Theremin!

A few days ago at work we got some new computers in and decided to call one of them 'Theremin' since all the others were named after instruments and we were running out of ideas. A quick browse later and I found Art Harrison's web site on Theremins. This is built from his '2006 Minimum Theremin' instructions and I found it pretty easy to find all the components at Maplin. It's a simple design, meant more for demonstrations and science fairs than musical use - Art has designs for more sophisticated theremins on his site. I've no doubt reduced its musical quality by deviating from his design, but you can still get a tune out of it. I've left off the tone control - it's an preset on the board rather than a proper control - but you can alter the range quite adequately by adjusting the length of the telescopic antenna.

Dan's from-scratch barbeque

Last weekend my friend Dan invited us all down for a barbeque. A generous offer anyway, but this had the added highlight that Dan had built the barbeque from scratch. It's a fine piece of engineering - perhaps not quite as stable as a brick barbeque but it served very well and cooked plenty of food for fifteen or so hungry guests over the weekend.

The construction materials are (so far as I remember) 1/2" steel bar and angle, some thin steel plate, steel mesh and those corner strips plasterers use - the closest thing most DIY stores will have to perforated angle. If anyone else has a go at this, my one piece of advice would be to avoid galvanised metal, as can give off some nasty fumes if heated. Compared to the quantities of ethanol usually drunk at barbeques though, it's probably a drop the ocean.

Dan also made a giant jenga set by cutting up some planed timber - a very quick and effective party piece. Pictures of that are in the gallery.