Posts Tagged ‘gizmo’

Popper Piñata

Monday, January 16th, 2012

Tonight I opened the wrong photo catalog, 2010, but there was tons of stuff in there I never got around to blogging about, like the nifty piñata that Jesse and I made for Penelope’s 1st (and Yash’s 2nd) birthday.

You don’t hit it, but it is full of good stuff. It’s related to those string pulling piñatas that don’t work very well, the hole at the bottom is never big enough, so after the kids pull the string and the bottom pops open, a few sad pieces of candy fall out and a grownup has to shake shake shake to get the rest out. SAD!

Not here, we engineered the whole bottom to hinge open. And it had to be enormous and make lots of noise and mayhem. So we used a dozen and half party poppers (so everyone would get one) to hold the bottom shut. This is the bottom, you can imagine how when the strings are pulled they detach from the party poppers and unlatch the bottom. Gives a satisfying smell of gun powder too! We should have put the poppers on the side rather than the bottom though, so the confetti would have shot outwards rather than down, but we weren’t sure it would hold the bottom shut as well.

And of course we had to paint it. The theme of the party was ‘balls’, so we painted the box with circles and filled it with balls. Penelope is only 1 year here!!

And the release video (the audio is kind of sad):

The only snag was we fully set it up too early, and the strings all got tangled up, so we had to sort them out before we could have our piñata. We should have unrolled them as we were handing them out. Lessons for next time, (and more gun powder!) of course next time turned out to be a candy catapult. Learned some lessons on that one too!

What is the coolest piñata or candy-dispersal-device you have made or seen?

Rolling Gingerbread

Monday, December 26th, 2011

This year we did it, we built a rolling graham cracker car/train thing. It rolls! I had to slightly violate our 100% food rule, because I forgot to bring stick pretzels, so the only thing I could find to use for an axle was the stick for a cocktail umbrella… they were there for gingerbread house decorating, so it sorta counts, but I’d like to have a do-over with 100% food. Next time maybe. Although, I think I’ll move on to a counterweight trebuchet… But a car with a gravity weight drive… the belt would be tricky, I could use those sticky gummy ropes, does a candy necklace with elastic in the middle count as food?? Lollypop sticks would also make fine axles come to think of it… Oh, or large candy canes. Does custom pouring hard candy gears count as cheating?

(Direct Youtube video link)

Here is proof that it rolls! The wheels are made out of graham cracker plywood (2-ply) with a hole cut in the center (used a bento circle cutter designed for cutting out eyes from cheese and such) with a Good N’ Plenty stuffed in it, which the tooth-pick-like cocktail umbrella stick stuck into that. The toothpicks go straight through the body of the car. My original plan was to build box tubes under the car and run stick pretzel axels through them, this is cleaner and simpler, but disappointingly not 100% food based.

(Direct Youtube video link)

Here is Jesse’s micro car, with Necco wafer wheels and similar toothpick construction.

Previous years:
2010: Gingerbread Marble Run
2009: Gingerbread Castle

Gingerbread Marble Run

Saturday, January 8th, 2011

Is it unseasonal to post this now? I should start pre-dating all my holiday activities a year in the future so people see them at ‘appropriate’ times. Whatever. When my kids are older I’ll magically become more organized…

Also, there is no gingerbread or actual marbles involved in this… it should be titled “Graham Cracker and Everlasting Gobbstopper Run”, but…

Every year (okay, maybe every other…) we build a gingerbread house, usually at a big party with our friends, which we used to host, but due to living in a tiny house this year Chris hosted it, which was AWESOME of her. This year we couldn’t get inspired over any particular architectural undertaking, although there are some awesome modern gingerbread houses, and super realistic ones, and, oh dear, prison yards and peep shows… But, gizmos are always good around here, so we went for the rolling candy castle. We ran out of time (carefully mitering gingerbread strips takes time!) to really decorate this, so it’s not very candylandish, but it does run! And that’s the important thing around here, or is it?

Proof (here’s the straight link if the embedding is being flakey…):

Hopefully that video link thing works for you.

Awesome? We think so. And I should clarify, we is me and my eternal partner in gizmology, my awesome husband Jesse.

Next year, unless we do something totally different which is probably what will happen, it would be cool to go for taller, add tunnels, and some ^ points where the ‘marbles’ can split directions. How about plinko? Perhaps a rolling car? So many possibilities once you get away from just ‘house’.

Singing Snakes Prototypes

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

snakes

Ever since reading The Monster Show: Everything You Never Knew About Monsters almost a year ago, Rebecca has wanted singing snakes on her birthday cake. Well, her birthday is coming up, so it’s time to get started… Currently the plan is to make rotating fabric snakes on a drinking straw and spinning LEGO armature. Hmm. And I’m kind of running out of time.