3D Prints July 2025

July 31, 2025 7:12 pm

After getting the 2 expansions for Heat: Pedal to the Metal I needed an organizer. As sold you can’t consolidate all the components into the original box. The box, however, does have plenty of room once you remove the original insert. My design criteria included that it needed to fit with no lid lift and in such a way that turning the box sideways or upside down wouldn’t make a mess.

I found one existing organizer design, but didn’t like it and decided to make my own. After many hours of designing, tweaking, redesigning, poking, and prodding I completed it. I’m pretty happy with it.

It’s available on MakerWorld: https://makerworld.com/en/models/1586245-heat-pedal-to-the-metal-expansions-no-lid-lift#profileId-1669993

Or get it directly from here:

I also finally completed, in preparation for the upcoming family reunion, the model of the Dickerson family house in Cromwell. I had been working on it last autumn, needed some details about the porch over the old garage, got them in the winter, and then couldn’t decide what to do with the model. To print it big enough for the smallest details to come out was going to require it be something like 11″ in the longest dimension. Too big. But also, it was going to need a lot of supports due to the roof overhangs and that was going to be a pain.

I finally decided to drop the finest details and modify the overhangs to be printable by adding subtle arches underneath them or removing sections that simply couldn’t be printed without supports. I then printed one for my parents and for each sibling and gave them out at the family reunion.

And only now as I’m writing this do I realize I never took pictures of all the printed houses! Lame. So here are some pictures of my prototype printed in purple. The final ones were printed in blue on a green base with some minor tweaks to improve issues I found in the prototype. I’m been considering printing one for myself in grey and painting it, but haven’t made up my mind yet.

Games July 2025

July 30, 2025 6:44 pm

I won another game of Hardback. The “fan fiction” mods make for some interesting tweaks to the game play.

Jess and I played Harvest with friends. Definitely a game you need to play a few times to get a feel for the timing of tasks and nuances of resource management. I lost.

Played Heat at the board game meetup. We played the Tunnel Vision expansion. It adds one track that has a slight nuance to it and a few new cards (as well as parts for another player). I lost.

Played a game of Everdell with Jess. I won.

Vantage was just released and arrived before we left on vacation. I got it to the table for the family before leaving since I was excited about it. It’s a cooperative exploration game where the point is to enjoy the journey. So it’s not really about winning or losing, but we were successful in achieving our mission goal.

The girls had a blast and we did smoothies for dinner to keep playing and then played past their bedtime and they were insistent we play again the next day.

It’s chill. You wander around this planet discovering people and places and secrets. You can pursue a mission goal or just enjoy the journey.

Books July 2025

5:45 pm

Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson

Set during the end of the Scientific Revolution we get a historical-fiction look into the lives of members of the Royal Society and Louis XIV’s court as well as happenings around the world. Court intrigue. Vagabond action and adventure. Scientific discovery. Technical advancement.

Long. Very long. 944 pages in print. But I enjoyed the story. Not sure how much appeal it would have to someone with no existing knowledge of Newton, Hook, Huygens, Leibniz, Louis XIV, etc.

A Burglar’s Guide to the City by Geoff Manaugh

Nominally a discussion on urban design and architecture and its impact on criminology, but I was a little disappointed in the depth. Can’t put my finger on exactly what was missing, but I wanted more.

Quicksilver took up most of June and after Burglar’s Guide I started the 2nd book in the Baroque Cycle which I haven’t finished by the end of July.