Small Streams

Slide Rules

smallstreams — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:43:03 +0000

Went to hear Doug present on how to use a slide rule at HackPgh last night.

I found out how to use the scales for finding squares, square roots, cubes and cubed roots. I also learned that with the bigger slide rules there is no end of exponentiation.

I’m most interested in slide rules with elliptical functions. Pictured is a specialty slide rule for doing duct work.

Another Monkey

smallstreams — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:30:18 +0000

The slider is a circular arc. If you made a circle all the way around, there’s no telling where the multiplication ends.

Here’s what an article I’m reading says:

the entire multiplication table forms a 45 degree-45 degree-90 degree triangle formed by the factors

My Ignorance

smallstreams — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 03:42:15 +0000

Heard this on Eames:The Architect and The Painter

“You sell your expertise, you have a limited repertoire; you sell your ignorance, it’s an unlimited repertoire.” — Richard Saul Wurman

Translator

smallstreams — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 15:22:14 +0000

Craft sticks and paper fasteners. After Xiaoji Chen’s linkages for a binary adder.

My Other Vehicle Serves Data

smallstreams — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 14:35:51 +0000

The hula hoop is not a meme. . . [it's] a meme vehicle. — James Gleick, The Information

If things make us think, the Digicomp is an infectious way to get us to think about numbers and computing.

Boingboing just posted a story on the Digicomp emulator. I hope to check it out soon.

The Missing Linkage

smallstreams — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 20:54:22 +0000

This is a picture of Consul, the Educated Monkey. There’s a backstory about an actual monkey at the turn of the last century making a big hit in the salons of Europe. I’m not as interested in that as the actual mechanics. Here’s my second or third attempt:

The position of the numbers has something to do with the angle of the links. I’ll be studying the monkey a little more, so I can make an addition and other tables to insert.

I’m also playing with my autocad app and drew this:

Consul, the Abstracted Educated Monkey

smallstreams — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 22:04:32 +0000

Coroplast Scale

smallstreams — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 17:40:39 +0000

I’m almost where I want to be conceptually with this scale. The only materials necessary are the plastic rivets and the coroplast. The coroplast, as you can see, has been recycled. It took me a while to figure out that making slots in the platform would work. The two bottom rivets are actually unnecessary.

I will measure the next iteration more carefully to insure its sensitivity (decrease its tolerance?). I’m also going to see if I can make a coroplast bowl, and how to make a better bearing than just a plain old rivet.

The other thing I want to look at is a $2 handheld Chinese scale, which is somewhat similar to my postage scale.

Cutting Up Circles

smallstreams — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 18:18:39 +0000

In order to make a base 10 adding wheel one has to divide a circle into ten equal parts. With the help of this guide to making a pentagon, I came up with this:

This has the benefit of all the pentagram’s golden ratio goodness. In order to make a proportion wheel (circular slide rule), you’ll need to use a logarithmic scale for numbering an inner and outer circle. Check out the solar physics site for more.

Percent Wheel Chart

smallstreams — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 18:42:11 +0000

This is my first attempt at making a percent wheel chart from paperboard.

I keep making mistakes, so I keep referring to Make Magazine Phillip Torrone’s article on becoming or not becoming an expert.