I made my brother and sister-in-law a chopping board and unauthorized Onitama boardgame set recently:
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I took the family to Hogwarts at Universal Studios Hollywood yesterday (where social distancing and mask wearing was handled reasonably well) but, being a cheapskate, there was no way I was going to shell out $55 to $75 to buy the plastic wands they sell there. So we made our own the night before. The official ones include a retroreflective tip that works with some cameras and infrared emitters that allow guests to âcast spellsâ around the land, making certain magical effects activate, so we did our best to hack it with some material I got off of a reflective vest. Didnât end up working (probably not optimized for the correct wavelength) but quite a few guests who had the real wands couldnât get them to work either, so we didnât feel to bad.
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I have a strawberry terrace behind my herb spiral now. Itâs filled with the best dirt.
Tilth Grow soil, made by Rust Belt Riders, a compost service that started out by riding
bikes with little trailers to restaurants and collecting their vegetable scraps.
The husband, who kindly made the strawberry terrace for me after I said I wanted to grow strawberries again, is trying to blackmail me into re-doing the herb spiral so it matches the nice brickwork he and the landlord have done. If I let him make it nice, he will fill it with Tilth soil. I am tempted.
For reference: His wall and terrace-in-progress, the landlordâs wall and cabin, and my âpicturesqueâ and/or âquaintâ herb spiral:
I understand why they want it pretty. Theyâve made this cute garden area and my spiral is too witchy and rustic. 
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your spiral is cool.
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I think Iâll make a smartphone.
I noticed a project, and thought âhey, thatâs all junkbox parts for me!â
Iâll probably have to remove the bell and line transformer to make room for the RPI1B and stuff. Iâd love to keep the bell, but driving it from the Pi would be a pain. Thatâll also lose some of the heft that makes a NE500 phone with the heavy plastic shell such a murder weapon authoritative instrument.
The thing is, itâs probably the perfect UX for mom. Keyboards and especially mice are painful for her to use, and she doesnât like touchscreens. She does use voice telephone for bank bill payments, although their system commits the deadly sin of pretending to be having a conversation and it has absolutely no sanity-checking.
Iâll give Google Assistant, perhaps Alexa too, a try. The part I like is that when the handset is down, I can insure that nothing will be sent to the cloud. Plus I can write some add-ons.
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Good luck with your project! Is it still possible to put Alexa on a raspberry pi? When I did my own phone project I found that they were no longer supporting that and it was harder than it once was to build an Alexa device from scratch, so I just hacked up an echo dot instead. The downside is that the components are so teeny tiny that I didnât think Iâd be able to solder a new microphone to it and ended up using a stethoscope going to the mic to allow for a level of privacy.
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Dunno. Iâve been collecting articles on it, but never got around to trying it.
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Ok, I donât remember the details but I think there were at least some important features they werenât supporting, maybe it wasnât going to be able to play music or something. Anyway, best of luck!
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Compost pile my daughter and I made for her environmental science class. Made from all recycled material, except for the lid. Hopefully the family we are donating it to generates a lot of compostable waste!
The 2x4s on the front face slide out for easy emptying of the compost.
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I was sidetracked by a failing hard drive on my PC. Swapped it out, everything recovered, no worries. (But the S.M.A.R.T. was 100% until after it failed. F!)
Configuring the Pi1B and parts to go in the phone once itâs all working. (The salt shaker speaker is temporary.)
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It seems the project doesnât install as-is. The makefile references a non-existent folder, so Iâll have to dig into it. Also, when creating the project on the Google end, Do Not Use A Logo. Thereâs no warning but that seems to trip some kind of extra review process, and thereâs no way to remove it once youâve added it. (A Fatcow telephone graphic, whatâs the big deal?)
eta: It was missing the make install step. Easy to miss if you donât test with a clean Pi.
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Nice set up!
I love where I live, but always get jealous seeing the early pics from gardeners in warmer climes. Our seedlings just went in the ground yesterday and everything is teeny tiny.
I built a hugelkulture bed last fall and planted it for the first time yesterday. Fingers crossed. Iâll post pics when itâs more established.
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Chicago isnât super warm. I start everything indoors as early as late January. Just about everything out there now is cold hardy. I donât put out the peppers and tomatoes until after memorial day.
Looking forward to the pictures!
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Wow! I donât know why, but I thought you were in TX.
Aside from the plantings, super impressed with the fencing. Our land is mainly fill dirt out front where we get the most sun, so weâre heavily dependent on raised beds, and digging for proper fence posts is a rage inducing, stone-riddled back-breaker.
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Here in Texas. Cherry tomato plants are already several feet tall and wide. By memorial day we should have our first ripe chocolate cherry tomatoes. Dozens of the sweet 100s have set, but are taking their sweet time ripening. Itâs been unusually cool for May. The trade off is that in mid summer, no fruit or veg. Too hot for pollen.
Meanwhile, the mammoth sunflower is living up to its reputation. I have named this one Jack. One day someone can climb it.
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There are more herbs in the herb spiral, strawberry bare roots are starting to leaf, and more tomatoes planted (Berkeley Tie Dye and Amish paste heirlooms).Not seen behind the chamomile flowers: tiny tiny lettuce plants and future carrots.
We have come to a compromise about the herb spiral. If I replace the broken and ugly bricks with pretty bricks, it will still be a dry laid wall and it will look less out of place in the pretty garden area.
@ClutchLinkey - the raised bed is sort of hugelkulture, as is the strawberry terrace, at least in spirit. A pile of dead branches went in the bottom of the raised area before amended dirt went in. Like compost, itâs a system that makes a lot of sense, at least to me.
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I am not making this, but⊠wow, inspired use of available materials:
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Someone ought to learn that uniform doesnât always mean pretty. Think of Van Gogh.
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Agree with @knoxblox. The herb sprial is pretty and interesting with all the different shapes and shades. That said, my spouse is also a uniform brick person. He prefers his chaos and asymmetry in the plants and our âbramblr patchâ of random dead wood. I admit the uniform brick work contrasts well with the chaos of a 4 year old who had a basket of seeds and no supervision.
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