The Robot Dragster Project-Chapter One

For the Advanced Robotics class this year I decided we would build a robot dragster.

It fulfilled my criteria for this class in that it seemed like a fun project and was one that so far as I can determine has never been attempted with middle school kids.

When you google the term "robot dragster" you certainly find some things, but these are mostly just little RC car based projects or in some cases science class stuff with rubber binders, small CO2 cartridges and so forth.

For goodness sakes, it has wheels made of CDs...

Talk about wimpy.

Surveying the inventory in my Secret Underground Workshop I find quite a few useful components.  Motors of 12 to 24 volt capacity and in various sizes.  Solenoids for switching higher voltages.  Wheels, linear actuators, scrap metal and wood.

So our mission will be to build one or more machines at the upper limits of what we can handle for storage space.  I am thinking about coffee table sized and in the 40 to 60 pound range.  I can see some merits to 12 volt and 24 volt systems, so we will probably build one of each.

The goal is to have one or both operational by mid February, and to then take it out and test it with the local police department on hand with a speed gun.

I will be very disappointed with my minions if they are not able to break the on street speed limit of 25 miles per hour.  But I can see some pesky, pesky engineering challenges that the lads (no girls in the class this time, alas) will have to overcome first.

Hopefully I can post at least a warning ticket made out to the Voyagers Program shortly thereafter!

Stay tuned, updates about once a week, usually on Friday.  Sometimes twice a week when circumstances demand it.  A week off here and there for Santa and the like.

Tree Shaped Tombstones-Some really sad ones

Oh, its rather fun to gad about cemeteries.  Off on a hunt, peering through natural trees trying to find the false ones.  Looking for whimsical flourishes carved into the stone.

Sometimes you forget that there was a real person associated with each marker, and that their passing was usually a sad occasion.  And sometimes a tragic one.

This caught my eye from a distance.  A chair made in the style of the classic tree shaped tombstones.  So what is happening here....

It was where a grieving widow sat and looked upon her husband's grave.

Hermann Grote must have been a pretty good guy.  The odd symbols on the marker probably reflect some sort of lodge membership, perhaps Knights of Pythius?

William Tucker died at age 19.  His family had high hopes for him.  The inscription reads:
OUR WILLIE BELOVED SO DEAR/HOW MANY HOPES WE BURIED HERE
Not great verse, but how heartfelt.....

From a distance you would not guess the sadness in this humble marker.  But zoom in close...

I would have to scrape off moss to be sure-and I won't do that-but it seems to have a word ending in ..OTIE and then WEE BABY.

I thought that was about the saddest tombstone I had ever seen, but then I ran across this one in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  Infant mortality was a fact of life in times past, but Mary Braley died in 1905 at age nine.

Her tombstone reads, Beloved one farewell.

And here is Mary's hat.

Hermann the German

You have to wonder just how much of the troubled history of Europe is the fault of a guy standing on a hill above New Ulm Minnesota.

In the year 9 AD the Roman Empire ruled all of the world that was worth having.  This was under Augustus, who for sure would make anyone's top ten list of great rulers.

One of his generals, a chap named Varus, was a bit too casual about marching around in the forests of some disputed territory on the far side of the Rhine river.  He and his three legions were ambushed and wiped out by a confederacy of German tribes that had united under a leader named Armin, or if you prefer the Latinized version, Arminius.

Arminius was quite the fellow.  He was the son of a German chieftain, who joined the Roman army and rose to officer status before returning to his homeland.  His uniting the fractious tribes for the battle of Teutoburg forest was remarkable-it is not easy to unite Germans on much of anything.

In any event, Augustus took this hard.  He of course sent out punitive missions to slay anyone who seemed to have any culpability.  (Arminus was killed in a local feud, because it is really hard to keep Germans united).  Then the decision was made.  The Empire would grow no further.

Most of his successors agreed, and Europe eventually evolved with a formerly Roman France and a formerly barbarian Germany grumbling at each other across the Rhine river, a boundary set by Augustus himself.

It took until the late 19th century before Germany overcame the petty squabbling business and united again under Otto von Bismarck.  This prompted a renewed interest in their old pal Arminus, whose name had then been simplified to the easier to pronounce "Hermann". (supposedly it was Martin Luther who made the linguistic switcheroo).

A grand monument to Hermann was erected near where the battle of Teutoburg was felt to have happened.

image from Wikimedia, attribution: Apostaloff

At its completion in 1875 this 175 foot tall structure was the tallest monument on earth, although it was shortly eclipsed by the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel tower.

Meanwhile across the pond in the New World....the town of New Ulm, Minnesota was enjoying a post Civil War boom.  Solidly German in its citizenry and proud of their military prowess in repelling a Sioux Indian attack, they thought the Hermannsdenkmal (denkmal translates literally to "a time to think") was a marvelous idea.  They wanted one of their own.

A group was organized called "The Sons of Hermann" and the task was undertaken.  It took a while but the project was completed in the 1880s.  It is more or less a copy of the German original, but on an elevated base allowing a great view of the Minnesota river valley for those willing to pay a small fee to climb up there. It is said to not be a coincidence that a statue of St. Peter, representing Rome, is to be found on the nearby cathedral.  Hermann has his sword held high in victory.  Peter has his point down in defeat.

A few pictures of Hermann the German as he stands above New Ulm Minnesota.  He faces east, so if he is watching for the Roman legions to come marching back for a rematch I guess he is looking in the proper direction.  But the wide gulfs of time and of the Atlantic ocean probably mean that New Ulm will not have to endure another siege.

If you like that sort of thing, the original German version of the Hermannsdenkmal has some fascinating panoramic views.  Lots of Hermann  The website devoted to the monument somehow forgets to mention that it was a frequent target late in the war of allied figher bombers looking for something to strafe.  I guess a hauty German holding a sword just was too tempting to pass up.
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Update 25 Jan, 2013.  I rarely watch TV but caught a glimpse last week of a commercial.  It appeared to show a "Sons of Hermann" lodge.  It had a sort of Texas vibe to it...trucks and barbeque you know. It appears that at least in Texas, the Sons of Hermann is still a going concern!  I got the impression that most branches got caught up in the whole anti-German sentiment wave of 1914 to 1918.

Cartoons and Lampoons

Thinking about the satirical cartoon that gave us the Gerry-Mander I just naturally assumed that there must be an etymological connection between the words cartoon and lampoon.  In common usage they are closely related.  We speak of a character being "cartoonish" in the sense of being a comical stereotype.  And lampooning is the process of making fun of something, often by invoking just such sterotypes.

But it looks as if the two words are entirely unrelated.

Cartoon derives from the Italian "cartone", that being a sturdy type of paper board suitable for drawing on.  Or for making cartons out of.  Artwork done on it became "cartoons".

Lampoon is from French and is of "unknown origins".  It seems to have come to us from the word "lampons" which means "let us drink", and appears to have been the refrain to a bawdy song of a bygone era.  Pushing things still further back lampons comes from "lamper" which means "to drink", and ultimately from a Germanic word  "lap" of the same meaning.  Lap has of course kept its original intent, but unless very deeply in ones cups lapping up drink is more common among dogs than among their masters.

Of Rotten Boroughs and the Gerry-Mander

After much ballyhoo our Elections are over and I have a new Congressman.  My previous Congressman is a pretty good guy, so I am pleased to report that he was re-elected handily.  Confused?  Well, for the benefit in particular of my readers from other lands let me explain the concept of the Gerry-Mander.

In the United States we have a census every ten years.  The information is handed over to state governments who use it to draw the boundaries of legislative districts both state and Federal.  They are supposed to contain roughly equal numbers of citizens in each.

Ah, but what kind of citizens?  When one party or the other has sufficient political power you tend to get some very peculiar looking maps, with districts morphing into crazy shapes that can in places be only a few miles wide, and often sprawl over large areas. The point being that crafty political operatives try to jam as many of their opponents supporters into a few districts that will be won overwhelmingly, leaving a much larger number of districts where "their guy" will prevail by a few percentage points.

The pioneer in this process, or at least the fellow who gave it its name, was a certain Elbridge Gerry,who as Governor of Massachusetts in 1812 cooked up a map so full of twists and turns that a wag thought it resembled a salamander.  In a famous cartoon of the era it was mocked as "The Gerry-Mander".

So I actually got a new Congress person by having my bit of Wisconsin being sliced off of one District and grafted onto another for some small perceived political advantage.

This process has more critics than defenders.  It is surely heavy handed, and by creating "safe" Districts for political parties it does much to encourage the selection and retention of hacks and dunderheads who would be given the boot by voters less in the thrall of party loyalty.  On the other hand, it has encouraged the election of more minority group members, and does have a certain patina of legitimacy simply by its long tradition....

Like many aspects of American politics the Gerrymander, to use its modern spelling, has its roots in England.  It is in effect a correction of a flaw in their political scheme.  If we perhaps revise our political landscape too often, Great Britain in former times used to revise it not often enough.  As in never.

Consider the delightfully named "Rotten Boroughs".  These were ancient communities, dating from the Middle Ages or even earlier.  Having been something back in the formative years of Parliament, they were granted the right to send representatives.  And they kept said right in perpetuity....even if the once thriving community was now a mouldering ghost town!

The classic example is Old Sarum.

Welcome to Old Sarum in the modern era.  Not much to look at, just a rather mammary shaped hill situated in an area of mediocre farm land.  But back in the day....

Old Sarum was an Iron Age community, where the defensive aspects of the hill were quite advantageous, and were amplified by earthworks still visible three millenia later.  The Romans marched in circa 50 AD and built a small town called Sorviodunum, a name that has endured through much linguistic and typographical abuse.

It was a defensible place to be during unsettled times, so when the Empire collapsed the site was fought over for centuries with Britons, Saxons, Vikings and finally Normans variously occupying it.

It was the Normans that did the most with the place, building a central castle and a cathedral, the ruins of both being clearly visible to this day.

Relations between the soldiers and the clerics were uneasy, so circa 1220 it was decided by the Bishop that he and his cathedral would relocate.  Supposedly he wanted to make a point by moving to a new site one bowshot length away.  But the arrow hit a deer that ran several miles before expiring at the site of modern day Salisbury!

Old Sarum, and presumably the deer as well, were gutted by this event.  The town went into a slow decline but somehow managed to get a royal grant of two places in the formative Parliament during the reign of the notorious Edward II (1307-1327).

So though the long centuries that followed Old Sarum, by now entirely abandoned, sent two members to successive Parliaments.  No local inhabitants other than livestock being available, the few votes from the place were cast by absentee land owners.  The quality of representation thus produced, being mostly hacks and dunderheads, was actually somewhat appropriate for the sheep.

By the late 18th century it had just gotten ridiculous.  Thomas Paine in his 1791 "Rights of Man" observed that:

The county of Yorkshire, which contains near a million souls, sends two county members; and so does the county of Rutland which contains not a hundredth part of that number. The town of Old Sarum, which contains not three houses, sends two members; and the town of Manchester, which contains upwards of sixty thousand souls, is not admitted to send any. Is there any principle in these things?

A Reform Act was passed in 1832 ending the practice of Rotten Boroughs, and places like Old Sarum (and the equally notorious Dunwich, a town that had mostly long since fallen into the ocean!) became tranquil backwaters again.

But Gerrymandering lives on.  I rather enjoyed  this piece on the practice in Michigan's 14th Congressional District.  This includes downtown Detroit, a community that economically if not literally fell off the map a long time ago!

Turkey. Very well done.

When I was growing up our family had a place in northern Minnesota.  In addition to the usual scenic up north things-lakes, woods, deer-this area had a bunch of "World's Largests"

For some reason in the early 1960s there was a civic craze going around.  Every small town had to have an outsized animal totem erected in their local park.  Vergas got a Loon. Pelican Rapids a somewhat less impressive pelican.  Fergus Falls had a bunch of high school kids build the World's Largest Otter which is my personal favorite. (see Roadside attractions link at sidebar for pix of these!)

Frazee was something of a latecomer to the World's Largest arms (or fins, wings, etc) race.  But according to their web site in 1984 "a group of interested turkey growers and committee members" met and proposed the creation of a giant turkey, emblematic of the importance of turkey farming to the community.  Meetings were held.  Funds were raised.  A turkey was built.

The above history of the original Big Tom is actually surprisingly frank.  In addition to cement the construction contained fiberglass, insulation and-huge red flag here-cardboard.

His color faded quickly requiring a re-paint in white.  And there were "frequent repairs".

I started taking my own growing family on the long trek to this area beginning in 1987 when Big Tom was still pretty new.  But I do not recall visiting him until some years later, in the mid 90's.  Oh, he cut a fine figure to be sure, but he did not seem to have the same construction standards as that snappy Loon over in Vergas.  On the ground scattered around Big Tom there were chunks of some kind of white stuff.  Yes, Big Tom was molting.  Or leaving droppings.

My kids did not care, they were there to enjoy the park which featured a scary zip line and some old style swings where you could really get some air.  But the civic fathers and mothers of  Frazee had enough concerns about their community "spirit animal" that something had to be done....

One year we went to Frazee,- it was the summer of 1998- to look upon our old friend Tom, but he was gone!  Nothing remained but a circle of ash and charred cement bits.  The kids were dumb struck.

As it happens the situation with Big Tom had gotten so bad that a replacement turkey had been ordered.  A three man crew was detailed to take down the old statue shortly before our visit.  A fellow named Burt Larson was actually inside the big bird wielding a cutting torch when catastrophe struck.  Remember that cardboard?

A horrific image.  Thank goodness none of the workers came to grief.

At the time I was an occasional contributor to the Bulletin Board section of the St. Paul Pioneer Press.  The final line of my "obituary" for Big Tom read:

"I think, perhaps, it was the way he would have wanted to go.  But since nobody had the presence of mind to send for the World's Largest Meat Thermometer, it is quite possible that he was overdone."

Happy Thanksgiving all.  Don't use the cutting torch on the turkey.

Boat on a Stick-Siren Wisconsin

Seen late in the day on a drive through Western Wisconsin.

The sign refers to a tornado that struck with sudden savagery in June of 2001.  The boat, some distance from water by the way, was wrapped around a pole holding a bird house.  11 years later it is still there.

It must have been planted in the ground a little better than most bird condos.  The penthouse suite looks a little worse for the wear...

On one level it is rather funny...a village called Siren being hit by a tornado.  Locals even claim to have seen that most cliche of storm events, airborne livestock.

But it really is not humorous.  The community had no warning because the only siren in Siren had been knocked out by an earlier lightning strike.

And lest we forget, two local citizens died.