Apple Cider Donuts

October 22, 2024 7:27 pm

Decided to try making apple cider donuts this year. I needed a donut cutter, so I found one online and printed it out. Worked perfect, but the design was flawed. Not a strong connection between the cutting edge and the "handle" and it separated as I was washing it. I'll have to design a better one, just need to add a curved reinforcement around the inside and outside of each cutting edge. Trivial and too bad it wasn't included in the model I found already.

Donuts came out pretty well for a first attempt. I followed the America's Test Kitchen recipe which uses apple juice concentrate instead of boiling down cider. Fried them in the Dutch oven.

3D Prints September 2024

September 30, 2024 5:44 pm

Just a few things this month.

First a cover for an RSA OTP token. Due to security changes at work I now have to have 2 of these and needed a way to differentiate which one was for which system. So I designed and printed this little cover and also printed a few for coworkers.

I did the design in SolveSpace and then put the text on in Bambu Studio. My first attempt was not strong enough and the "legs" snapped off almost immediately, but this version seems to be holding up really well.

STL Files (no text on cover):

For Jess' birthday adventure I needed a key with an embedded magnet and a "lock" with a contact sensor inside. So I designed and printed those.

I wanted some autumn-themed sugar cookies, but our big bin of cookie cutters has no leaves in it (it has Halloween stuff). So I found some leaf-shaped cookie cutters and printed them. I took the cookies to work and, whoops, they all got eaten and I didn't take a picture of them.

I believe I used this model for the Maple leaf: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1149605/files

And this model for the Oak and what-they're-calling-Elm leaves: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4675537

Games September 2024

5:34 pm

Didn't get a ton of gaming in this month. Board game group moved to a new location because the restaurant we were at was grumpy with our existence. I think the group is quite well mannered and we've never taken up so much space that they couldn't seat other guests, but they felt we weren't spending enough money so asked us to find somewhere else to go. Which, fine, that's their prerogative, but groups like this meet on Tuesdays because restaurants tend to be dead so our presence is just extra money with little work for them. The last night we met there they had a total of 4 other tables the whole evening.

Anyway. We're trying a new location, however the new location is a brewery and limited to 21 and over so we'll likely keep looking for locations since there were often people in attendance that now can't attend.

Played the first scenario of Peacemakers: Horrors of War again with 2 players at the meetup. We were successful in ending the conflict.

At the next meetup we played Heat with a full group of six. I'm still really enjoying the game. I did not win this time. I believe I came in 4th due to poorly handling the final 2 turns.

Celebrating Jess' birthday we played Everdell with a friend (without any expansions to keep it a little more simple). Jess won handily.

And the following weekend, to further celebrate Jess' birthday with other friends, we played Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle. We played Year 4, without any expansions, and were victorious.