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General Discussions / Re: 3D Printer Projects
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Blogs / Loveshop Снова Работает !!!!!
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Table-top Games / Lords Of Xidit
« Last post by Dragon on March 16, 2025, 20:50:11 »Today we played Lords Of Xidit with Isaac's High School buddy, Chris Suttliff. Beth also enjoys this game, so we were able to get her to play it with us. I've played Lords Of Xidit with Isaac and Beth a few times, but it was always a 3-player game. It seemed fitting to play the short version, only 9 "years", since this was Chris' first time.
Beth commented on how this game was so much better with 4 players since we didn't have the dummy player that we had to deal with in the 3-player game. I agreed, it was more fun.
Before the first census of the game, Isaac got a good lead on building up his towers. Mid-game, everyone else had gotten far ahead of me on the on the towers. I was doing well with the bards tokens, but since towers were the first assessment for the end game, I was concerned that I'd be eliminated right away for that, so I needed to shift my focus. After the second census, I was working to catch up on towers to the point where I managed to tie with Isaac for the number of towers (winning the tie breaker), but Isaac and Beth still had more gold and points for bards tokens.
In the end, we found that there were way more tokens in the castle in the middle of the board than we had seen in any of our games. I had 4 tokens in there, Chris had 5, and Isaac had 6. Beth didn't have any in there, but her focus on the outside picked up way more points for the bards tokens, which gave her the victory. It was her first victory in all the times playing this game, so she was quite happy with herself.
Beth commented on how this game was so much better with 4 players since we didn't have the dummy player that we had to deal with in the 3-player game. I agreed, it was more fun.
Before the first census of the game, Isaac got a good lead on building up his towers. Mid-game, everyone else had gotten far ahead of me on the on the towers. I was doing well with the bards tokens, but since towers were the first assessment for the end game, I was concerned that I'd be eliminated right away for that, so I needed to shift my focus. After the second census, I was working to catch up on towers to the point where I managed to tie with Isaac for the number of towers (winning the tie breaker), but Isaac and Beth still had more gold and points for bards tokens.
In the end, we found that there were way more tokens in the castle in the middle of the board than we had seen in any of our games. I had 4 tokens in there, Chris had 5, and Isaac had 6. Beth didn't have any in there, but her focus on the outside picked up way more points for the bards tokens, which gave her the victory. It was her first victory in all the times playing this game, so she was quite happy with herself.
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Table-top Games / Ezra and Nehemiah
« Last post by Dragon on March 15, 2025, 23:15:40 »Ezra and Nehemiah is a game about rebuilding the temple and the city walls in ancient Jerusalem. There are a lot of things going on around the board, with players playing character cards to give them different actions. There is rubble that needs to be cleared from construction sites, which is later used as resources for rebuilding or for stoking the fire at the altar. There are scribes needed for teaching the torah, picking up other benefits in the process. People need to go to work for 6 days and then rest on the Sabbath, which is when the majority of the points are gained. Making the most of each day is tough because each action has a different number of banners (action points) visible during the turn, but if you're trying to do more than one thing at a time, you need more workers, or more materials, and just getting all of those things to line up is the difficulty. Also, don't forget to collect up enough food so that your people can eat.
A couple days ago I played through the solo game, just to get a good idea of how it all works. Today I played the game against Isaac. He said early on that he felt like he was struggling to keep up with me, but he was actually ahead of me by a couple points at that time. I felt like I was struggling to keep up with him, but I could also see that he was making some good investments on the development tiles. Also, even though he only had one scribe at the end of the game, it was the very one that I had been wanting to get from the top row and I had been building up toward it - the scroll tile that allowed him to use the last card from his hand for scoring. However, looking at the final score, even if I had managed to get that one, he still had a considerable amount of points over what I would have picked up from that same tile.
In the end, he won. Final result: Isaac - 102; Nathaniel - 87. We both enjoyed the game. I hope definitely hope it will hit the table again more times this year.
A couple days ago I played through the solo game, just to get a good idea of how it all works. Today I played the game against Isaac. He said early on that he felt like he was struggling to keep up with me, but he was actually ahead of me by a couple points at that time. I felt like I was struggling to keep up with him, but I could also see that he was making some good investments on the development tiles. Also, even though he only had one scribe at the end of the game, it was the very one that I had been wanting to get from the top row and I had been building up toward it - the scroll tile that allowed him to use the last card from his hand for scoring. However, looking at the final score, even if I had managed to get that one, he still had a considerable amount of points over what I would have picked up from that same tile.
In the end, he won. Final result: Isaac - 102; Nathaniel - 87. We both enjoyed the game. I hope definitely hope it will hit the table again more times this year.
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Blogs / 30 Days Lost In Space
« Last post by Dragon on March 14, 2025, 00:02:47 »I recently purchased the 30 Days Lost In Space kit from inventr.io. I'd probably give it 3/5 stars. There were fun parts, but it felt disjointed and the retail price seemed really high.
Some of the lessons were easy to get through, some took a few days (mostly because I wanted to write out all of the code myself). I've recommended the kit to some others, including nephews. I had been looking at getting the kit for a couple years before, but when I saw that they were selling off the last of the current version at a discounted price in preparation for the next, I felt it was time to grab it. Now that I'm through the course, I'm glad that I got it, but I'm also glad that I didn't pay full price. The original retail price was $150, but I was able to get it on sale for about $45. That's the price range where I feel it's good, especially since there are things that felt clunky in the course.
First of all, I really enjoyed it in the beginning. The space theme was cool, although it was a little confusing to me when they kept referring to "being underwater" for the first few "days" when I would have expected more of a situation of floating through space. I felt like I got the most enjoyment out of the course at the beginning and into the second "week" of the course. That's when everything was new and fresh, and I expected that little steps were being made toward something bigger.
I'm assuming some of the issues are because they recently moved to a different website. I saw several comments about people losing their progress when everything moved over. Almost every page through the course had broken images and to me it lacked a clear flow of how you were expected to approach each "Day", which I'll refer to as a lesson simply because I could go through multiple "Days" in a single sitting. The video is presented at the top of each lesson and if you watch the video before you look at the rest of the page, you'll probably notice that the people in the video refer to things that you should have already done... like possibly copying-and-pasting code into your Arduino IDE from further down the page.
Aside from lesson layout though, another thing that I expected was to see more of a build up for the project, like a larger end goal. Of course, it was nice having a little bit about each component and it makes sense especially at the beginning to have one component at a time, but later on when you're adding, the removing, then adding again, then removing again, and then ultimately having 3 lessons where there wasn't anything different about the physical components and the code explanation felt lacking. I even got a little frustrated with repetition of what we should recognize by ... well, at least the end of the first week, especially juxtaposed with the lack of explanation on what might have been the most interesting bits of the lesson.
Finally, inconsistency and lack of re-usability for the code also got a bit frustrating. There are days where they talk about changing just a little, but if you were trying to follow along and make adjustments to your own code for a following lesson that seemed to be reusing stuff, you'd notice that things were named differently or something that wasn't even focused on got changed. Since this is expected to be a beginner course, I can definitely imagine some people getting lost part way through. If they didn't just copy-and-paste everything, stuff could easily be missed when the video instructions would contradict the code or wiring diagram.
I'll probably go back through the lessons again, especially some of the stuff at the end, where a little video game was made. That seemed like some missed opportunity to build up some knowledge but instead it was thrown at you in such a way that copy-and-paste was the only way to get through the "Day" in hopes that more explanation would come. I would have preferred a pace where something was brought to our attention and explained more before moving onto the next day. In a couple of the videos it was mentioned that it would take too long to explain all the code, but then the instructor goes on with explaining once again that the line that says "#require Arduino.h is automatically added by the IDE" for the 10th time in the course.
The message board on the site was a promising feature for future "adventurers" to request help, although there seemed to be a bug on the site where messages would be displayed on the wrong page when they were first written, so that made some messages appear to be in the wrong place until you reloaded the page. I had some fun in little discussions about projects there and was even able to help steer some people in the right direction for their projects.
(Note: Photos shown here include additional components that were not included in the kit. The long breadboard, some of the wiring, the 9v battery and adapter, along with the knob on the rotary encoder were all pieces that were my own additions for "creative day" projects that I kept using.)
Some of the lessons were easy to get through, some took a few days (mostly because I wanted to write out all of the code myself). I've recommended the kit to some others, including nephews. I had been looking at getting the kit for a couple years before, but when I saw that they were selling off the last of the current version at a discounted price in preparation for the next, I felt it was time to grab it. Now that I'm through the course, I'm glad that I got it, but I'm also glad that I didn't pay full price. The original retail price was $150, but I was able to get it on sale for about $45. That's the price range where I feel it's good, especially since there are things that felt clunky in the course.
First of all, I really enjoyed it in the beginning. The space theme was cool, although it was a little confusing to me when they kept referring to "being underwater" for the first few "days" when I would have expected more of a situation of floating through space. I felt like I got the most enjoyment out of the course at the beginning and into the second "week" of the course. That's when everything was new and fresh, and I expected that little steps were being made toward something bigger.
I'm assuming some of the issues are because they recently moved to a different website. I saw several comments about people losing their progress when everything moved over. Almost every page through the course had broken images and to me it lacked a clear flow of how you were expected to approach each "Day", which I'll refer to as a lesson simply because I could go through multiple "Days" in a single sitting. The video is presented at the top of each lesson and if you watch the video before you look at the rest of the page, you'll probably notice that the people in the video refer to things that you should have already done... like possibly copying-and-pasting code into your Arduino IDE from further down the page.
Aside from lesson layout though, another thing that I expected was to see more of a build up for the project, like a larger end goal. Of course, it was nice having a little bit about each component and it makes sense especially at the beginning to have one component at a time, but later on when you're adding, the removing, then adding again, then removing again, and then ultimately having 3 lessons where there wasn't anything different about the physical components and the code explanation felt lacking. I even got a little frustrated with repetition of what we should recognize by ... well, at least the end of the first week, especially juxtaposed with the lack of explanation on what might have been the most interesting bits of the lesson.
Finally, inconsistency and lack of re-usability for the code also got a bit frustrating. There are days where they talk about changing just a little, but if you were trying to follow along and make adjustments to your own code for a following lesson that seemed to be reusing stuff, you'd notice that things were named differently or something that wasn't even focused on got changed. Since this is expected to be a beginner course, I can definitely imagine some people getting lost part way through. If they didn't just copy-and-paste everything, stuff could easily be missed when the video instructions would contradict the code or wiring diagram.
I'll probably go back through the lessons again, especially some of the stuff at the end, where a little video game was made. That seemed like some missed opportunity to build up some knowledge but instead it was thrown at you in such a way that copy-and-paste was the only way to get through the "Day" in hopes that more explanation would come. I would have preferred a pace where something was brought to our attention and explained more before moving onto the next day. In a couple of the videos it was mentioned that it would take too long to explain all the code, but then the instructor goes on with explaining once again that the line that says "#require Arduino.h is automatically added by the IDE" for the 10th time in the course.
The message board on the site was a promising feature for future "adventurers" to request help, although there seemed to be a bug on the site where messages would be displayed on the wrong page when they were first written, so that made some messages appear to be in the wrong place until you reloaded the page. I had some fun in little discussions about projects there and was even able to help steer some people in the right direction for their projects.
(Note: Photos shown here include additional components that were not included in the kit. The long breadboard, some of the wiring, the 9v battery and adapter, along with the knob on the rotary encoder were all pieces that were my own additions for "creative day" projects that I kept using.)
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Table-top Games / Re: Sagrada
« Last post by Dragon on January 17, 2025, 21:47:11 »It had been more than a year since we played Sagrada, but we've played 3 times already this month. Beth won today, with 71 points, beating me and Isaac. When we played last weekend, we had a full 4 player game, since Anna joined us. I won that time. And the day before it was just Beth and I. Beth beat me that time.
One thought that I've had with this Sagrada board is that I wish there was space to fit my fingers between the dice spaces, that way I could pick up or set in a die without bumping the other dice so much. I don't have the skinniest fingers, but they aren't too fat either, so I can just imagine it must be a real pain for players with thicker fingers than I have. I also wish that the board would show the requirements of the space wider than the dice size, because when I'm considering which tools to use, knowing what the restriction is under a die that I may want to move is a big factor. I like that the dice fit snug, so they don't get shifted around much, so I wouldn't want that to be lost, so maybe some hemispherical cut outs to show what is underneath would be a good way. Minor complaints. I'm sure it would be a factor in the cost, but if they reduced the overall size of the cardboard window frame, since half of it is just decoration anyway, I wonder if they could offset the cost of making bigger cards and wider spaces.
One thought that I've had with this Sagrada board is that I wish there was space to fit my fingers between the dice spaces, that way I could pick up or set in a die without bumping the other dice so much. I don't have the skinniest fingers, but they aren't too fat either, so I can just imagine it must be a real pain for players with thicker fingers than I have. I also wish that the board would show the requirements of the space wider than the dice size, because when I'm considering which tools to use, knowing what the restriction is under a die that I may want to move is a big factor. I like that the dice fit snug, so they don't get shifted around much, so I wouldn't want that to be lost, so maybe some hemispherical cut outs to show what is underneath would be a good way. Minor complaints. I'm sure it would be a factor in the cost, but if they reduced the overall size of the cardboard window frame, since half of it is just decoration anyway, I wonder if they could offset the cost of making bigger cards and wider spaces.
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Table-top Games / Re: Turing Machine
« Last post by Dragon on January 01, 2025, 17:23:10 »We played Turing Machine again last night. Twice before midnight and twice after midnight, so that makes it the last game that I played in 2024 and the first game that I played in 2025!
I also won for the first time on Christmas Eve. I only won once though in the 4 games that we played that night. I was close but two times I had just one more question that I needed an answer for more than Beth and/or Isaac.
I also won for the first time on Christmas Eve. I only won once though in the 4 games that we played that night. I was close but two times I had just one more question that I needed an answer for more than Beth and/or Isaac.
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Blogs / One Year Later
« Last post by Dragon on December 30, 2024, 18:05:43 »I can't believe it's been nearly a year since I posted any blogs. So many things have crossed my mind. So many things that I haven't really wanted to put out there in public view. Things have been tough at times this year, but I have also been enjoying a lot of this year.
I've gotten into more of the Raspberry Pi/robotics stuff this year. I got a library card earlier in the year while Grace was going to a painting class at the local library. While I was there I came across a book about doing robotics with the Raspberry Pi and it looked interesting. I hadn't had a library card in years. I was happy to find that our local library doesn't even have late fees for checking out books, and it even has automatic renewal for books as long as someone else hasn't reserved the book. So I checked out a book from Matt Timmons-Brown called Learn robotics with Raspberry Pi : build and code your own moving, sensing, thinking robots. It was a pretty good book, but even though it was published in 2019, it was already outdated since some of the code libraries are no longer supported and available code libraries weren't compatible with the latest OS. Unfortunately, that meant that I wasn't able to complete everything in the book, but I did still enjoy working on it. I even used my 3d printer to build a chassis for my robot.
I've also played a record number of boardgames this year, 78 different titles with 221 plays counted. This is only counting boardgames that I've played face-to-face, not boardgamearena.com, abstractplay.com, or similar digital versions. Although there is still another day to play this year, it probably won't change the games that are in the top 10 (*tied) most played games this year. There are a few on here that were played primarily against my son or my brother, but the top were favorites of my wife and daughters.
1) Skip-Bo (played 15 times this year, including twice that I played with my grandparents)
2) The Chameleon (played 12 times)
3*) Do You Even Know Math? (played 9 times over just a few days)
3*) Kingdomino (also played 9 times)
5*) Dungeon Heroes (played 8 times)
5**) Turing Machine (played 8 times; Update: two more plays on New Years Eve bumped this up)
6*) Dominion (played 7 times)
6*) Chess (played 7 times)
6*) Quoridor (played 7 times)
9*) Scarab Lords (played 6 times)
9*) Roll For The Galaxy (played 6 times)
9*) Wingspan (played 6 times)
In addition to those boardgames and digital board games, I've also enjoyed getting back into codecombat.com, practicing with programming in Python. Many of the challenges on codecombat.com have been easy for me to complete, since they have a lot of the code already setup for each scenario along with comments of what to do next. Still, there have been a few throughout the course that were difficult. There is a lot that is only available for premium members on that site, but I'm still just going through the free stuff. Maybe next year I'll get back into codingame.com again. That was fun when I did it before, but it's been a while since I've tried anything on there.
Lego kits have been enjoyable this year too. I've been building things with the Lego Education Spike Prime. I've tried getting my youngest daughters into it, using the suggested builds from the Lego Competition Ready lessons. I also got a really cool Optimus Prime set for my birthday from my brother. In a lot of ways, this seems like the year of the robots for me.
I've gotten into more of the Raspberry Pi/robotics stuff this year. I got a library card earlier in the year while Grace was going to a painting class at the local library. While I was there I came across a book about doing robotics with the Raspberry Pi and it looked interesting. I hadn't had a library card in years. I was happy to find that our local library doesn't even have late fees for checking out books, and it even has automatic renewal for books as long as someone else hasn't reserved the book. So I checked out a book from Matt Timmons-Brown called Learn robotics with Raspberry Pi : build and code your own moving, sensing, thinking robots. It was a pretty good book, but even though it was published in 2019, it was already outdated since some of the code libraries are no longer supported and available code libraries weren't compatible with the latest OS. Unfortunately, that meant that I wasn't able to complete everything in the book, but I did still enjoy working on it. I even used my 3d printer to build a chassis for my robot.
I've also played a record number of boardgames this year, 78 different titles with 221 plays counted. This is only counting boardgames that I've played face-to-face, not boardgamearena.com, abstractplay.com, or similar digital versions. Although there is still another day to play this year, it probably won't change the games that are in the top 10 (*tied) most played games this year. There are a few on here that were played primarily against my son or my brother, but the top were favorites of my wife and daughters.
1) Skip-Bo (played 15 times this year, including twice that I played with my grandparents)
2) The Chameleon (played 12 times)
3*) Do You Even Know Math? (played 9 times over just a few days)
3*) Kingdomino (also played 9 times)
5*) Dungeon Heroes (played 8 times)
5**) Turing Machine (played 8 times; Update: two more plays on New Years Eve bumped this up)
6*) Dominion (played 7 times)
6*) Chess (played 7 times)
6*) Quoridor (played 7 times)
9*) Scarab Lords (played 6 times)
9*) Roll For The Galaxy (played 6 times)
9*) Wingspan (played 6 times)
In addition to those boardgames and digital board games, I've also enjoyed getting back into codecombat.com, practicing with programming in Python. Many of the challenges on codecombat.com have been easy for me to complete, since they have a lot of the code already setup for each scenario along with comments of what to do next. Still, there have been a few throughout the course that were difficult. There is a lot that is only available for premium members on that site, but I'm still just going through the free stuff. Maybe next year I'll get back into codingame.com again. That was fun when I did it before, but it's been a while since I've tried anything on there.
Lego kits have been enjoyable this year too. I've been building things with the Lego Education Spike Prime. I've tried getting my youngest daughters into it, using the suggested builds from the Lego Competition Ready lessons. I also got a really cool Optimus Prime set for my birthday from my brother. In a lot of ways, this seems like the year of the robots for me.
9
Table-top Games / Turing Machine
« Last post by Dragon on December 30, 2024, 17:59:36 »I got the Turing Machine board game for Christmas this year. I honestly did not expect my wife to be interested in the game much, but once she tried it, she really liked it. I played against Chris and Isaac the first time and then Beth joined us for 5 more games on Christmas Day. She admitted later that she wasn't really interested in playing it at first either, and expected that it was going to be more difficult than it ended up. Chris won most of the games we played that day, but Isaac tied with him once, and Beth won once on her own and tied with Chris once. I didn't win any of the 6 times that we played that day, but I'm sure we'll get a chance to play again soon. Beth has even been suggesting it as a game for Grace and Anna to play with us.
10
Scale Models / Re: Lego Trains
« Last post by Dragon on December 30, 2024, 17:50:26 »I finally got around to adding the automated track switching with the Lego Education Spike Prime this month. I setup the train set on the coffee table and just had a switch track that ran a tighter path than the outer path. It took a few hours to get right, but I finally got the mechanism dialed in to flip the switch after the train passed 5 times.