Little Rhody

An odd progression of seasons in 2024.  Usually spring arrives right about when I'm heading overseas on the annual archaeology jaunt.  The most dramatic consequence of this is that for the past fifteen years (other than the ##%%## Covid Times) I've missed our rhododendron bush in its roughly 72 hours of floral glory.  But this year:

Pretty impressive sight in late April.

In discussing the matter it came to light that I was confused regards the name.  I was pretty sure that it had to do with the Greek letter Rho.  Or....wasn't Cecil Rhodes - 19th century adventurer/scoundrel - associated with something wholesome?  

Actually, Rhododendron means "rose tree", which is a fair description.  I'm calling this one little because we've seen examples down in Cornwall that were nearly 100 feet tall.  Little Rhody is also of course a nick name for Rhode Island.  

Now, there is also a Greek island called Rhodes.  Once the location of the famous Colossus. And where did it get its name?  Some try to link it with the Greek rhodon which does mean rose.  After all roses still grow on Rhodes.  But actually, as with many Greek things there was a randy Greek god and a nymph involved, the latter named Rhode.  Guess it mostly worked out as she and Helios stayed together long enough to have her bear him seven sons.

I went looking for pictures of the large Rhodys we saw back in 2014 but instead came across this example that put ours to shame....

Oh, and Cecil Rhodes.  Tried to atone for his sundry misdeeds by establishing the Rhodes Scholar program.  Something that has been enjoyed by many future political animals and as such thus far hands off for those who would like to cancel the past.  

Prelude to Archaeology - 2024

I've mentioned it a while back, but this year's spring digging jaunt will again be to England, but to a different site along Hadrian's Wall.  

In other years I've been at Vindolanda, a Roman fort side run by the Trust of the same name.  Well, the Vindolanda Trust has a second site called Magna.  About 6 miles away, it had a preliminary dig last year and gets a full season/full teams excavation for 2024.

Anyway, just a couple of weeks now.  Almost within the long range - albeit inaccurate - weather forecasts that allow for final packing decisions.   A few views of Magna 2024....

The site before excavations.  It's mostly top layers on down this year.  Lots of cobbles.

The first crew on the site, well, they never got sunburned...

Recently a sharp eyed volunteer spotted a tiny glass bead covered in gold foil.  Somebody was sad to lose this 18 centuries ago.

I hope, nay, expect to be equally keen eyed.  After many years of doing this my archaeological "scanners" never turn off.  On my daily dog walks I'm always spotting coins and such, often at considerable distances.  

ADDENDUM

And here's the Latest.  A well!  Who knows what's at the bottom of that.

Wastrels and Scoundrels and Doggerel

I don't know if the world in general thinks much about words, their origins and their meanings.  I do, but must admit that it is a dangerous pursuit.  In our puzzling times - both knowledge and ignorance increasing apace - a word can mean radically different things to different people.  That alone makes the pursuit of etymology more than a minor hobby.  

There are a bunch of words that end with "-rel".  Most of them seem to have negative connotations.

A wastrel wastes things (I suppose typing on a keyboard for the internet counts as wasting time).

A scoundrel is not to be trusted.

Doggerel is bad poetry.

Scoundrel is a word of uncertain origins, possible from the Vulgar Latin (my favorite variant of same) "excondere" meaning to "hide, put away, store".  I'm seeing my ongoing workshop clean up project in a new light now.

Wastrel is easier, combining Waste with what is referred to as the "pejorative suffix" -rel.   Now we are getting somewhere.

Doggerel is simply poetry bad enough that only dogs would appreciate it, or alternatively of a quality suggesting it was written by clumsy puppies.  It would have been a serious zero stars review for a wandering bard when it was first recorded in the 1630's.  Oddly it seems to have been a surname prior to that.  No doubt a good story there, lost to history.

And while we are on matters loyal and furry.....Mongrel.  It comes from the Proto Germanic word "mangjan" meaning to mix things together.  The suffix was tacked on like the tail of a dubious mutt sometime in the 1500's.

I had expected to encounter more words with this suffix.  But about the only other one that seems to still be in circulation is Pickerel.  It had the implication of a small fish in earlier times, but now it designates two delightful piscenes related to the Northern Pike.  I'd like to catch a Chain or American Pickerel someday.  Additions to my Life Species Caught list are getting harder.

Perhaps in a time when we speak negatively about so many things the sting of a "-rel" designation is fading.  We all appreciate a proper scoundrel, so long as we are not the victims of his or her behaviour.  Wastrelry is in the eye of the beholder.  I devote time, energy and pocket change to my grandchildren in ways that are frankly a bit ridiculous.

And regards mongrels....big fan.  I don't specifically read poetry to mine but I talk to him on a regular basis and he's a great audience.

He has been known to express impatience/disapproval, usually with a shake of his head and a loud sneeze.  But I'm thinking any poetry I recite that contains the words "Walk, Food, and Out" would be well received indeed.

Robotics 2024 - Random Odd Things.....

The FIRST Robotics competition season is over, but the work goes on.  We are starting to recruit for what will be a major training effort.  Graduating nine seniors tends to do that.  And we have lots of things to ponder regards team organization, which areas to concentrate our prototyping on, etc.  But first, and FIRST, lets tidy up some random things that have been sitting around....

No, not some strange new robot mechanism.  The pit crew was very excited when we got them a vacuum cleaner that runs off the same Milwaukee tool battery packs as our drills and other power tools.  It helps keep things clean in our build space and in our competition pit.  The excitement over a vacuum cleaner?   Well, these are small town kids who get excited by the escalators in one of our competition venues....

Testing your robot requires a degree of driving beyond gentle steering.  And with our plywood prototype field elements that poses an issue.  So....we found some bags of cement sitting around the shop!  The stuff taped to the back of the tool cabinet are extra pieces of polycarbonate for robot repairs at the event.  Thankfully these at least were not needed...

Opinions vary, but mine is that this year's game was sub par.  Among other things, the game pieces were not robust.  Immediately everyone's mechanisms started generating bits of orange debris we called Cheezit Dust.  Eventually the rings just broke.

You'd think that all these years of robot stuff and I'd know things like this, but recently I learned the origins of the "Mr. Roboto" song.  As this year's game had a musical theme it should not have been a surprise that a team from up the road a ways had a decorative device based on this:

Pretty clever, it is a wooden "record player" built into the structure and launching mechanism of their robot.  Oh, but it gets cooler....

And as long as I'm trying to embed video clips into a blog running on 20 year old software.....

You may recall that there were a number of team to team awards being given out this year.  We got several including a "Cooperatition Award" made from an old 45 that had been painted and had decals applied to it.  So.....could you still play it?  And what would you hear?????

Feckless and to No Effect

I try to be apolitical in what I write.  Most Screeds on the internet serve no purpose and are penned by folks who are simply looking to validate things they already believe.  Their time would be better spent studying how their beliefs actually work in the real world.

But I will say that the ability of our political leaders to actually get things done seems to have dropped precipitously in recent decades.  I'm old enough to remember when goals like "get to the moon in the next ten years" were taken seriously.  And accomplished.

No, what we have at present are feckless leaders.

Feckless is an odd, little used word.  I'm sure that is in part because it is to the careless ear a bit too much like a profanity that is so freely employed by the vocabulary challenged.  

Like so many of our guttural yet pithy words "feck" is of Scottish origin.  It dates back to the 15th century and means "value or vigor" being as it is a Caledonian shortening of "effect".  

And like so many of our refined and elegant words "Effect" goes back to Latin by way of French.  "Effectus" meaning "Accomplishment or Performance".  Feckless is simply a haggis flavored variation on ineffectual. 

So much goes back to the Romans.  We still have populism versus elitism, still have corruption and nepotism.  

To show how little new there is under the sun I put forward the term nepotism.  It comes from the Italian for "nephew" (originally of course the Latin "nepote") and reflects the practice of steering lucrative jobs to family members.  The subtext being that it was often the Pope's "nephew" , and that this was a universally acknowledged term for an unacknowledged child of said Pope!

Sigh.  Sweetheart deals going to sons, uncles and brothers.  Unacknowledged children.  How little things have changed.

Non Zero Odds of a Stinkbug

I'm occasionally advised that turning a Dixie Cup upside down is Wrong, yet another example of the Error of my Ways.

To which I'd respond that the odds of a Brown Marmorated Stink Bug  (YUCK! ) crawling in there, while not high, cannot be regarded as zero.....

Catfish Geocache

Sometimes there is a logical progression from one "season" to another.  As the robotics storage closet got cleared out I, as usual, got a bunch of stuff that had to come home with me.  I refer to my basement as Area 51.  And some things actually proved useful for geocache construction.

I take my geocaches seriously.  Oh, lots of folks just cram a piece of paper into a film container, maybe add a little camo tape and call it good.  I regard that as unambitious.  I want my containers to look cool and to remain water and damage proof for years.  Trying to keep up roughly 30 caches when I'm busy with other things is a pain.

One series I've had fun with is Strange Fish.  I try to catch some weird denizen of the muddy depths, then commemorate them with a geocache on the spot.  When possible, in the shape of a fish.

One of these was Channel Cat, Strange Fish number 6.  

It was getting a bit weathered and beat up after a couple of winters "in the wild".  Time for a new one.

Lets start with a section of PVC pipe.

When you want something to be waterproof....start with a pipe designed to keep water in.  Should work to keep it out too.  There are end caps that we'll get to shortly, but I wanted this to look a bit "fishier".  A series of plastic discs cut with a hole saw and glued into place.  The bolt is tightened in and serves as an anchor point for the tail.

Like everything else so far, the tail is made of old robot supplies, in this case thin polycarbonate plastic, later covered with black duct tape.

Tail assembled, attached and covered, similar set of fins made the same way.

The head is just an end cap, not glued on of course, with a couple of bolts for eyes.  Memo to self, purchase more stick on googly eyes.  The cache now being near complete it only required a bit of covering tape( the grippy stuff used on baseball bats) and whiskers, and to be released into the wild....

I know it does not look too much like a channel catfish, but I enjoy a bit of whimsey in such matters.  There are various ways to mount these with hangers and such, but the head is press fit well enough that a ground hide should be fine, especially since the paper log and a small pencil are contained inside a heavy duty ziplock.

I look forward to refining the technique further to approximate other Strange Fish.  Good thing I don't live near an ocean, a flounder would be a tough mod!

Tree Shaped Tombstones - Full Kit in Rural Indiana

My brother was off chasing the eclipse recently and ran across some impressive Tree Shaped Tombstones in very rural Indiana.  Civil War vets, obviously.

Here's a long row in Cornettsville, IN.  The one in front has either a generic shroud or perhaps a soldier's cloak hanging off the upper limb.  And a very nice ruck sack and bed roll down at the base.  Ready one supposes to be taken up again in The Next Life.  There's also a musket but you can't see it well in this view.

On the other hand, here's the marker of a certain Jacob McCann in Plainville, IN.  Nearly identical, note the pack and bed roll down and to the right.

Jacob still has someone putting flowers on his grave.  Right down front below the canteen.

Chippewa City - A Gently Fading Ghost Town

When you think of Ghost Towns you usually imagine somewhere out west.  Maybe a prospector struck gold and the town sprang up overnight....only to wither and die when the lode ran out.  A life cycle that starts with nothing, booms into full life, then rapidly fades leaving only some tumbledown buildings to remember that it was ever there.

But there are other life cycles for Ghosts, and Chippewa City has had three or four stages of existence.

Technically it got going in 1825.  That's when a treaty was signed in which the Ojibwa natives gave up rights to some of Wisconsin.  And as a provision of this treaty a combination farm, trading post and blacksmith shop was to be established at a convenient point on the Chippewa River.  After some delays it seems this was actually done in 1838.

There was frankly very little European presence in this area for many years.  One event of note that did occur here was a summit meeting of sorts between the Ojibwa and Dakota tribes.  These groups had been contesting the area for several generations.  They met, gestured a bit, went their own ways and remained antagonistic towards each other.

There is little information on what was at the site later to become Chippewa City in these early days.  A Lyman Warren had a log dwelling and presumably was in charge of things.  He had an Ojibwa wife and remarkably, a library.  This was also the site of the American Fur Company post.

In 1856 there was a rumor that the railroad would come to this spot and build a bridge.  The economic impact of this would be gigantic, probably putting Chippewa City on a path to eclipse its rival, the later established town of Chippewa Falls five miles down stream.  A bank was established, at least on paper.  There land was surveyed and platted.  Homes and of course saloons appeared.

It was an illusion.  Or yet another real estate scam.  After this brief second phase as a true boom town Chippewa City began its long decline.  Here's a plat of the area in the early 1870's.

By 1888 things had changed.  The originally platted village was mostly abandoned and there were newer buildings along a road that had since appeared.  Note the school and post office.  There was also said to be a church.  The peak population of Chippewa City somewhere in this time span was around 200.

Looking at these two maps something very odd strikes me.  The mill is in the wrong place.  Pretty clearly O'Neill Creek has been dammed to form a mill pond, so why is the mill that far away, and up a hillside to boot?  Not all these maps tell the gospel truth, and in my reading I have come across references both to a mill near the pond and an unspecified "Eagle Steam Mill".

The world has passed Chippewa City by.  No railroad.  The lumbering industry sent all the logs right on past to the larger and more powerful sawmill at Chippewa Falls.  But there were still people living here.  The farmland around it was filling up and there was a need for a few basics.  School for the kids.  Salvation for everybody.  I'd be surprised if there was not a store.  

But with the advent of automobiles it became less important to have these things in walking distance.  And the third phase of Chippewa City's life was related to the new mobility.

People wanted recreation.  They wanted to stay in a cabin for a week or two.  Go fishing.  Maybe have a beer or two.  So a resort appeared.  This post card is in the archives of the Wisconsin Historical Society.  It is thought to be from the 1920's.

From the same source, a detail of one of the images....

If that indeed is the proprietor, Prosper LeDuc, then I suspect the photo might be later.  With a name that distinctive you'll pick up a few biographical details.  Prosper was evidently from the area but was living in Montana in 1909, and in Canada in both 1928 and 1934.  He and Mrs. Leduc were married sometime around 1910.  To me these look like people in their 50's, even given the hard work associated with these times.  The first I can definitely place him in Chippewa City is 1938.   

Here's the spot today.

And down by the river, what looks to be remains of a stone dam that once held back the mill pond.

The cabins from (?) the 1940's are slowly falling apart.  The tavern is gone other than a wind mangled sign advertising a brand of beer that is also extinct.  But people still live here.  It is after all a very pretty spot on the river and a string of nice new homes along the river represent a fourth wave of life in the oldest community along this stretch of the Chippewa River.

If such things are of interest I do have a geocache here.....   Ghost Town on the Chippewa

FIRST Robotics 2024 - Final Competition Report

The 2024 competition season is over.  It had its odd moments.  Our first tournament was in very early March.  We went up to Duluth Minnesota, about half way to the Arctic Circle, and had shirt sleeve weather.  Our second event was in early April and was a couple hundred miles to the south.  We set out in a blizzard.  

There was a lot of hard work in the intervening weeks.  The robot was simplified and where possible strengthened.  And unsurprisingly we did much better.  A 6-4 record and a ranking of 16th out of 54 teams.  Perhaps the highlight was a match where we were tasked to play defense against the number one ranked robot at the event.  We handed them their only loss of the weekend.

Ah, but constant pounding took its toll.  By our final matches it was obvious we had stressed the robot past its design limitations.  In retrospect an open eyed look at this year's game should have noted that in an era of powerful new brushless motors, and in a game with no "speed bumps" that survivability needed to take precedence over sophistication.

Finishing 16th one might reasonably expect to be selected as an alliance partner - after all, who does not need a defensive goon? - but it was not to be.  And despite some of our team being disappointed this was a proper call.  When we return to the upper tiers of robots next year it is a principle worth remembering.

But, it was still a good event.  Interestingly we got three bits of recognition from other teams.  Maybe this is a new thing, but I don't recall this happening in prior events...

One is for just being good sports.  One is for the "Hardest Working Robot".  I don't know what RISE design means.  Perhaps Robot Is Still (in) Existence.  The sports cliché "Leaving it all out on the floor" was actually true by our final match, although the bits of debris involved were not vital parts.

I'll have some further robot event pictures and thoughts in a bit.  Perhaps best to close with an official award the team was also given.  Gracious Professionalism.  And yes, that's a mangled part on the table behind the award.

Very nice, and I think a suitable recognition for a team that never gave up, never got discouraged and never stopped having fun.

And so the process of building the 2025 team begins, and with a solid base to start from.

Anyway, here's probably our best match of the event.  Ignore the part where we launched a game piece "up into the stands for a lucky fan".

FIRST Robotics 2024 - Lacrosse Tournament Report 2

 

After our sub par performance at our first event we had a plan going into the rebuild phase and on into our second event.  Make the robot be more durable.  Focus on the things we can do well -in some instances very well - and showcase these.  Drive smart.  Don't break it.  Be ready to fix it if you do.  Towards that latter goal we have a back up intake/shooter device built and ready for a swap....hopefully not needed.

The driving and pit crew maintenance has been excellent and we finished the long Friday session with a 4-3 mark and ranked 15 out of 54.  A stunning reversal from....well, best not mention our ranking in the last event.

Sometimes you get an unexpected chance to show off.  In this game you are only allowed to control one "game piece" at a time.  If one of those bright orange donuts get stuck in your robot you are not allowed to pick up another one.  Hey, it happens.  And when it happened to us our very skilled driver switched over to playing pure defense.  I guess it is not up on Youtube quite yet, but she was able to push the opponent robots around like they were baby buggies.  She enjoys this sort of thing a great deal.

Anyway, good times.  Our Friday matches should be viewable at this link:    Seven Rivers

I specify Seven Rivers because I don't want to watch our Duluth matches again and suggest you don't either.  We were having a bad weekend back then.  Better now, no matter what the outcome of tomorrow's three matches may be.  Redemption does not come often in life, and when it does it only comes with hard work and deep thought.  It is a pleasant thing to experience.

FIRST Robotics 2024 - Lacrosse Tournament Report One

 Our customary Pit Cartoons.

Practice matches.  The robot ran quite well but did take a little damage...and with less rough housing than we'll see tomorrow.

The goats are here.

As is Kilroy.  We'll drop in on him in a bit.

FIRST Robotics 2024 - Tournament Bound Again

And here we go again.  The FIRST robotics competition season runs for six weeks.  This year we had the longest possible gap between two events, doing a Week One and now a Week Six event.  And boy howdy, we needed every day of the interval to pull off a complete rebuild of the robot.

Elevator...gone.  Number of motors, down from 17 to 15.  Lots of pulleys, cables, brackets, wires....adios.  It is a cleaner robot and one that has survived several in testing impacts with solid objects.  We'd like more time of course, but here's what the critter could do with four days to deadline....

Actually not bad.  There's fine tuning to do.  We'd like the spin up to taking a shot to be a little shorter.  And the velocity is certainly enough to take shots from further out once the auto tracking systems are tweaked a bit.  In fact it has enough power that it broke the board on the top of our testing target.  Our drive team are confident they can handle it.

The glitches, and the promise of excellence, both are related to the robot's ability to "see" where it is on the field.  It does this with cameras, processors and software algorithms.  It can find, navigate towards and inhale game pieces.  It can go the the right spot on the field.  It can lock onto a target and adjust angles to make the shot.  Usually.

So, how many eyes does this require?

The robot needs binocular vision for three different kinds of targets, so like many spiders it has six "eyes".  Two of them - BETA and GAMMA - are right on the front of the intake, constantly searching for things that look like large, orange bagels....

Well, we'll see how it all works out.  Of course the main goal is the kids learning things.  By that standard it has been an outstanding season.  Building robots is sort of a secondary....

Nimrods - Prophecy of the Six. Full Movie

Yes, this is one of the odder things that I put in front of you on occasion.  Another feature length installment in the Nimrod story.

It makes more sense - but still not total sense - if you've seen the first Nimrod movie.....

Full disclosure.  I have two sons, one current and one future daughter in law, two grandkids and Bill, my taxidermy squirrel spirit animal involved in these two movies.  Also, depending on how gullible you may be, and additional six grandchildren who have been temporarily misplaced.  Hey, that'll happen sometimes.