My daughters want to dress up as Rey from Star Wars for this year Halloween so I’ve been tasked with creating two staffs.
A quick search on Etsy turned up a number of 3D printing models for the staff. A few minutes and dollars later, I was in possession of the 3D models. (The one I purchased is sadly no longer available but there are other similar ones on the site)
Printing
I divided the parts into two groups: a) simple cylindrical parts (mostly the handles, etc.), b) complex parts which may require printing supports.
I started with the complex parts first and whilst some of the supports failed to stick or print correctly, the rest of the parts printed fine.
For those who follow my Instagram account, you may have seen the progress of my latest craft project.
50 years ago today, July 16th 1969, three earthlings lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida to begin their journey to the Moon. 4 days later, Neil Armstrong took the first step onto the lunar surface.
To celebrate and commemorate this event, I’ve spent the month of June and July recreating one of the artifacts from the Lunar landing.
The Beginning
Back in 2015(!) the Smithsonian created the Kickstart project, Reboot the Suit, to raise fund to “conserve, digitize, and display Neil Armstrong’s and Alan Shepard’s spacesuits.”
My goal for the year was to cycle around 1400 miles and I managed to ride 1236 miles, climbed 21 thousands feet, in 86.5 hours, which is pretty good even if I say so myself. I also targeted to complete two cycling events which I managed as well.
This year I’m planning to ride in at least two cycling events: TD Five Boro Bike Tour in May, and Bike MS in September. I’m on the look out for another event around July which will make it nice and even 2 months between events.
Five Boro Bike Tour
This tour is approximately 40 miles long and since the furthest I’ve ridden in a single day was 23 miles last September, I have some work to do! What I have figured out is that I need to train my body to be able to ride the months, meaning:
January = 15+ miles
February = ~25 miles
March = 30-35 miles
April = 40 miles
Cycleops Indoor Trainer
My training regime so far consists of two indoor trainer ride in Tuesday and Thursday evenings using videos from The Sufferfest, and a weekend ride on the road. As the weather improve in February and March (fingers cross!), I should be able to ride outdoor on Tuesday and Thursday too. When that happens, I’ll need to choose my route carefully so that I get the necessary interval training, not just endurance/distance. I’ll also be joining the local cycling groups on meetup.com and Princeton Freewheelers for long ride during the weekends.
I’m pretty sure I will be able to tackle the full distance since the route is pretty flat, except very short climbs up the bridges.
Bike MS
There are a number of Bike MS events in NJ in September with various route length. I don’t think I will be able to tackle the century route (100 miles or 100 km) this year yet so I’ll look out for 40 miles or 50 miles event.
These routes, compare to the Five Boro Bike Tour, have long hills to climbs (1000+ feet elevation with 5-7% gradient). I’ll have to adjust my training regime accordingly to improve my climbing ability. There are a few short but steep climbs around my area but nothing that is long and less steep. For that I probably need to drive to Sourland Mountain where Sourland Spectacular was held.
Lost in Colonisation 