Here's a project from a couple of weeks ago, that I forgot to post:
"Big deal," you say, "It's an ugly box."
Ah, but what's under the box?
This is the exhaust fan in our kitchen, which goes directly out through the back wall of the house. There's a little pull chain that turns the fan on and off, and also opens and closes a panel on the back of the house. It's pretty effective at clearing the kitchen of smoke on those occasions when I burn something, but really ugly, and drafty, too.
So, a few weeks back, I went to Lowe's and bought a bunch of pieces of wood, some weather stripping, and a couple of hinges, and made this box. It cuts the draft way down, and while it's nothing all that special to look at, it's less ugly than the fan.
It's not like this is going to get me work as a contractor if the whole "tenured college professor" gig gets stale, but it's nice to feel like I can do useful things around the house, from time to time.
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Really, it's the (TI-30a?) calculator that makes the picture.
Seriously, you have a HAND CALCULATOR? And it's not even like a cool HP one?
It does the job, and it's too ugly to inspire people to do other carpentry jobs for them (have to watch out for that). I'd say it's just about perfect.
Doh! should be "too ugly to inspire people to ask you to do carpentry jobs for them...
Anyway, just right.
We have nearly the same fan in our kitchen. But it's at head level, kinda in the corner, so we don't have to look at it much. And somehow it doesn't seem to be drafty.
Only a scientist would use a calculator as a reference length in a picture!
"Here we see the fan, which as you can see measures around 2SC in diameter(SC = Standard Calculators, 1SC = 0.2m)"
Hey, the calculator works as a size reference, doesn't it?
My engineering students are always asking me how to do some arcane operation or another on their gigantic HP graphing calculators. When I tell them that the only calculator I use is one of these little TI jobs, they look at me like I sprouted an extra head. I make many fewer mistakes using it than they do with the fancy HP ones, though, because I don't try to make it do the work for me.
I'd probably use the modern calculators if I knew how to, but I still use the one I bought 20 years ago (it's not here with me, so I can't remember what it's called; it's pretty cool, though, opens out and has a touchpad on the inside flap so the specialised buttons are large enough for my clumsy fingers).
I was going to ask if the next picture would be of that POS calculator being fed through the fan, like the blender guy.
Chad, you do know that the FE exam does not allow any "fancy" graphing calculators, right? Top end is the HP33s, although I prefer the Casio fx115 or a Sharp (with pi and exp as first functions). Tell your future engineers that they should use the calculator they can use on professional exams (unless they are allowed to use a computer running Maple, etc).
I still occasionally use an "Electronic Slide Rule" calculator purchased from Sears in 1973 for the princely sum of $179. My daughters regard it as a peculiarity -- not quite as weird as the honest-to-goodness Pickett slide rule in my desk drawer, but pretty strange. I doubt that either device would serve as a useful reference scale, these days.
For me, the most important furnction of a calculator is to be there, so mine has to fit into my pocket (shirt pocket, no protector). Anything requiring more complicated calculations gets done by Fortran.
It's not like this is going to get me work as a contractor if the whole "tenured college professor" gig gets stale
How about manufacturing fake antiques instead? That box looks old :)
The exhaust Fan just looks like my