At the beginning of the year I published to YouTube this video, in which I build a smart sprinkler controller using a Raspberry Pi and Open Sprinkler software. It's gradually becoming one of my most popular videos. Although I've been neglecting this blog somewhat, I have been making video content! Be sure and subscribe on YouTube if you'd like to be kept aware of those projects.

After a couple of years of thinking about it, I built a floating planter, similar to the ones at WDW's EPCOT, and set sail with it on the lake my parents live on. Disney was kind enough to provide instructions in a book titled Secrets of Disney's Glorious Gardens, but I departed from this book in some significant ways, for instance, by adding an anchor system that allows us to bring the planter to shore for maintenance. Also, in the video I build a hot-wire cutter to make the styrofoam circles of the planter, a cutter equipped with a motorized rotary stage that turns it into something like a foam lathe.

As part of my overall quest to push back the chaos in my kitchen and elsewhere, I made some lid hanger bars out of oak for my pot and pan cabinet. This represents something of a new beginning for me: it's a return to uploading videos to YouTube, but at a much higher level of quality, length, and I hope, entertainment value. This is also a sort of debut of my newly revamped home workshop; I was lucky enough to acquire quite a lot of new tools and machines early in 2020 and I've been integrating, improving, and setting those up ever since. Now it's time to actually make a few things, and hopefully get some interesting videos and other documents out of the experience. Enjoy!

Fed up with chaos around my kitchen sink, I designed and 3D-printed a storage tray for my cleaning supplies. It features three compartments for sponges or scrubbing pads and a stand for a bottle brush. I printed this in black PLA, which is probably not a great material choice or technique for long-term kitchen use (FDM-printed plastics have a rough, striated surface finish which probably encourages the growth of bacteria) but I'm considering this a successful prototype for now. I may continue experimenting.

I'm pleased to reveal some industrial design work I did at the end of 2016 for Washi Scissor, a manufacturer of high-end scissors for barbers and dog groomers. Washi's founder Marc Milman (introductions made by patent illustrator Denis Autridge of ASCADEX) asked for my help developing his idea. Scissors with swiveling thumb rings already existed, but the ability to lock the thumb ring at various angles, helpful to give users mechanical feedback while still accommodating differences in their hands and styles of working, is new.