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The Fixit Clinic is an event in which “coaches” help people repair their broken household items with a focus on teaching repair skills rather than actually getting the item in question repaired. I, along with another person spent the entire 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM period helping to repair a leaking Nespresso Inissia. This coffee…
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My room’s door doesn’t have a lock. It doesn’t need one. But cars probably don’t need to go above 130km/h either, yet they can, for… reasons. So for… reasons, I made a lock for my door that is very simple and requires no modification of the door’s current hardware. My door swings inward, so to…
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Line AC power is a lot more dangerous than low-voltage DC power. As such, it requires different methods of connecting wires together temporarily. For example, you can use the same wire nuts used for permanent connections, though it’s not particularly fast or repeatable. You could just twist the wires together, but just because you can…
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This Repair Café took place at the Palo Alto Museum of American Heritage. The Repair Café is an event in which volunteers (“fixers”) repair peoples’ things for free, usually appliances, clothing, or bicycles, though most anything can be brought if it’s broken. I participated as a fixer and had the opportunity to repair some interesting…
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Introduction My middle school, JLS, has a good Video Production and Broadcast Journalism team (YouTube channel here, website here), taught by Ms. Julia Lee. It does (as of September 2023) live broadcasts every morning and the “news anchors” have celebrity status among sixth graders. For this reason, I applied for the semester-long Video Production elective,…
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This is the disassembly of a Yale Assure Smart Lock. The outside part (called, according to Yale, the “Touchscreen Escutcheon”) basically consists of a touchscreen interface and a traditional cylinder lock. A metal plate with a keyhole mounting hole (that’s the hole shaped like a keyhole; it has nothing to do with keys), which is…
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, with a lot of spare time on hand, I took up the hobby of manual typewriter restoration. It’s really not a difficult task: typewriters are generally very well built and aside from being dusty and gummed up, most manual typewriters for sale today are still in perfect working order, despite being…
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Disclaimer The methods described in this post worked for me. There are many factors that affect whether or not any of this may work for you, but two big ones are weather and soil conditions. Here in Palo Alto, we have clay soil and the weather is hot and dry, at least in the summer.…
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I realize that the field of hobbyist 3D printing is rapidly advancing and that this post may become obsolete very soon. How I Got It I got this printer used for $30 on Nextdoor in 2020. It was a Wanhao Duplicator i3 v2 that came with frame braces, a glass bed, and a Cobra Cooler…
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This was my science project for the Synopsys Science fair which I participated in in 2023. Abstract 1.2 billion people worldwide need to boil water to make it drinkable, even in places considered developed. This is because boiling is simple, versatile, and accessible. While water is commonly boiled, it must take in lots of energy…
