-
Introduction I’ve been trying to refine my backyard soil into some workable clay in order to further my metal casting project. As you can imagine, this comes with some challenges as not all clay, even when purified, is suitable for making stuff. In the case of the clay in my area, it’s very sticky and…
-
Introduction Lately, when not crushed under the tedium of self-studying two AP exams, I’ve been trying to refine the clay soil from my backyard into clay. A post about that is coming. This post is about an interesting effect I noticed today as I test-fired pieces of clay. Basically, clays often contain iron oxides (compounds…
-
This one was held in San Mateo Public Library. First, I worked on a rice cooker whose non-rechargeable lithium battery had run out. From my understanding, the battery was used to avoid the need for an AC power supply, needed not only to keep the clock running when the appliance was unplugged, but also to…
-
This was my 2024 Synopsys science project. Abstract While liquid cooling presents itself as an efficient cooling method for ever-hotter integrated circuits, it is confined to mostly commercial applications and occasionally premium desktops. Instead, high-performance laptops rely on heavy and bulky heat pipes to bring heat from processor to radiator, somewhat defeating the purpose of…
-
This event occurred at the Hacker Dojo in Mountain View, a collaborative hackerspace for software projects. I first worked on a portable electric radiator with a detached cord winder (the plastic thing you wind the cord around for storage), a loose caster, and a plug with burn marks. The cord winder had a cantilever snap-fit…
-
Featured image source: Donald Trung Quoc Don (Chữ Hán: 徵國單) – Wikimedia Commons I had to write a 650–1000-word memoir for my English 10A class. Here it is: Short Wave One summer, my family and I went to visit Hong Kong and perform the duties of Chinese-Americans visiting their families back home. We brought gifts…
-
Introduction I have a … thing for the periodic table. In elementary school, I copied it twice, by hand, of my own volition. The first attempt was crooked with many spelling errors and multiple different pen colors. The second was neater, but element 8 was still written as “oxegen”. Last year, in the never-ending quest…
-
A drafting pencil is a mechanical pencil with a long (~4mm), thin tip called a “lead sleeve” that makes it great for scribing along the edges of rulers, also making it easy to see what you’re writing. Unfortunately, the thin lead sleeve gets damaged very easily when the pencil is dropped, breaking the brittle graphite…
-
The event was held at the Museum of American Heritage from 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM. First, I worked on a Technics SL-MC7 CD changer. It had a magazine into which up to 60 CDs were loaded and a sliding carriage to select and play discs. When plugged in, the machine showed “checking discs” on…
-
This Fixit Clinic was held in the Hayward Public Library from 11:00 to 2:00 PM. I took on the unwise challenge of attempting to repair a person’s VHS VCR, a task probably best left to someone older with direct experience with these devices. Luckily, I had watched a few YouTube videos on the subject so…
