7xHARXs2jC-vWVSlO3t1d2UnJydJTKy-rGqJl8ncTEMcr6kOjlKOo324mNcItSa-HK4NjM_JMm4Yoz0cQndKk39V90NSxAFVyRw=w504-h671-no" alt="Cheese! Eeew!" class="med">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/kXPfDdAyRAdr91qZBVtvEFr6moz07rwAe8qRi9btwjpG1msfWgzhNrqTtWoLNl2pp95EtRPMULLX303z7wvgeGWL9sGWpRUYFCba9wzzGHNqWt6XAGwHCe6otPe7JA11rsBChSqqAw=w504-h671-no" alt="The four of us up the Arc de Triomphe!" class="med">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Ja99377uOVrO1k1Mhjxlz1vVs3Uq1iJCHSo3zaNCmzbP3ZNL2h2NJDOje_WhqUomyvfk4v2_ZOaVvY8WK0-XYB8t1eY6I0ldgV6NmqeDbDIfkQ1YJHFOLW33SVfJG2uXVe8leqUOjg=w504-h671-no" alt="The NZ flag having it's moment of glory." class="med">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/GsKLuwss4c_PhtfCgQzPvdOaujeIWWjqWBAvEup7mqAZLPg-7VfH6PCjGv4oM5_hUlIvJbR8XcVTCF7H7uPtX5M7IR6t2vAYEoavT4shvY8BQHJeO1Bja5WwzZV2IJBlxz5DpXkeAg=w504-h671-no" alt="The tower at night." class="med">
</div>
<p>All in all it was an awesome day! Next up is <a href="the-river-cruise.html">the river cruise</a></p>A New Job2017-03-06T00:00:00+13:002017-03-06T00:00:00+13:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2017-03-06:/a-new-job.html<p>So, after the easiest job hunt in my life, I’ve recently landed a job in the heart of the city at <a href="https://geovation.uk/">Geovation</a>!</p>
<p>Geovation is an incubator for startups that focuses on location data. It was spawned by <a href="https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/">Ordanance Survey …</a></p><p>So, after the easiest job hunt in my life, I’ve recently landed a job in the heart of the city at <a href="https://geovation.uk/">Geovation</a>!</p>
<p>Geovation is an incubator for startups that focuses on location data. It was spawned by <a href="https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/">Ordanance Survey</a>, who want to increase innovation in the <span class="caps">UK</span> - particularly around their product (maps). They also provide advice and expertise to anyone who wants help doing something technical with geospatial data.</p>
<p><a href="https://geovation.uk/"><img src="https://geovation.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Geovation-greyw-orangeb_portrait.png" alt="Geovation!" style="height: 5em; padding: 1em 10%;"></a></p>
<p>My job was to help one of the Geovation staff with one of his pet ideas - helping develop it from a proof-of-concept to a <span class="caps">MVP</span>. At first the team consisted of only me, Max (the boss) and another graduate developer. We quickly pulled in other people as needed for things like business advice, or design.</p>
<p><img src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/matchmyroute.svg" alt="Geovation!" style="height: 3em; padding: 0.5em; border-radius: 15%;">
<center><em>The MatchMyRoute Logo.</em></center></p>
<p>The product (currently called MatchMyRoute) is an app that will encourage new cyclists in cities to get out more. The idea is that experienced cyclists will list which routes they regularly cycle, so we have a database of ways to get from A to B.</p>
<p>When a new cyclist wants to get somewhere, they simply need to enter their start and end points, and the app will intelligently buddy them up to an experienced cyclist who is willing to show them the route - letting them get their confidence up, until they can eventually show other new users around too!</p>
<p>I may only be a mediocre cyclist, but the idea resonates with me - I would like to be a better cyclist and this app could one day help me do that. You really can’t beat the feeling of working on something that you believe will actually improve people’s lives.</p>
<p>To complete this app, I had to learn lots of new technology:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.typescriptlang.org/">Typescript</a> - A programming language that compiles to Javascript.</li>
<li>Node.js - A Javascipt runtime for web servers. Nothing too special, but I hadn’t used it before (I know, did I live in a cave or something?).</li>
<li><a href="http://postgis.net/">PostGIS</a> - A PostgreSQL extension that lets you do powerful things with geospatial data.</li>
<li><a href="http://senecajs.org/">Seneca</a> - A microservices toolkit that made writing the backend much cleaner.</li>
<li><a href="https://swagger.io/">Swagger</a> - A way of writing documentation for an <span class="caps">API</span>, which can then be folded in to the microservices framework to define arguments and types.</li>
<li><a href="https://facebook.github.io/react-native/">React Native</a> - A way to write code once in a way that can be compiled to work natively on multiple types of device (in ths case Android and Apple phones).</li>
<li><a href="https://circleci.com/">CircleCI</a> - This is a service that can be set up to react whenever certain events happen. We set it up so that any merge-request ran the unit tests to make sure that nothing was broken, and once the branch was merged it would deploy the new master to the server and run end-to-end integration tests.</li>
</ul>
<p>I worked for Geovation for about 3 months, in which time I effectively completed the backend, and helped on some of the frontend too. They were a fantastic employer, and didn’t even mind that 3 weeks into the job I went for a 4 week holiday (<a href="the-big-cruise.html">the cruise</a>)! Everyone was friendly and inclusive and I really felt part of the team.</p>
<p>Now if only they had a branch in New Zealand!</p>England2017-02-25T00:00:00+13:002017-02-25T00:00:00+13:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2017-02-25:/england.html<p>Well, so far England has been fun!</p><p>Well, so far England has been fun!</p>
<p>The weather seems to alternate between sunny (but still cold), and raining (like it is now). Despite the cold, Laura is doing a fabulous job of coming on short runs with me - 3 times this week!</p>
<p>We’ve been jumping round visiting lots of people, as you can see on our map:</p>
<div class="location_indicator"
data-location="51.33708570026643,-1.1694459318867811"
data-zoom="6.75"
data-interactive="true"
data-markers='[
[51.75145937300078,-0.46931498223337087, "Hemmel Hempstead (Beccy)"],
[51.702893242589205,-2.090408949906642, "Cirencester (Harry and Fray)"],
[51.208635451386094,-1.4774103521670103, "Andover (Becky and Tom)"],
[50.82658976716594,-1.346792137742885, "Fawley (Laura’s grandparents)"],
[51.07159486073918,-1.785115478053343, "Salisbury (Liz)"],
[51.58948830629167,-0.0969157092804718, "London (Duh!) (My Uncle Jon)"]
]'></div>
<p>So far we’ve visited
<img src="theme/img/leaflet_marker0.png" class="lineheight">
Beccy (my aunt), which was lovely, and she helped me sort out things like a bank account and a mobile number.</p>
<p>Then we went over to
<img src="theme/img/leaflet_marker1.png" class="lineheight">
Cirencester and stayed with Harry, one of Laura’s friends. That was great fun, and we got to visit lots of old roman things. We went to Bath but we weren’t even allowed to get in the old bath!</p>
<p>After that we went to
<img src="theme/img/leaflet_marker2.png" class="lineheight">
Andover, where we stayed with Becky and Tom, who are family friends of Laura’s and have 3 welsh terriers (two parents and a puppy!), who reminded me of Gromit, although much smaller and springier. We had a great time going to the <a href="http://www.hawk-conservancy.org/">bird sanctuary</a>, and looking round Winchester (including the <em>maybe</em> original round table!).</p>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/iXSEHEECVNeLNFqENm0J37XLDZCTEDARXueoU8DmoBeRduhXFCidLk8yFJR3OWWYaLtAUcyiyvowHN13Yf0kqdqIgKU0a2ccHhnYGpFo6oe_mqIHnaConsLfwTejDynheS6J2CFYQw=w505-h673-no" alt="Having fun with some welshies." class="med">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ONJ7V5ZPjnyj6EKzUNMh0gk2D2jfX3ZbmNHWIBdRpPZigJdjCFsIfo26kc1DI5-yYP7S1KACDwCVEqP6ddcQ2VajBe2V0cbfBwKIIP5Bexbl_6UCG-0kkpHk4SwP68n9y0cfngJVag=w898-h673-no" alt="The four of us in Winchesster." class="med">
</div>
<p>We stayed there for about a week before going down to
<img src="theme/img/leaflet_marker3.png" class="lineheight">
Fawley, to see Laura’s grandparents who are lovely. We stayed there for two nights before going to
<img src="theme/img/leaflet_marker4.png" class="lineheight">
Salisbury to visit another of Laura’s school friends.</p>
<p>After that we closed the loop, coming back up to London to stay with
<img src="theme/img/leaflet_marker5.png" class="lineheight">
my uncle Jon. It was great staying with Jon - I got to meet his new (to me) wife, and meet my new 6 month old cousin, Archie! We were also very close to the center of London, so we got to do lots of exploring and touristy things.</p>
<p>The weather has improved remarkably, and some days I can actually wear a t-shirt outside! Also, we’ve gotten to grips with the fearsome London tube system, though we still avoid it during rush hour.</p>
<p>We’ve gone to see two performances, one was a StageCoach show where we saw my cousin Alex perform, which was fun and surprisingly good. Nice to meet up with Beccy again too. We also went to see <a href="http://www.wickedthemusical.co.uk/">Wicked</a> (it’s sort of an expansion on the Wizard of Oz) with a couple of Laura’s school friends who are in London, and that was great.</p>
<p>The last week or so Laura has been busy applying for graduate programmes (some of them take hours to apply for and make you do silly tests), and I’ve been busy <a href="a-new-job.html">with my new job</a>.</p>
<p>We have been having loads of fun, and have started planning our trip back from <a href="tag/the-big-cruise.html">The Big Cruise</a> that Sam and Simon are taking us on. We’re planning on going from Naples to Rome to Venice (where we will meet up with Harry again!), then to Geneva to see <span class="caps">CERN</span>.</p>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/TJGJ6pG3qUHsA0iN_FwnQQ8lOnGC84DH2cpLpgv5xLxO2iSHdbcI_NjLEFwRnkMN55Yl5jFZs12Pfh8Z0Ria_MLFkmWbjKp2ew4mg_ZJ2f5SMa-qH3LGquwpCF117iLNVI7HJbxzBQ=w505-h673-no" alt="Mandatory picture with the Trafalgar lions." class="med">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/BkvGWhf4zjmE8AG6qcuwtkVYdyyb7B31VckKVsZFSYPy7xmMNTOrMakblqzbM0Plole4mKUw03L-OJnolrZLAEKoWGvjhU0Jo7ccThfln-hpLuVMtm4jUTs_qwmC9Awngs6vC7IBJw=w898-h673-no" alt="Laura looking stunning on a walk round some ponds we found in the middle of London." class="med">
</div>Iceland2017-02-12T00:00:00+13:002017-02-12T00:00:00+13:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2017-02-12:/iceland.html<p>Iceland (or Ísland, as the locals would write it) was really great, and the cold was either delightful (Olly) or frightful (Laura)…</p><p>Iceland (or Ísland, as the locals would write it) was really great, and the cold was either delightful (Olly) or frightful (Laura). The weather was really changeable, but there was no snow unfortunately, only some slush at one point.</p>
<p>The whole city had a delightful small town feel to it, and all the shops were bright and cozy. Iceland is also running on 100% renewable energy, which I was quite impressed with - everything is geothermal, including all the hot water! Another fun fact, Iceland’s population is <em>just</em> over the number required to prevent inbreeding traits! But I imagine that there must be enough people arriving and leaving that it doesn’t really matter.</p>
<p>We really enjoyed the food there (we went to an Icelandic buffet on the first night), and there was lots of seafood and <span class="caps">HUUGE</span> slabs of smoked salmon! <em>Yum Yum Yum</em>. I was also very brave and tried some fermented shark meat. The meat is toxic when fresh, so they have to leave in buried in sand for a few months to squeeze the urea out of it. After that it just tastes like rotten fish with some bleach mixed in. It was <strong>yuck</strong>.</p>
<p>We much preferred the Icelandic hotdogs, which have lots of sauces and toppings and stuff on them, and are one of the cheapest meals around. All the other food is very expensive, costing around $30 for a toasted sandwich! (It was very nice though).</p>
<p>On our second day we went to the <a href="http://www.bluelagoon.com/">Blue Lagoon geothermal pools</a>, which were really nice and we even got to see a bit of a sunrise from them. It was lovely to wade around the huge pool and relax, although it did leave our swimming gear all salty and smelling sulphurous.</p>
<p>The third day we did what was called the “Golden Circle Tour”, which is Iceland’s most popular tour, seeing the Rift valley, which is the fault line between the European and American plates. The valley had some really cool landscape, and used to be the site of Iceland’s (outdoor) parliament!</p>
<p>We also saw some geysers, which were cool but smelly, and we weren’t allowed too close because the water was boiling hot. And finally we saw Iceland’s biggest waterfall, which was cool - all the spray from the falls froze on the sides, so there was more snow round there.</p>
<p>We missed the northern lights, but we’re already making plans to see them again some time (a good excuse to visit Svalbard if you ask me!).</p>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/aM5Jtfr32V1sC7TuRuvlIwKC0L3H3kemU7nw9rvLlT3BpwfMAh78VUTpY4ryqWB-4pxIYfEwjdklizCFHLAYGFLabVeCGHegxoGGuYa1eKXJFInAFJup4qSTzI2S2XoXpC8B0uvejA=w499-h673-no" alt="Just outside the Blue Lagoon" class="med">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/OaIFJ59eeJcwXPVYkgzsAh7sB9Xd7RA0AhAAncUSN4WNlbah5aaIPEPWeilWMCcshXp5dLX7YmU_YPmNiqrMqWe-mFYsA_eD9Je95r7zfyJECuy47x4DpDpDbVDqTngsR8oT5zYhqQ=w499-h673-no" alt="The Rift valley. As you can see, it's pretty cold!" class="med">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/bMa6e2w1CQLcYs4RAGYiIs9f4XGicIOelwOr8lr_thllXJmeqVtnVpKItbyWqnz5g-U_3LlrT-1M6r8sZ2D4awKsXYAra2Hh7PopkNrkhPG0aM-y3vpkvGbLsuQff3RZ2K9AZnSYBA=w910-h673-no" alt="Nothing on the Iguassu falls, but still cool!" class="med" style="object-position: 15%;">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/D6azx52NmicZNP4ScDhwcTxd4O95NTHhzqjnVwQAHGCtN5plyKWENzezQSJp7hRHd1LU8qrN_7w-dy6YgD4vZjsJbANN_nUgi_FWIAPh3cxLNm9x7ABRrV_Jv6DUuvtvRnWzXZrP8g=w505-h673-no" alt="Geyser ahoy! We caught this one just as it was going off." class="med">
</div>
<p>We’re on our way to the <a href="england.html"><span class="caps">UK</span></a> now!</p>The States, Part II2017-02-07T00:00:00+13:002017-02-07T00:00:00+13:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2017-02-07:/the-states-part-ii.html<p>Oh the excitement was mounting! We got on Bill’s bus to the park, Laura bouncing around beside me, and set off to what Laura assured me was going to be the best day of my life…</p><p><strong>Day 1 - Universal Studios</strong></p>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/IASORul2-Cc7tYmrz54W_-v1Y_gSfNo7LuT7ecxY3_h4SLs1Nb0Zr8DNPWG2G5Oy8Dd6JJ3qJXf7NvVSFXBpbAf-oGgx0xBoMgESjhM2XqK1NBL0rCu8kXy5uWsxh60DRciiUW-TSg=w505-h673-no" alt="The Gringotts dragon." class="med">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/9skllWq6GcALW7Z0T22n1iouZrvRikZSgKSkD0o7oU14NcEg_ZuUgvVrJFy4ZVPEZJke-dxnUDhj-LkGrCe_yX1-K9-PlfwZA4cE3_tmD-mLhPl7iQYy_F0iCPZ-dJp8uSyj_XH31g=w499-h673-no" alt="Looking down the fabulously wonky Diagon Alley." class="med">
</div>
<p>Oh the excitement was mounting! We got on Bill’s bus to the park, Laura bouncing around beside me, and set off to what Laura assured me was going to be the <em>best day of my life</em>.</p>
<p>Off the bus, we rushed to Islands of Adventure, hoping to get into the new Diagon Alley section before it got busy. Unfortunately we found that only the Universal Studios section was open early, but at least the queues were shorter for us to collect our tickets.</p>
<p>We rushed on over and headed straight for Hogsmead, where Laura promptly dragged me onto the <em>“best”</em> ride (the Harry Potter one, of course). I was a bit scared at first, but Laura wore me down and it was pretty good in the end, though I felt a bit queasey after our 3rd (consecutive) go. We also discovered the joys of ‘Single Rider’ queues, which are much much shorter and quicker than the main ones.</p>
<p>Looking at our watches, we realised that we had to get moving if we wanted to get to our (free!) breakfast in the Leakey Cauldron. We rushed to the platform, and joined the end of a pretty lengthy queue for the Hogwarts Express. The ride was pretty cool, and much quicker and more fun than walking across the park.</p>
<p>We arrived at the Leakey Cauldron just a little late, but that was fine, and we ordered and ate our breakfast. The food wasn’t bad, but I was a little disappointed at the pumpkin juice. It was more like apple juice with cinnamon in it, and didn’t really taste much like pumpkin.</p>
<p>All fueled up, we went out to explore Diagon Alley! It was very cool, especially the big fire breathing dragon on top of Gringotts. After looking around the various stores Laura went into Gringotts for the ride/rollercoaster, which she loved, but couldn’t convince me to go on.</p>
<p>We <em>eventually</em> left Diagon Alley, and explored the other rides, of which I particularly liked the Men In Black one, <span class="caps">E.T.</span> Shreck, Minions and the Terminator one. Laura did a few of the larger and scarier ones, like Dr. Doom’s tower of terror.</p>
<p><strong>Day 2 - Islands Of Adventure</strong></p>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/TaJzfx-sEcqlqk62MA0dSkEtssQP2aF07hhlLlE0JLOwjjJpyQPV48GHyBOkyjD4Y-L09aljxxrdTnOC6QuiffWIbTYRGTmOYQDuKThYCL-GaTieERX5JFPdWzlTGZbPwCzVvdXZRQ=w505-h673-no" alt="I no longer trust Laura when it comes to rollercoasters." class="med">
</div>
<p>On this day we decided to explore the Islands of Adventure park a bit more, since we hadn’t seen much of it (just the parts on the way to Hogsmeade). Although <em>of course</em> we started off by going on the Harry Potter ride a few more times, since we were there so early.</p>
<p>We also had a photoshoot booked, for our <a href="https://myuniversalphotos.com/VideoShare.aspx?id=54089">moving portrait</a>, which turned out very cheesily, but was fun.</p>
<p>Laura got really scared on the King Kong themed queue, which was a good laugh. She seemed to think that someone grabbed her, but I know she’s just yarning. I didn’t feel <em>anything</em>.</p>
<p>After that, Laura convinced me to come to Hagrid’s hut, and go on the Hippogriff ride. <em>“Oh no!”</em> I hear you crying <em>“That’s really scary and fast and high! Don’t go on that one Olly, you’ll probably die!”</em>. Well, I wish I had heard that before being dragged on. I didn’t die, but I didn’t like it at all, and my trust in Laura’s judgment was sorely bruised.</p>
<p>To help me calm back down after that, we went on a nice soothing Dr. Seuse themed ride which was for little kids but was still cool, going on a rail above all the footpaths. A few more of our Harry Potter themed favorites and we were done for the day.</p>
<p><strong>Day 3 - Our Favorites</strong></p>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/njQ54H8zM1pkLr-NVo6aYSodQFZ3v_cMJ75YSf2heQbMcj-M1aFSVx4LQKNYR2t3LEI5iVwloTuRwBnQ4wGeCkBhxR3v7CBfQ4KS2dv79vbXjR1joC6sgglf6WzrB53EBNEWo-_4ow=w505-h673-no" alt="Our morning dining destination." class="med">
</div>
<p>On our third day, we had breakfast at the three broomsticks - much the same as the Leakey Cauldron. I tried some butterbeer, but it was all fizzy and not very nice.</p>
<p>After breakfast we went on all of our favorite rides again, and Laura even convinced me to go on the <em>scary</em> Gringotts rollercoaster! It was not too scary, but there was one bit that I wasn’t too keen on. Still, the rest of the ride was good, and as always the themed queues were amazing.</p>
<p>The rest of our last day was spent frantically trying to go on as many other rides that we hadn’t tried, and going to shows that we hadn’t seen, like the trained animal one.</p>
<p>And that’s about it! Tomorrow we’ll be on our way to <a href="iceland.html">Iceland</a>, which will be a nice change after all this hot weather.</p>The States, Part I2017-02-04T00:00:00+13:002017-02-04T00:00:00+13:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2017-02-04:/the-states-part-i.html<p>We’ve had a great few first days, making the most of being able to ask people proper questions about where/how to do things. Hooray for English!</p><p><em>I’ve split the part about Universal Studios into it’s <a href="the-states-part-ii.html">own post</a>.</em></p>
<p>We’ve had a great few first days, making the most of being able to ask people proper questions about where/how to do things. Hooray for English!</p>
<p>On the first day we went to a shopping mall, but there wasn’t much there for us, just lots of weird fancy clothing brands, so we came back and played minigolf (Laura totally destroyed me). The road we ended up on was pretty cool, there are lots of interesting things, and a bus that takes you up and down it as far as you want for $2. Extremely touristy, but we are tourists, I suppose!</p>
<p>The second day we went to <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/home/index.html"><span class="caps">NASA</span> out on Cape Canaveral</a>, which was really cool, we even did a simulated space shuttle launch (All the legal warnings beforehand made me a bit scared but it wasn’t too bad). It was really great wandering round learning about all sorts of spacey things - I know a lot more space history than I did before. It was crazy walking up to real rockets, and just seeing the scale of them - humongous! And seeing the rocket mover was cool too - built on such a huge scale but very delicate, so it doesn’t bounce too much (of course the roads it goes on are all specially graded too).</p>
<p>The next day we weren’t sure what to do so I convinced Laura to go to <a href="https://aquaticabyseaworld.com/en/orlando/">Aquatica</a> (it’s not quite warm enough to be good water park weather, but it did warm up through the day). Aquatica was all Kiwi themed with lots of colourful kiwis everywhere, and all the rides had Māori names (like whānau falls). The only problem was that the voice person they used for the whole park was Aussie, so it sounded totally wrong. But they had a really good wave pool that made proper 2 meter swells, and rides were really good. One went though a dolphin aquarium, which was very cool - Laura missed the dolphins the first few times because she looked the wrong way!</p>
<p>We went to <a href="https://www.wonderworksonline.com/orlando/">WonderWorks</a> which was pretty fun, it’s just a place with lots of sciency/fun things, like a bed of nails and tesla coils. We also did laser tag and a ropes course, where I was very brave and did nearly all of them (with Laura helping me of course). In the afternoon we just sat round the pool and read our books.</p>
<p>We’re both excited for tomorrow, our first day at Universal! And breakfast at the Leaky Cauldron! Laura’s been planning out the fastest route for us to run to the entrance to Diagon Alley.</p>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/G3vFkctBmfggFm24Uus0a6n8eoGPKxeA55ZMUBHK6D3o29hC1DLE0buY1ITa_Xn0Fzavip2YsF5jZ1LJNSgIvPHkJaHevf7AlsoZIo8UhbB_ee176ayaehnfTTO30c59zsRDRpVsGQ=w505-h673-no" alt="So huge!" class="med">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Sq7YIH4FO6uBk9IviTR-VBdpsYiij3yyM_WTy8LDITlrzmc2RU8n-ZzqkmhrmsaYgHpS6lUaKmnOSxuNvdWJTzePLOYX22VZ2Th1D2jJNw9Ti-ZIXnPW4vUndWYjaiUyVbQDafbd0Q=w499-h673-no" alt="These ones are pretty big too." class="med">
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<p>Stay tuned for <a href="the-states-part-ii.html">part <span class="caps">II</span> - Univeral Studios</a></p>Rio De Janeiro2017-01-29T00:00:00+13:002017-01-29T00:00:00+13:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2017-01-29:/rio-de-janeiro.html<p>Arriving into Rio we were feeling a little green around the gills - Brazilian drivers are not the smoothest rides around…</p><p>Arriving into Rio we were feeling a little green around the gills - Brazilian drivers are not the smoothest rides around. I think the government tried to make everyone drive slower by putting random speed bumps everywhere, but that didn’t really work - people just slam on the brakes to go over them and then speed off again on the other side.</p>
<p>The first day we arrived we did a tour of the city, seeing lots of famous sights. One of these, the Selaron steps, is a big staircase done by one guy over his whole life as a tribute to Brazil, which I reckon is pretty impressive.
They are mostly yellow green and blue for the Brazil flag, but he put some red in too because he likes Ferrari. There was lots of live music playing up and down the steps and it was quite busy, so we had to walk a long way up until we could actually see some of the steps properly, but they were very cool, with so many details all over the place.</p>
<p>We went up to see Christ The Redeemer, which was cool, although he was a bit smaller than we expected. The views from up there were awesome though, and it made us realise how gigantic the city is. We got really good views of all the favellas too, looking like colourful boxes that were being pushed up into the forest areas.</p>
<p>We finished with the Sugar Loaf, which is a big hill-rock thing that you need to take 2 cablecars up to. That was fun, and we managed to get there right as the sun was setting, which was very pretty. We got to wait and see the city light up as it got dark, which was also pretty.</p>
<p>That was the end of our tour, so after a goodbye dinner we left all our new friends (some of whom we’ll catch up with later - one’s even supposed to be in Iceland on the same weekend as us!).</p>
<p>The next day was a bit of a recovery day, because the tour has been pretty intense so we were pretty tired.</p>
<p>We wandered by the beach and lazed by the hotel pool, which, being on the roof, had a pretty good view of the city and a couple of nearby favellas.</p>
<p>The favellas are basically like slums, where the people who are too poor to buy a house/section instead just build their house onto the back of a friend/families house, making a huge jumble of houses going up into the forest.</p>
<p>We also went into one of the biggest hotels on the beachfront and snuck up to their pool area to get a good view of the beach, and the next day (our last), we went swimming (as much as you’re allowed, which is as long as your feet can touch the bottom). We had good fun playing in the surf.</p>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Y8bSeGq2ay0wiMjLsrRW4EU3EvsnJHuuCiL0APr_Xz_FJho24QmYwXuEMvYIRacdC4TV2S5o6S6i5WWQ97RvpT7vnld1ilX7BN5gQL_nmjtPAQfqTZKcsz3cGJuGkLAiuSj6NBsd4w=w505-h673-no" alt="The Selaron steps." class="med">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/3nj4jpq5pEpjUt21wjrGNLE3DTmq_yoFXcByh0YgFAGBHK33TEghB7ttV3LH3vrn054jhQsH-V9uXRp_62BR0HjW4tZAPL6ti_XG0coZZ-bfyVS-B8iT9EKD8NBenZhkCSGqt2dNwg=w499-h673-no" alt="The Big Dude." class="med">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/LVmwGbKWakRDSmq9_-B1K9c7KbXGBpjRNo9rxqj6A4NxteDWjX6kkoEWX3HxIJi4tXviarVHhnIWyHiNiHxYbPged9II0b9ElJFhyGv0Pl8WVaR_2Bq_D1SsYDU3koH3KHYS8yFgOg=w898-h673-no" alt="Sunset from the Sugarloaf." class="med">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/j5t0ooplQlfo3WnkDIZpXe97b7TSPXNJwn718xRrZ--s09wJLlpoPHxS_ox2QKkVTzr_T1Zs4ICreg95wpU_A1bxnorC0arfxJe4qHqja3g-AyRz9f2zxVA3vlj96AgXvOhiBMneQg=w505-h673-no" alt="The beach from on high" class="med">
</div>
<p>And now we’re off to <a href="the-states-part-i.html">Orlando!</a></p>Pirates and Parrots2017-01-28T00:00:00+13:002017-01-28T00:00:00+13:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2017-01-28:/pirates-and-parrots.html<p>We’ve left the falls far behind, and visited Paraty, which is an old shipping town that used to have lots of gold pass through it on the way to Paraguay.</p><p><em>Long time no updates!</em></p>
<p><strong>Paraty</strong></p>
<p>We’ve left the falls far behind, and visited Paraty, which is an old shipping town that used to have lots of gold pass through it on the way to Paraguay.</p>
<p>Guess who likes gold and ships? Pirates! It was cool to see all of the ways the town made it harder for the pirates. All of the streets curved slightly, so you could never see the end of them, and all the houses were painted in the same colour/style, so it was really easy to get lost. All the churches were also fortified, which looked a bit funny.</p>
<p>They also had the cool idea of using the tide to clean the streets (back before plumbing), so you have to be careful what times you walk around the old part of town.</p>
<p>We went on a boat trip round some of the beaches and best swimming spots (the water was so lovely and warm!) which was great fun, and we saw some little monkeys which were cool and very friendly.</p>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_a5mMq8qPU1mGI-UVmOc5Z4Uhv3cZqYjYiTRcqQ74BrzNAez3f9NWxGy89hJ3EXkSsffscT4B5_-d_4FkMKUI0cXqootUcyqWmQMkaBDkUI8ErEAUe9Nh2rqGCmxTVQcXq2aBlCq4w=w505-h673-no" alt="A street in Paraty" class="med">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/udIgFxjPBYOEEXSMxIugZO3j-Z4tRX2uycVA3fBpsXNAJwvMnaGSZ7N_BsqjjCm37WzB3Ln6nTGEhlodHtpdBOuGuPFvUEIcH7xoqV1zln7XTMZai1JQlMK4dke8NkkiJAH0LVBmJg=w898-h673-no" alt="A prime swimming spot. If you squint, you can see me climbing onto the boat!" class="med">
</div>
<p><strong>Ilha Grande</strong></p>
<div class="location_indicator" data-location="-23.297,-44.695" data-zoom="8" data-markers="[[-23.1773,-44.2177]]"></div>
<p>After Paraty we took a ferry/speedboat hybrid to Ilha Grande (literally big island), which was reeeally hot and humid. This is the only place we’ve been to where our insect repellant doesn’t work.</p>
<p>One night, me and a couple of people from our tour group (including Richard, a 70 year old!) went for a walk up what’s called Parrots Peak, which is the highest point on the island at about 1000m.</p>
<p>To avoid getting way too hot we left at 2:30 in the morning (Laura was tucked up sleeping), and got up there just in time for a <em>stunning</em> sunrise - it was absolutely beautiful to see the whole island beneath you, with occasional peaks poking up from the clouds. I got some stunning photos, although they really don’t do it justice.</p>
<p>If you ever find yourself on Ilha Grande, I highly recommend it! Although if you do, you should get a guide (we had a lovely man called Luca, who has been up hundreds of times), and make sure to bring <em>at least</em> 3L of water with you - you’ll need it!</p>
<p>On the way down we heard groups of howler monkeys calling to each other, it went on for about 15 minutes until they stopped and another group replied - very cool!</p>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/nKuZGt_DE3UAVpgBE2uZDqKMSRnx7RA98Nb7cUcCWtTu6BSrUXcJe9phsvapirjfPKekcVvBdGq3H1t1FFzpo3TftcH-GKnHj5oYaQtPSxY4p90ThfhOJeXSqSfdh7nh35J6YmPjaA=w910-h673-no" alt="The sun is just starting to arrive" class="med">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/XBqN4UZurNr8bF_5CNGvt53eZoVPXgszUHzW4tgDfkZm1-z3dfEHlPHRhtZBB2esgmGeS9T14UhmzMoYVPAF91sqXYYZvt7Qps-NHz4nKHzBm0G7GDdB0dmXl4vvTENAyl1xNa_BYA=w910-h673-no" alt="The sun is here!" class="med">
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<p>Next stop <a href="rio-de-janeiro.html">Rio!</a></p>The Iguassu Falls2017-01-27T00:00:00+13:002017-01-27T00:00:00+13:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2017-01-27:/the-iguassu-falls.html<p>Another day, another plane. This one was a bit of a nightmare.</p><p>Another day, another plane. This one was a bit less fun.</p>
<p>First, we had to get up at 3:00 to catch a bus to the airport, which wasn’t very fun in and of itself. Then our plane got delayed. Ho hum, these things happen, just another hour. We finally bus out to the plane and get on board. We don’t take off straight away because <em>something</em>, but in the end we all breath a sigh of relief as the plane turns around and taxis for the runway - <em>hooray!</em></p>
<p>We reach cruising altitude, and I’m starting to feel hungry - we’ve already been awake for 4 hours, and haven’t had a bite. Luckily, this flight has a meal included! The air hostesses bring out the trolley, and since we’re in the second row, we’re getting excited! The people in front of us get served, the people behind us get served - it looks <em>goood</em>!</p>
<p>The trolley moves up beside us, when, “We’re sorry, it turns out what we were woried about on the runway was acually pretty serious”. We’re doing an about turn and heading back to the airport, with nothing but the lingering smells of scrambled eggs. We spend the rest of the flight giving evil looks to the lucky people in front of us.</p>
<p>Back at the airport, we have to wait a few more hours, and Oscar is getting worried - we’re due to go to the Brazilian side of the falls today, but it closes at 5:00 - it’s going to be close!</p>
<p>Luckily, after only two more hours at the airport, which we were getting to know <em>really</em> well, a replacement plane was found. We all boarded again, and this time the we finally get to eat! We get a bit of a scare when the breakfast trolley finally gets to us (<em>again</em>), and we hit some turbulance, so they walk off and we have to spend another 5 minutes drooling.</p>
<p>Once we landed, we all hustled into a bus and headed to the Brazilian side of the falls.</p>
<p>Needless to say, the falls are absolutely spectacular, and this is just the small side!</p>
<p>The next day we visit the Argentinian side of the falls, where they have a much more extensive park area, with lots of walks that went on or over the falls. The falling water is really beautiful from a distance, but once you get up close it’s pretty scary how much of it there is.</p>
<p>After lunch we went on a boat that went into one of the big waterfalls (one that lands on rocks and so sprays everywhere), and it was like being drenched by bucketfuls of water - so much fun! The photos from that part are all through a plastic bag, so they are a bit blurry!</p>
<p>This evening we’re going to get dinner at some place where they serve you hunks of meat off swords, which sounds great!</p>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_A3rVb39MqA6v50Zqk3XoZNwK4X9y90xiM7W58S-TiAidEGLKucF-mZTYo1685hCWChDSidtuOmUUkHj40b2dqyQ3lrkFKZXBxky6Jo-Kq0gaOEkmSN76SB-iIZdRNAXR_4uNmwWJA=w898-h673-no" alt="Looking up at the falls from the Brazilian side." class="med">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/io1-kVIWBsarL9owOg99s00Yt71_id5MCows9P_G9MN2nhEm9odMEbw6Ee9TNUaBSFMcA5VeVM-2sHHMtzOMXnY2tlRmvd9ket7dP1J1bXeNED0n9_Vo2yHXpk-RKmd4VPGWchdGzA=w960-h540-no" alt="The two of us, enjoying the view from up high on the Brazilian side." class="med">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/DhlQLrVmE8nGMjfaFZAqw18TE3ece171UlFFGjNGCkSmtL8NMC8HYlLeQ7e8STnQJh7INbrVza6ZouwUxnWcPO1D7BuQ7rKG7Aq6dNvQ5ZLlLFgw2FdTyP9b02PhNmvGYtzcGUJ9XQ=w960-h540-no" alt="A stunning view of the falls." class="med">
</div>
<p>We’re departing for <a href="pirates-and-parrots.html">Paraty</a> tomorrow at 3:30am (shudder) for a flight then a 5 hour bus ride (sleep time!).</p>Setting Off2017-01-18T00:00:00+13:002017-01-18T00:00:00+13:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2017-01-18:/setting-off.html<p>And so, with heavy bags but light hearts, we left our home country with a teary farewell. <strong>We’re off</strong>!</p><p>And so, with heavy bags but light hearts, we left our home country with a teary farewell. <strong>We’re off</strong>!</p>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/NNh7hdVHbLC15JJfRaElLA4676ygWuh9H3tF612puvbqoC0gChF5XnU3xDLkabrc_JgQqn0oeeQNA_oPpbV1Lrgxu-BpmRbkRkp0sBtNhHq3sTuvYDcoOW8k74a2W3DgIX-KzCkZxw=w505-h673-no" alt="Lets go!" class="med">
</div>
<p>Arriving in Buenos Aires the first thing that I noticed was the lack of English, but airport signs are pretty standard so we didn’t have too much of an issue.</p>
<p>We wandered out and took a taxi, where the driver unfortunately didn’t speak any English at all. At the end he did a neat magic trick, where, after taking our money, he made one of the 500 pesos ($50 <span class="caps">NZD</span>) notes disappear, with a 5 pesos in it’s place, and then demanded another 495 pesos. We argued back and forth in different languages for a while until he realised that we weren’t falling for it and <em>tada!</em> the 500 pesos note re-appeared in his hand and we were good to go.</p>
<p>Out of the nice, air-conditioned airport and the nice, air-conditioned taxi, we checked into the backpackers which was… not air-conditioned. Ugh. We had cold showers and collapsed for the night, too hot to feel very hungry.</p>
<p>The next morning, we went exploring!</p>
<p>We went for a wander towards some big government building (large and pink, for some reason). The streets round here are funny - all but the biggest look like dodgey back alleys.</p>
<p>On the way we found a little market, which was lovely.</p>
<p>On the way back we managed to get lost. Panting our way through the rapidly heating streets, we barely managed to find our way back before heatstroke set in. That was about it for the day, we didn’t stray far because of the heat that made walking very uncomfortable. Maybe we’ll get used to it?</p>
<p>The next day we learned how to tango! We also went for a big walk around to the old docks, where there were some nice parks, and some very cool bridges - instead of pulling up and down like normal bridges near docks, they rotated sideways! I’m pretty sure that must be harder to make, but they looked very cool.</p>
<p>After more wandering about, we had dinner at the pub where I got a huuge beer (they only came in 1L bottles) before the tango lessons.
We fell asleep exhausted but happy.</p>
<p>We had a tour booked the next day, at the (in)famous La Boca! La Boca used to be a very poor region of the city, and all the residents worked at the dock. Whenever they painted a ship they would take any left over paint home to paint the neighborhood. It was so colourful that Laura fitted right in with her bright pink top!</p>
<p>That evening we met up with our tour group for the first time and got to know - Oscar, our lively leader.</p>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/f85yhI4ANj7665XyCz2x_Mk2osjBS2jVBoDaIpjkKTJKDpBmFNACQVsNtG4zXpltDS7LGHqlhQyN4MLZjV0wqf08AftkX0Z54h8U-nUp_ztPm0wHooXeAYLrlA24_bYn-t6ZqWu7uw=w960-h540-no" alt="The large pink government building." class="med">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/kasNJZfdvodZtd-2PojmHEvffj4mzvEiVwfYOJp01MkyZ4FXVDJAFk--b4_C4EaB6eIX2_1UlZemeQVnHA7U2t9W-jBRazQETmJWa3dewU4nKYMOK_U3qt9pzFr-rUOy6A8DueqxfQ=w960-h540-no" class="med" alt="The rotating bridge - rotating!">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/j1ZsAbtlugxMUMNg0l_VJ0IdPWeTt3XuReRvJ6K4tkqVn27z1KwK83C2F7-k2f7IZJ7hAgTwhL9pvJvSyPoKIzpKtITfNSaRwVO78OaoEpZ-6ltEVetvFCaNCuqOIiZsa_yyG0nz_Q=w960-h540-no" alt="La Boca." class="med">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/X2PL8RhpGSXuTgmPOLazXL-l7rx-uWDXCooj3bseBAqcGYycfGyK1_R9wUeF_L6C0gvt8jjGRU6g_cymgdeCHSMDRReLtz24FpU6al6JoIozfar3GfSOc9tgsb9h2KLJoEi6ZkP0Vw=w379-h673-no" alt="Laura fitting right in - La Boca." class="med">
</div>
<p>We set off at a ridiculous hour the next morning (seriously, it was <em>3:00</em>), and we were on our way to the <a href="the-iguassu-falls.html">Iguassu falls!</a></p>Hot Hardware2016-02-28T00:00:00+13:002016-02-28T00:00:00+13:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2016-02-28:/hot-hardware.html<p>This summer, my laptop (Dell <span class="caps">XPS</span> 13) keeps overheating and shutting down…</p><p><strong>The Problem</strong></p>
<p>This summer, my laptop (Dell <span class="caps">XPS</span> 13) keeps shutting down. Mainly that’s because it’s now a
relatively old laptop (<em>only <span class="caps">4GB</span> of <span class="caps">RAM</span>!</em>), and it’s all packed into a very small container.
Doing relatively intense, modern things on it now cause it to heat up to the point where it
would probably start to sizzle if you actually put it on your lap - not very good for me <em>or</em>
the laptop.</p>
<p><strong>The Solution</strong></p>
<p>Aside from getting a new laptop (bleugh, expensive!), I thought that the next best thing would
be to improve it’s cooling system! Of course, because it’s all crammed into a laptop case,
my first idea of piping water right over the processor was never going to work.
My second idea, which was much less adventurous, was to just run water through a pipe, and make it
go under my laptop and hopefully take away some of the heat. <em>And so it begun!</em></p>
<p>I began by ordering some <a href="http://www.ebay.com/itm/321779742264">great little pumps</a> off ebay, along
with some plastic tubing (I know, copper would be better, and perhaps I’ll switch to that at some
point).
While waiting for those to arrive, I decided that a little orange juice bottle would make a perfect reservoir:</p>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/water_pump/IMG_20160228_120457.jpg" alt="The cleaned orange juice bottle" class="med">
</div>
<p>Once the parts arrived, I stuck the water pipe into the reservoir (near the top so that the water would flow).
I then chopped of the little knobbles on the front of the pump and stuck that onto the bottle too.</p>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/water_pump/IMG_20160228_123226.jpg" alt="The clean shaven pump" class="med">
<img src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/water_pump/IMG_20160228_124706.jpg" alt="things are starting to look good!" class="med">
</div>
<p>I had an unfortunate problem where my pipe was kinking at the end of my laptop, however that was fixed
with a bit of electrical tape.</p>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/water_pump/IMG_20160228_112548.jpg" alt="That pipe is kinky!" style="height:200px;" >
<img src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/water_pump/IMG_20160228_112740.jpg" alt="Boring!" style="height:200px;">
</div>
<p>I sat my laptop on that, filled the reservoir with some water and ice cubes, and behold, it worked! I can
now play kerbal space program to my heart’s content! All in all, it was an afternoon well spent.</p>
<div class="img_bar">
<img src="https://olly.fawcetts.nz/images/water_pump/IMG_20160228_134321.jpg" alt="The finished product">
</div>
<h2>Plans For The Future</h2>
<p>Of course, no project is ever really complete, so I’ve made the following list of improvements for the
next time my laptop gets unbearably hot.</p>
<ul>
<li>Use copper pipes! Apparently these bend into shape easily, and will conduct the heat away much better.
Once they are bent into shape, I might also solder flat copper plates on top, so we get more contact
with the bottom of the laptop (and higher surface area, which is never a bad thing in cooling).
This also brings the challenge of fitting a copper pipe to my plastic pump, which I’m a little worried
about, although I’m sure I could use some of my existing tube as a joiner.</li>
<li>Make it automatic! I had planned on doing this originally and had even bought a couple of <span class="caps">LM35DZ</span>
thermometers that were supposed to be easy to use through an arduino, but I couldn’t get sensible
readings out of them. Anyway, someday I’d like to get that working so that the cooling switches on
automatically when my laptop gets more than a little hotter than air temperature.</li>
</ul>Connect 42015-04-13T00:00:00+12:002015-04-13T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2015-04-13:/connect-4.html<p>Connect 4 is a great game that two people play by dropping differently coloured pieces into a grid, where they fall to the bottom of the column. To win the game, one player must make a line of four of …</p><p>Connect 4 is a great game that two people play by dropping differently coloured pieces into a grid, where they fall to the bottom of the column. To win the game, one player must make a line of four of their pieces in a row, either horizontally, vertically or diagonally.</p>
<p>It’s great fun to play with friends, with all sorts of strategies, “traps” and “double-traps”. I’ve certainly always enjoyed a good game, so it struck me as a natural place to start when I wanted to build a simple game to play when I was bored.</p>
<p>I noticed that (aside from everyone getting sick of playing “that game”), there were people who would beat me nearly every time! Obviously my strategy was lacking in some subtle aspect, and my opponent was capitalizing on this.</p>
<p>Well, I’ve heard that the best way to learn is to teach, so I set about teaching my computer to play me. With my first little <span class="caps">AI</span> written, I pitted it off against one of my friends… and it was defeated with ease, without it’s opponent paying full attention to it. <em>Great</em></p>
<p>Of course, I couldn’t stop there, I couldn’t live with <em>the shame!</em></p>
<p>I began adjusting weightings, adding new heuristics, and generally making the computer smarter, sneakier and less forgiving.</p>
<p>It took 4 iterations of this improvement to come up with something that was good enough to beat me most times, and was only toppled by one of my most skillful friends. It’s hard to continue past there, since I couldn’t tell if changes were making it better or not (at least, not without a much larger sample size), so I wrapped it up and sent it out to the world!</p>
<p>I’ve since made the earlier prototypes available, and named each version after the friend that topped it.</p>
<p>Think you have what it takes to beat <strong>Logical Laura</strong>? Why not <a href="http://ollyfg.com/connect4.html">find out</a>?</p>The Uncertainty Calculator2014-09-25T00:00:00+12:002014-09-25T00:00:00+12:00Oliver Fawcetttag:olly.fawcetts.nz,2014-09-25:/the-uncertainty-calculator.html<p>An uncertain calculator - that doesn’t sound very useful does it?</p>
<p>If my hours of lab reports have drilled anything into me, it’s that you can’t trust a number until you know it’s uncertainty. Who cares if …</p><p>An uncertain calculator - that doesn’t sound very useful does it?</p>
<p>If my hours of lab reports have drilled anything into me, it’s that you can’t trust a number until you know it’s uncertainty. Who cares if adding chemical A to a culture caused it to produce 5% more of chemical B, if that 5% is actually 5% ± 10%?</p>
<p>Of course, actually working out the errors in the first place is a pig of a job, and many people just don’t bother. The reason they are so annoying is that for every <em>operation</em> you do to a number, you need to work out a completely separate equation for the uncertainty, so for:</p>
<div class="equation">
A × B = C
</div>
<p>If we call the uncertainty in each number
<span class="equation">E<sub>A</sub></span>
,
<span class="equation">E<sub>B</sub></span>
and
<span class="equation">E<sub>C</sub></span>
, then to work out the uncertainty in
<span class="equation">C</span>
, we need to do:</p>
<div class="equation">
E<sub>C</sub> = ( (E<sub>A</sub> ÷ A)<sup>2</sup> + (E<sub>B</sub> ÷ B)<sup>2</sup> )<sup>0.5</sup>
</div>
<p>Looks yuck, doesn’t it? It’s not exactly <em>hard</em>, but it is <em>annoying</em>. Add to that the fact that the above equation is only an <em>approximation</em> of the true equation, and so falls down in a few cases (eg. when an uncertainty is approaches the size for the value).</p>
<p><strong><span class="dquo">“</span>There must be a better way!”</strong> I thought to myself in anguish.</p>
<p><span class="dquo">“</span>Wait a minute, I can automate this” I realized, and so with great gusto I dived into creating <strong><a href="http://ollyfg.github.io/Uncertainty-Calculator/"><span class="caps">THE</span> <span class="caps">UNCERTAINTY</span> <span class="caps">CALCULATOR</span></a></strong>!</p>
<p>This calculator allows numbers to be input along with their uncertainties, and handles propagation and conversions for you. It’s great unveiling was met with jubilant (metaphorical) cheers from students and faculty staff alike.</p>
<p>I had a lot of fun making the parser for this calculator, and making sure order of operations is followed (surprisingly difficult!), and lots of other nice-to-have’s (think that <code>ANS</code> button, the “real” mode, and the memory store).</p>
<p>Of course, all this is free and open source, and you can improve it or leave issues at it’s <a href="https://github.com/ollyfg/Uncertainty-Calculator">github repo</a>.</p>
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