Friday 2/29

We will be meeting in the woodshop. This is the final week to work on your projects and the next week will be your final presentations of projects.

oven base and flagstone for patio... very heavy :)

solar powered cell phone charger and usb power plug point

an alternative to wind turbines

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4224763.html

Well I had surgery over the weekend, but you know what they say... what does not kill you, only makes you stranger. So it’s all good!!! I finished the box for the unit I will be using; as soon as I find a computer with an SD card reader on campus, I will transfer photos of it to this blog site. Now comes the fun stuff... I get to play with lots of wires and stuff, this thing is going to be pretty interesting looking due to fact that I have been cannibalizing a lot of my electrical stuff. So when I'm done this thing it might look like kin of Frankenstein. One things for sure... I am tired of calling it "it", so I will have to come up with a name soon. Well I need to get my sleep, so I will blog again tomorrow after I mess with the innards. Thanks for reading, chow. Matthew

cement footing

garden box i built this weekend

Next week

We will be meeting in the Woodshop all of next week.

Attendance for this class is very poor and anyone who has missed more than 2 classes will start to see it affect their final grade by 5%/day. I you are working on your project at home then I need to see pictures of what you are doing on the blog.

todays work...

today i built a small retaining wall and on the other side of it I dug out the oven oval form and side counters.... i will stack concrete blocks to create the base of my oven.

How things are going...

ok so I know some of you are probably wondering how my oven progress is going. First I have to say that all the "prep" work has been the hardest part so far! But doing it all by myself is rewarding and I am learning how to my tools better each day. The weather lately has been great, allowing me to spend most days outside digging a level surface to place the oven. Since I am incorporating this oven into an overall backyard re-design, I made the half circle area around 12ft in diameter. Below are a bunch of sketchs, and pictures of my work so far.

First I dug out and layed the pavers next to my back door. The area before was completely muddy and made it really hard to go back and forth on. The six square blocks on the outside are going to be replace with the glass blocks that will be lit up from my SOLAR PANEL! yey. I am also putting in some stairs there to get up to the back yard area.

The area where the oven/ firepit will be.

Today I am finishing leveling the surface. Tomorrow I am pouring the concrete slab that will go under my oven and act as the foundational support.

Next Saturday the 27th I want to invite everyone over to my house (SE off of Milwaukie). We can finish the oven ( apply the cob layers ) and fire it up for some food and drinks...

hopefully it will look as nice as this one!

TRAM

I am not sure if the class already discovered this but the tram is closed today Monday the 15th.... :(

skippin class

Well this has nothing to do with my usb and cell phone solar charger that I am going to try to build, but I decided to let everyone know of an art lecture I attended in lieu of a biology lesson. Most Monday nights in Shattuck Hall Annex at 7:30 an artist will conduct a lecture for free, open to the general public; even you! Normally I'm in class but tonight I went to a lecture conducted by Paul Ramírez Jonas from Honduras.

He started his lecture showing a statue of a brass man on top a horse surrounded by real live soldiers. Then Paul Ramírez Jonas let us know that the brass man was the town hero from where Mr. Jonas was from; so when Paul Ramírez Jonas let us know that his fellow countryman assassinated their hero I instantly thought this was going to be an interesting and funny lecture. Paul Ramírez Jonas made me think of politicians politics and their audiences in a whole new light… oh yea he even talked about art!

Matt

solar powered usb project

Well I have gotten all of the stuff I need for my solar powered usb and cell phone charger that I intend to pack off into the woods yet still be able to use my stuff without house hold current… and I am pretty excited. Even though I haven’t hardwired everything yet I was able to find out thru a series of just holding wires to the different things; I noticed everything is going to work. I was able to make sure the solar panel can charge the nicads (nickel cadmium 600 ahamp) the cell phone will take a charge from the Turbo Charger, the turbo charger is happy with the three nicads as a power source (which is what is going to power my cell phone). So long story everything is going to work. Now I need to start thinking of some sort of pretty box to put everything in. And ps if you have an apple phone ,Turbo Charger has an apple version (apple phones tend to be picky on non apple products; I think they want you to go to the apple store)! See yall in class Matt.

solar powered bicycle

http://www.solarpoweredbike.com/

Water-saving: Dual-flush toilet converter

hey all,

So I missed class today, and figured I should probably post something I'd mentioned on Friday:
http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3856605

I don't know that I can afford to purchase one right now....
But I'm wondering whether it would be possible to make something like this.

What does everyone else think?
Is there anyone who, after following the link, might consider getting one for themselves?

- Joseph