Ice Monsters

We just finished eating this guy, a blue chicken:

I think our chance of survival is pretty good, but just in case, figured I better post this month’s pictures.

Remember last month’s snowman?

He spent the last month evolving.  First we added a bunch of mostly random appendages:

Then I hooked up a hose with some micro-spray sprinkler heads at the top of a ladder:

And ran it overnight when the temp went freezing:

After some tuning, I got more ice re-directed from the ladder to the monster:

Then I added some xmas lights:

After a few nights, the lights were under several inches of ice:

Then a fuse in the string blew, likely not to be replaced until spring:

We got a bit more snow, so I extended and added some more appendages for icicles to hang from:

That pointy ice spear formed on that  stick under it, then melted that way over a few days:

This is the mighty religious warrior with spear pose:

Then the spear melted to a blunt knob and started on a new one:

There were some really neato ice formations around the spray heads:

And some outer-worldly ice formations elsewhere:

Wait, was that a doggy photo?   What's that … needs more cowbell, er dog-bell?  (SNL skit).  Well, ok, since you asked, I happen to have a few:  

Bantik loves snow:

And pine cones:

And plastic bottles … best toy ever:

But clothing not so much … he and I both think this one makes him look like an ivy league preppy:

So we usually go without, although we do get a bit wet and dirty at times:

He has been helping me break up and move ice off of our pool cover … an excuse to build more ice monsters!

One other slightly less silly project this month.  I populated my desk with various electronic parts:

And this popped out:

It measures various air quality metrics like temperature, humidity, and most excitedly, particulate content (air clarity), then uploads the data to the cloud via WiFi, all at <2 watts.

I built three of these, for various indoor and outdoor placements:

For any any geeks of interest, plots are here:

https://xively.com/feeds/1389033602

Bruce