Ferrofluid table (WIP)

When Nick and I made ferrofluid a while back we knew we wanted to do something cool with it.  This project is what we eventually started work on.  The basic idea is to build a table top that is filled with alcohol and some amount of ferrofluid.  We have a couple neat ideas for what you can do with a table top like that, and we’ve started building a prototype so we can test them out.

The idea that intrigues me most is that of controlling the ferrofluid using an Arduino or some other microcontroller.  Using a grid of electromagnets underneath the tabletop we hope to be able to control a blob of ferrofluid by selectively turning magnet “pixels” on and off.  (Magxels?  Pixnets?  Ten Internet Points to anyone who can coin a better term.)

Our test bed, with the latest tabletop protoype.

Here’s out little test bed.  It’s a 1′ by 1′ wooden stand that we can put our prototype tabletops onto with some space underneath to fit magnets or what have you.  We may need to build another version of this bad boy so that we have a little more room for electronics.

The electronic heart of our operation: an Arduino Uno drives four of these relays we got from our good friends at American Science.  We had to put diodes across them to keep inductive kickback from frying our transistors when we switched them off.

Our next step is to build a tabletop mk II.  The tabletop mk I was an excellent messy failure.  Lots of lessons learned, lots of funny looks.  Good times.  For mk II we’ll be using the Arduino power board designed by IdeaPDish which we probably would have had to make ourselves if he hadn’t beat us to it (thanks Steve!).

With our powers combined: the best breakfasts from Ireland and Israel

We recently (and not so recently) visited Ireland and Israel.  We had a great time in both places and brought back some of our tastiest breakfasts from each place.  From Israel we took shakshuka, which is basically eggs poached in a delicious spicy tomato sauce.  From Ireland came the Irish breakfast, which apparently varies somewhat depending on which region you’re in but consisted mainly of fried eggs, fried mushrooms and tomatoes, baked beans and a variety of sausages, blood and otherwise.  We’ve been making these pretty regularly since we brought them back (shakshuka is now my go to breakfast for impressing people).  A couple weeks ago I came up with idea of combining the two, and thus shakshirish was born!

Ingredients (we didn’t go shopping specially for this, we just happened to have most of what we needed on hand):
3 tomatoes (ours were from  Frog Holler Organic Farm)
1 onion
3-5 cloves of garlic (I don’t remember exactly, I just like garlic, OK)
a handful of mushrooms
1 can of baked beans (vegetarian)
1 red pepper (I didn’t have one, but I would have used it if I did)
3 veggie sausage links (feel free to use the meaty kind if that’s your thing)
4 eggs
Spices: garlic powder, zhatar, cayenne pepper, cumin, paprika, schug (if you have it)

Sidebar: If you can figure out how to have friends who work on organic farms I highly recommend it.  Every time they come to visit we get more delicious organic goodness than we know what to do with.

Tools: a pan with a lid and a wooden spoon

Wash and destem the mushrooms.  Dice the onions, most of the garlic and the mushroom stems.  Slice the peppers into thin strips.

Heat up some oil in your pan and toss in the diced/sliced veggies, the whole mushrooms and the sausages.  I left the sausage whole, but it’d probably be pretty damn good if you broke it up (especially if you’re using actual sausage).

Dice the tomatoes and toss ‘em in when the veggies are starting to get soft.

Add your spices.  It’s supposed to be spicy and piquant.  You probably won’t need the cayenne if you’re using schug.

Drain your beans while that cooks down a little bit.  I saved the sauce in case I needed more liquid, but I didn’t end up using it.

Once the tomatoes are starting to soften up, dump in that can of beans and stir it up.  Lower the heat a bit and simmer for a while until the consistency is a thick but not dry.  Remember that you’re cooking the eggs in the sauce, so it needs to be liquid enough for that, but not too wet or the eggs will sink through (more of an issue when you’re cooking for a party in a big ass wok).

Once the consistency looks right, make a little indentation with the back of your spoon and crack an egg into it.  I tried to position a mushrooom in the indentation so the yolk would land where the stem used to be, but my mushrooms were too small for that to work.  I like to sprinkle zhatar, garlic powder, cayenne and paprika at this point to make the eggs look all pretty.

Right after I put the eggs in.

Cover partially, lower the temperature to medium and simmer until the eggs are done (I like mine pretty soft).  If you’re cooking for people who like differently done eggs, only cover two of the eggs so you can get two hard and two soft.

Serve with toast, hummus coffee.

Maybe I just don’t know the Irish spice palette very well, but it turned out tasting mostly like shakshuka and not too Irishy.  I’m open to suggestions as to how make this a more even combination.  Deana suggested just doing the Irish breakfast alongside a normal shakshuka, which sounds pretty damn good.

Thing-A-Day Day 15: Vertical Garden

I’ve been building a vertical garden with my brother, on and off, for the last couple of weeks.  We’d already assembled the frame, and today we installed the watering system.  Below is a video from last week’s 300 Seconds of Fame at Pumping Station: One.

I had a friend take some pictures of it today and I’ll post them as soon as she gets them to me (Anne).

Thing-A-Day Day 13: Compass Night Light

This past week has been pretty hectic at work, so I haven’t been keeping up with Thing-A-Day, but I’m getting back on track as of today.

The basis for today’s project was a Chanukah present I got from my parents: a compass from an airplane.

The tag says "Airplane Compass | Made in Chicago | Does not point North"

It has a bulb built into it already.

All it took was some solder and a power supply and I had myself a nice little night light.

Thing-A-Day: Day 5

On day three I tried to make banana muffins, but when I started preheating the oven a nasty smell filled up the apartment.  This is the brand new oven in our new apartment, so we were understandably confused.  Turns out, you need to leave new ovens on for 30 minutes at 400 degrees before you use them.  After talking to the landlord and finding this out, I was all set to make some muffins.

I used this recipe, but used less sugar because I got confused with another recipe I had been considering where all the comments indicated it was too sweet.  I also added dried cranberries, chocolate chips and walnuts.  The muffins turned out pretty tasty, although they could probably have used more  cranberries, chocolate chips, walnuts and sugar.  Still, for my first muffins ever, they turned out pretty well.  We’ve been putting apple butter on them to sweeten them up, and it’s been working great.

Thing-A-Day Day Two: Hollow Book Continued

I’ve mostly finished the hollow book I started yesterday.  I cleared the pages down to back of the book, except in the corners where my dull exacto knife couldn’t cut.  It doesn’t look that great, but it’s usable.  I gave the inside a coat of watered down glue to give the walls some structural integrity and it’s sitting with a weight on it.  I may try to clean it up a bit sometime later this month.  The spine was broken already (part of the reason I chose this book), so cleaning up the inside and fixing the spine might be a project for another night.

I can’t say I’m happy with the way it turned out — it’s definitely not something I want to show off to people.  With that said, it was fun to do, and turned out pretty well given the lack of tools. materials or planning.

Thing-A-Day Day One: A Hollow Book

Today did not go exactly as planned.  I wanted to kick off Thing-A-Day with something substantial, so I was originally planning to go to Pumping Station: One and finish the construction of a vertical garden I started with my brother.  Unfortuneately Snowpocalypse had other ideas and I ended up at home.  Due to my recent move, my tools and materials are in quite a bit of disarray, so my options were fairly limited.

I ended up starting a hollow book.  I found some directions over here and started looking for a book to chop up.  I went with an old Harvard Collection Philosophy book that I, uh, borrowed from the library ~10 years ago.  I didn’t get too far.  I glued the sides together and got about 1/4 inch down into the book.  I couldn’t find an appropriate dremel bit, and the one I ended up using gave off some unpleasant smoke.

This wasn’t the way I wanted to kick off this month, but it has been a good lesson in how crucial planning is.  Hopefully I’ll finish this off tomorrow and give myself some time to plan things out for Thursday more carefully.