Here’s what the finished product looks like:

There were some beautiful horse chestnut trees blooming along the path. Horse chestnuts are used to play a game called conkers. I found this nice description of the game.

The kids have had an interesting week; Sage had her first cello recital on Tuesday and she visited Tamworth Castle as part of their study of castles. Today, a helicopter is visiting…

The weather has been just perfect this week. I’ve spent a bit of my time in the sun sawing and sanding this speaker enclosure. It’s not quite finished yet, but before I build the other one, I’m planning to get started on my next project, assembling an amp from 41hz.com.

The bluebells are still blooming as well, though the hot summer weather this week seems likely to indicate their imminent senescence.

I’ve seen this flower, red campion, or Silene dioica, fairly often near the roadside.

Cow parsley, Anthriscus sylvestris, is one of the most abundant roadside blooms.

Hawthorn is also fairly common, often in hedgerows.

Perhaps the most abundant plant in England, though, is Urtica dioica, the stinging nettle. It grounds profusely on roadsides. If you have to pee while out walking, be sure to be careful or you might end up like Sage with stinging hairs embedded in your backside. Fortunately, crushed dock leaves appear to sooth the sensation somewhat and are usually found in the same habitat. This plant, Lamium album, or white dead-nettle, looks very similar to the stinging nettle, but doesn’t actually irritate.

I’ve also been meaning to visit the nearby Staunton Harold estate. The house itself it still used as a residence, but the grounds are open to the public.

These sculptures were outside the old stables at the Staunton Harold estate which have been renovated to house artisans’ workshops.

This emerging fern was my favorite find of the morning:

Arduino is a tool for making computers that can sense and control more of the physical world than your desktop computer. It’s an open-source physical computing platform based on a simple microcontroller board, and a development environment for writing software for the board.

Arduino can be used to develop interactive objects, taking inputs from a variety of switches or sensors, and controlling a variety of lights, motors, and other physical outputs. Arduino projects can be stand-alone, or they can be communicate with software running on your computer.

from The Arduino Guide

I bought an Arduino starter kit and having been following the tutorial from LadyAda. I started by putting together the prototyping shield with a breadboard which makes it even easier to add new hardware components. My soldering skills seem to be improving and it went very smoothly. I’ve gone through the first few tutorials, which are pretty basic so far. My Arduino can light up the LEDs!

I’ve been watching the many cool projects based on Arduinos appearing on the Make blog. I’m looking forward to learning more.

I came up with this solution:

We have a large stash of Queensland Collection Kathmandu Aran that I hope someday will turn into a sweater. So now I have a merino/silk/cashmere ankle strap. I’m not sure how it’ll stand up to the mud and rain it will eventually encounter, but it only took a few minutes to make and meantime I’m surely the most styling cyclist around!

Here are all the parts laid out before we started:

Herbie is very cleverly designed; the solder joints hold the structure together as well as complete circuits. I had a bit of help from River. She held some of the trickier parts while I soldered them together. Here she is putting a resistor through the circuit board.

You might notice that she is wearing a new hat? I just finished it the day before. Knitting projects that can be completed in one day are always satisfying. It is based on this pattern for a roll brim hat, but adjusted to compensate for heavier yarn on thick needles.

Here is the completed Herbie:

Herbie’s eyes are photo-receptors which allow the mouse to follow lights. The whiskers and the tail are also sensors. If Herbie bumps into something, the whiskers or tail complete a circuit causing him to back up for a couple seconds before going forward again. It is fascinating to watch the behavior this relatively simple algorithm generates. Chester and Jumbles thought it was pretty neat, too!