17 Fish-block

Well I`ve finally run the arithmetic blocks into the ground. Don`t get me wrong I still think they`re cool but I`m tired of dreaming about them. This block came to me at the edge of sleep. I had to get up and write myself a note for in the morning. It worked great, so well in fact I was inspired to play some more. Next came the spikey cat, the escaping puppy, the swollen bunny, the irritated cat, the star-gazing dog, Yak with mountains, barking night dog, and the texture blocks.

Ahhhh! Above is the 17 fish block as a full size peel, with image tabs to help hide the seams. It works pretty good, I asembled a couple to test the pattern. More to follow.

Arithmetic Block Set Specs

Well the entire first set of digits and symbol blocks are ready. The complete set of blocks contains two serial blocks, one odd, one even, one prime, one fibonacci, three Roman numeral, two square-root, two cube-root, one fraction, four factor, and three symbol blocks. This comes to twenty one number blocks and a total of twenty eight symbols. The symbols include a great many more than I ever heard of studying arithmatic. The real criterion for making the list was cool symbols that might be possible to explain to a kid. Some of them are going to be a bit of a stretch, to use in an equation correctly or to define in a usefull way. There is no doubt they look cool and they`re definitly thought provoking, heck makes me want to learn more math. Well they`re all sealed. Now that theyr`e photographed the list of definitions of the symbols on them is next, but it aint ready yet.

This Neopolitan Has Nine Layers Already

We are once agian indebted to The Plush Neon Monkey, just couldn`t leave it alone.

I`d hoped carefull thought might generate a few more fun number catagories for block content.

Look-out! There`s more than a dozen diferent block configurations so far. These pictures represent an in progress preview of the first arithmetic blocks, still unsealed.

The latest additions include lower digits of square roots,

cube-roots, roman numerals to twelve, and one block of fractions. These are in addition to serial on two blocks, even, odd, prime, and fibonacci blocks already made.

The block holder mortis-jig and the gang sanding-jig have made mass-production as easy
it seems likely till I`ve got a belt-sander.

Now the real limiting factor seems to be the twenty minutes to cut each mortis, and the need to limit the number of them in a day to about sixteen. The stress of the chissel turned my fingers bright red and painfull just short of blistering. Fifteen of the sixteen gang-sanded group were good and more uniform than most of those that were harder to do. The fractions were toughest to burn but they seem worth it. The Roman numeral blocks had the same inversion-juxtaposition chalenges that the six-nine block had, but it seems worth it because of the way it reveals Roman numeral construction techniques so clearly.

The next post will include the a complete list ot the arithmetic blocks and layout of each block. A list of definitions of the eighteen plus math symbols , will also be included.

serial,even, odd, prime, fibonacci

On a recent visit to the den of the Plush Neon Monkey the spectre of block logic rose yet again. I`ve got that "crap did I carve another six fingered hand" feeling again . As he examined the first few of the arithmetic blocks I kinda didn`t want to look. "Is there some plan to how these numbers end up?"asked Plush Neon Monkey. So we began to list ways to catagorize the digits and prioritize their placement to compile an intrestesting, usefull set of number blocks. After all it`s not as much fun to finish a block like this one, deet-da-dee.

Arithmetic Blocks

Surprise, Yet another fold in the block logic. Who`da thunk tha hexahedron would get so much play. Well there`s a reason that they call`em blocks. I kinda backed into them, I just wanted something to make walls out of. The square dimension lumber at Home Depot was limited to 13/8"x13/8"x8`white wood and 15/8"x15/8"x24" oak `parson`s-table` legs (nice wood, a little pricey and hard to sand). About 5` of the 13/8" was suficient to make a fair sized pile of cube and double-cube pieces. Even with careful marking the hand-cut wobble factor was a bit disconcerting. Testing revealed that simple cubes were very popular amoung the youngest of our test-pilots. the white wood was soft, but the small size of the recess made relief symbols not very inteligable. The white wood recessed evenly,and tests with a Weller WSB25WB wood-burner made the arithmetic blocks look atainable and fun.

I meant to do that

I meant to do that, too. Well maybe not just like that. The `I meant to do that' factor doesn`t
really apply to blocks quite as easily as it does to some forms of art. The hand cut wobble factor has been humbling to disconcerting. A great deal of care was expended in precisley drawing and marking the polygons for these blocks (especially the packing set). Miter sawing every piece I can and using the sanding block and flipping the work around to keep the faces as true as possible, has still yielded some wobbly and some slightly asymitrical pieces. Well I guess block logic includes lessons in justifying. Precision length measurements seem more straightforward, and yet this dimension has given me cause to re-cut and gang-sand in an effort to make them stack better.

Ok so my ham cut blocks sometimes stack like warm cheese, hey even a crooked castle
is still pretty cool. So here`s the packing stacking set.

Indeedy, Packed!

Stacking and nesting and packing oh my! Yeah yeah, packing or crowding cylinders into a
polygon and making it fit snugly against them, has been surprisingly chalenging. The deceptively simple task of drawing patterns for snug fitting parts, requierd several attempts to just fit a poster-paper collar that didn`t bow or fall down.

How wide to not break, how thin to look like just a line, how long to fit in with at least some of the other blocks? With this set of blocks, the long piece is five and seven eights inches and the shorter one is two and fifteen sixteenths inches. The length of the long piece is also the same as three two-by-fours thicknesses.