Turbines

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Turbines

May, 2026

Did I mention that I’ve been on a 3D printing kick?

Well… Not all of my projects are for my neighbors, or friends, or Andrea and my’s kitchen. This one was just for me. For my own curiosity, and for fun.

I’ve always appreciated the idea of being off-grid. Being independent, self-sufficient, and self-contained. It’s why I enjoy backpacking so much; everything I need, I’ve got in my backpack. I go, I set up camp where I see fit, and I can survive with what I’ve got.

To that end, I’ve loved the idea of portable power generation – Ideally a light solar panel, but what about a wind turbine? I’ve seen the countless “hacks” where people put a small windmill on their car for car camping… so you know what? Let’s make one!

So I did. It’s neat! It can make a bit of power, and the bearings work flawlessly, letting it twist and turn in the wind, and letting the Archimedes spiral blade spin like crazy. Transferring that power into a storage medium… well, that’s a PCB-problem for another day.

For now?

This thing looks pretty dang cool, and the mechanics work beautifully. I’ll call it a win.

Spice racks and drawer organizers

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Early May, 2026

I’ve been continuing my 3D printing kick – taking on odd projects from friends and neighbors partially to cover the cost of materials, but mainly to give myself some interesting design challenges to face and overcome.

These last ones were a spice rack (easy) and a drawer organizer (surprisingly hard).

See… the spice rack is simple. I’ve got the designs down solid, and all they need at this point is for me to adjust the basic dimensions to match those of the specific kitchen where they’re being installed. Simple and easy; update a few numbers, print it out, and then do a quick assembly.

The drawer organizer, though? That was unique. It’d have been easy as anything if it was a single-setup organizer, but the neighbor in question wasn’t quite sure how she wanted to arrange it… instead of asking her for a single firm design, I took that as a fun confounding variable: Can I make a drawer organizer that’s fully adaptable?

Yes, in fact, I could.

It took a while for me to brainstorm the idea – see, I needed it to be modular, in single segment intervals. They had to be sturdy, but orientable in two dimensions. Simply doing LEGO-style walls would have been simple, but they wouldn’t have been resilient enough; they’d just fall over.

In the end, I decided on a grid, with anchor posts on each side that’re designed so that up to four walls can “radiate” outward from a center hub… while not requiring any walls to even exist for stability.

It worked beautifully, in the end, and only took a little bit of trial and error to dial in the specific sizing to allow for full modularity. Fun and challenging.

Did you know that I can play darts?

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Did you know that I can play darts?

Saturday, 16-May-2026

Well, it turns out I can. Rather well, too, I guess?


Unfortunately, I don’t have any real interesting photos from the event – It was a friend’s birthday, and we’d headed to a spot called Flight Club downtown. A clean and fun evening of camaraderie and competition… Yeah, I’m not sure sure what to write about it. It was fun, it got us all out of the house and away from the anxiety and chaos of work (and looking for work), and… yeah.

Simple and easy, fun and exciting, good conversation and enjoyable competition.