The Heart of a Whale

Last night I decided it was time to get back to work so I welded up this art project I call, "The heart of a whale." It is dedicated to my little brother who went to the hospital last week. He gave me the inspiration to keep on welding in the late hours of the night. Here is the creation of heart of a whale. I hope you enjoy it.


It all started with some cardboard I took from a box of microwavable burritos.


Then I made a blueprint. Then I just let it happen.

Planting the Farm 2012

In anticipation of setting up my surfing art commune with robot farming I decided to continue practising the farming part. Here are some good photos of getting the farm planted with my roomates. I am pretty hopeful for this year.


Getting the tools ready for tilling.
Xiang planting
Killing some weeds
Me tilling the earth.
Nice rows
The dog is supervising
I think he approves.

Jacob's School Art

A few months ago I was back at UCSD and I noticed a house landed on the 6th floor of the Jacob School of engineering.



View from the Price center.



Engineering courtyard



6th floor administrative offices.

Visiting Artist: Xiang Zhai

This month Los Alamos has the pleasure of hosting visiting artist Xiang Zhai who made it all the way here from Pasadena, California. Xiang is a paper artist. When he isn't folding and cutting paper he spends his time studying applied physics and plasmas at Cal Tech. The other night we had an art jam session. Here are the results.


Xiang's Checkerboard

Xiang's fox head.



This is my study on the use of parallel lines. I think it was a breakthrough. I could make a fence out of this.

Xiang's dragon

The workshop



More parallel lines
Xiang's handiwork



A pretty nice design. I like the center.



Xiang's paper box.

In pursuit of Ackerman-ish steering

I am in the middle of laying out the steering linkage for the motorcycle-engined remote control car. I decided that I wanted to try and use a low-cost, high force, linear actuator to control the steering. I can find some for a little over $100-$200 dollar range that can be controlled using serial commands. My hope is this type of actuator would be more robust to mechanical shock than a conventional RC servo. Industrial RC servos exist, but they are twice the cost for anything that I think has the torque to steer my car over rough terrain. I am also skepital of their robustness to mechanical shock. For the first iteration of the car I plan to implement Ackerman steering. The linkage typically used for approximating Ackerman steering is shown here:


I also decided, for aesthetic reasons, I would like to place the axis of the linear actuator along the longitudinal axis of the car. So now I am trying to see if this can be done in a reasonable manner. Basically I need to transmit force originating along the longitudinal axis of the car into right left motion of the coupler link of the Ackerman steering linkage. I did some thinking and I decided to make some popsicle stick models to try and spark a breakthrough. I broke out the cordless drill and got to work.

At this point, I have not solved this challenge just yet, but I did come up with some interesting things in the process. First off, a couple years ago I came up with this single DOF linkage. It was the inspiration for my new popsicle stick models.


The unique thing about this linkage is that a small angular motion at the top of the linkage results in a rapid deployment of the rest of the linkage along the medial axis. As I was trying new linkage ideas today I designed this guy.




This is a 14 bar, single degree of freedom linkage. I think it looks kind of neat. One interesting thing I discovered about it, is that it has two of the sub four-bar linkage ages that make up the composite linkage have reachable toggle positions. The picture below shows the links I am referring to.



An interesting observation I made, is that since it is a single degree-of-freedom linkage, it is possible to block the movement of the linkage simply by placing one of the two sub-system four bar linkages into a toggle position. This could have interesting applications in larger linkage systems with multiple degrees of freedom. You could essential inactivate degrees-of-freedom of the composite linkage by incorporating sub linkages that feature reachable toggle positions. You could also in some sense activate new states of the linkage by forcing the linkage past its toggle positions. I am not sure you see many complicated linkage systems around these days but I thought it was interesting. It could make some interesting artwork.

Music in Prague

Last Week I was in Prague. While I was there I was very blessed to meet some great people from the Slovak Greek Catholic Parish of the Most Holy Trinity. I am half Slovenian so I guess they are my people. They were very kind to me. They let me join them for some snacks after the daily Mass and then they let me watch the Men's choir practice. A group of the young people there even took me on a tour of the city on Sunday. The choir at this parish was really good. Here are some excerpts.

Publish Post

Mason Proffit - Were you there?

I just finished reading a biograpahy on John Michael Talbot that was on the bookshelf of our adoration chapel. John Michael Talbot visited Los Alamos last spring to give a three day retreat during Lent. I have to say he was one of the best guitar players I have ever heard. Prior to becoming a monk he and His brother Terry led a band in the late sixties and early seventies named Mason Proffit. I searched a little on YouTube and I found this great song. I decided to write the lyrics down in order to encourage jamming to Mason Proffit. A special thanks goes out to Vinnie for making the chords happen.

Mason Profit - Were you there?

Em               A
You said something should be done
C          D                Em
The way your slaves were shot and hung
              A
You said all men should be free...
C       D             Em
Were you there at wounded knee?
                  A
You were living in '42
C            D              Em
You cried when Hitler killed the Jews
                           A
You said that no race should have to die
C       D         Em
Were you there as they lie

G       D           Em           C
Were you there when they called my country down?
G        D           Em                 C
Did you see her when she finally hit the ground?
Am                      D
Could you feel the tears she shed?
C       D              Em
Were you there when Jesus bled?

Em                          A
Come all of you it's time to take a stand
C         D                 Em
You have salvation in your hand
                    A
We you need your words, we need your minds
C          D                   Em
We need you straight not stoned and blind

G       D           Em                  C
Were you there when we walked across the land?
G        D         Em          C
Was that you with the rifle in your hand?
Am                        D
Don't try to run, don't try to hide
C        D               Em
Were you there when freedom died?

G        D          Em           C
Were you there when they called my country down?
G        D           Em                   C
Did you see her when she finally hit the ground?
Am                       D
Could you feel the tears she shed?
C       D             Em
Were you there when Jesus bled?
C       D              Em
Were you there to count the dead?
C       D
Were you there...