This pace is slightly slower than a 2 hour half-marathon, but that is partly because of the traffic-lights and other obstacles in the course. Kilometers 9, 10, and 11 felt pretty good - I wonder how much beyond 11k the wall lies?
In other news, lucid lynx is out, and my desktop machine is taking forever to download about 2600 Mb of upgrades.
The GPS has serious problems on "Nokia avenue" in between high buildings...
Legs still feel a bit heavy from 10k on Saturday. Pace is 4h marathon pace, or around 5:32 to 5:40min/km.
Some random pics from Sunday at the 2010 Helsinki Model Expo.
The two 1:10RC scale yachts look nice, but must take an enormous amount of time to build, and are 140cm long and weigh 10kg (like a 1970-80s Marblehead?). All of which contrasts quite strongly with the MicroMagic, where presumably some of the better sailing this season will take place. We had one PIKANTO hull and some components on display, but we really don't have a handle on producing these hulls or parts at a rate or cost that would make it possible to sell or market them (yet?).
Some lathes, and a miniature Proxxon machine-park, on display. But nothing running EMC2 or the size/speed/awasomeness that would have raised my interest further. If I finish the lathe this summer I think something like a hexapod must be next on the todo-list...
1090 euros (about 1450 USD!) seems a bit steep for a MakerBot CupCake kit, which seems to cost about 750-950 USD elsewhere (googling gets me here or here or review-here). Unfortunately this kind of pricing is quite common with companies that import stuff. I won't miss these companies when they go out of business because everyone (sane) orders directly from Germany/USA/China/etc.
In a normal BLDC motor the windings are stationary on the outside, and a permanent-magnet rotor in the middle rotates. On outrunners this is reversed: the windings are stationary in the middle, and a rotor with permanent magnets is on the outside. The pictures here and here show a DIY electric motor I had not seen before. Both the windings and the permanent magnets rotate, in opposite directions. They are coupled to two propellers which rotate in opposite directions, and it apparently works quite well!
No running last weekend due to a Removal of Wisdom (teeth) operation. Something like 2:20 now seems like a more realistic goal for the half-marathon in two weeks.
It's time for this years Model Expo in the Helsinki convention center. We set up some boats yesterday and will have Micro Magic, IOM, 5.5mrc, and as a new thing for this year 1:10RC-boats on display. The big 1:10 boats (behind the table against the wall) are built by a local enthusiast fairly accurately to scale, length ca 140cm, weight 10kg, with pretty big/sturdy fittings by modern racing radiosailing-standards.
MicroMagic sailing in the pool will be the main radio-sailing attraction as usual.
I've experimented with using OpenMP to calculate drop-cutter toolpaths on a quad-core machine. These now run reasonably fast. There are obvious lurking bugs with BallCutter and BullCutter still...
Code is here: code.google.com/p/opencamlib/ (if you know C++, computational geometry, and cnc-machining, or are willing to learn, this project needs your help!)
See also: styrofoam spider
FinnTEC fills the Helsinki convention center every two years with manufacturing technology and related stuff. I couldn't find anything too revolutionary, a lot of 4- or 5-axis machining centers running programs where they didn't machine anything, just hovered the tool above the workpiece. The 3D printers which print ABS-plastic are becoming more common. The price for one I looked at was 13 keur, not too bad.
See also FinnTEC 2008
