I was really busy in the fall of 2025, which meant that building one of my traditionally complex scarecrow wasn’t going to work this year. But I still wanted to make something! Something that was easy to do, but still had an interactive aspect to it. After considering a few ideas, I decided to go with some large chalkboard panels with 3D designs on them to give some inspiration to passing artists. A do-it-yourself scarecrow of sorts. ...
As in past years, I once again built an entry for the Los Alamos Arts Council’s Halloween Scarecrow Contest this year. And, also like in past years, I stretched the definition of “scarecrow” and challenged myself to go overboard with the construction. For a long time, I’ve thought it would be fun to build a life-sized Lego minifig, but I’ve never had a reason to do it and I didn’t have a place to keep one even if I did build it. But… What if I built one and claimed it was a scarecrow? Now we’re talking. ...
In early 2018, I got myself a Brompton with the primary intention of taking it with me when I traveled. To support that goal, one of the first additions I wanted to make was putting together a small tool kit that could easily travel along with the bike, but also have everything I might need to make adjustments, tighten loose bits, or repair a flat tire while away from home. ...
A while back, I ran across a two old rotary telephones from my childhood and, with a couple of analog telephone adapter boxes and an Asterisk Docker container, I set them up as a sort of retro intercom in the house. WirelessCouch Bell, if you will. Fast forward a couple of years to June of 2024, and I thought it would be fun to make some little self-contained boxes that old phones could sit on top of and be used to listen to prerecorded stories or other messages. Having gained some experience with Asterisk, it was time to create some self-contained Dial-a-Story boxes. ...
It’s October, and that means one thing: as with previous years, it’s time to build an over-the-top entry for Los Alamos Arts Council’s scarecrow contest! And, as with past entries, this one’s not really going to be a scarecrow either. This year’s theme is “Into the Woods”, so I wanted to build something big that would evoke “the woods”, but would also be interesting to design and easy to store. After considering a few ideas, I decided to do an up-scaled version of those lasercut balsawood models you can get in museum gift shops. Only instead of a little dinosaur skeleton, I was going to make two six-foot tall trees. ...
In downtown Lincoln, Nebraska, on 13th Street just south of O Street, there’s an awesome historic building that stands out from the others near it. The name carved into the stone near the top of its from simply identifies it as the “Telephone Building”, but it’s been the home of lots of non-telephone-related businesses during the time I’ve known about it. Its Wikipedia page states that it was built in 1894 for the Nebraska Telephone Company, which explains its name. ...
Last year’s scarecrow, the giant Death Star that wrapped around a light pole, was fun because it was really big. I thought about doing something big again this year, but I decided to do something more technical instead. At some point during the year, I was reading about the Pepper’s Ghost illusion, where a pane of glass set at a 45 degree angle to the viewer can reflect a ghostly image into a room. I figured that, with a little creativity, I could probably manage to make a box that used that principle to project a ghost onto the sidewalk on Central Avenue. It would be small and definitely wouldn’t be a scarecrow, but it would be fun! ...
Last year’s entry in Los Alamos’s downtown scarecrow contest was a big hit, so I decided to do it again this year. Only this year I wanted it to be bigger and better. The theme for 2021 is “Out of this World”, which opens a lot of possibilities, but I reached back long ago to a galaxy far, far away for inspiration: a giant six-foot diameter Death Star. Planning The first challenge was to figure out how to make a sphere that was six feet in diameter, could be transported downtown, could be set up by one or two people, and could survive Los Alamos’s sometimes-crazy October weather. ...
Los Alamos Arts Council does a yearly scarecrow contest, where businesses and individuals build scarecrows to decorate the lamp posts along Central Avenue in downtown Los Alamos. This year’s theme was “Movie Monsters”, and I though it would be fun to do an entry. The initial idea was simple, but quickly became more complex. Construction We had an old trash can laying around, and the intial plan was simply to make it into a Dalek from the Dr. Who series. Since the trash can already provides half the shape, the original idea was just to build a simple dome head for the top and call it done. But as I started to plan it out in my mind, I realized I had the time and supplies to take it further. ...