I am a confessed tinkerer. I think it's genetic. My brain as a child was warped by reading those books about famous inventors and scientists. I believed that I could build anything. I did have may famous follies. Most notable was a rocket. In the 1950's space travel was depicted in Life Magazine as rocket and satellite whizzing through the universe. Why should I not build my own model rocket from scratch. I had built model planes and cars. My first plane was a Piper Cub, built it before I could read, just followed the step-by-step pictures. When I was about and my interest in rockets peaked I would build a gunpowder powered rocket. Around the house I found everything I needed: gunpowder from Dad's shotgun shells, an empty toilet paper tube for the body of the rocket, and a nosecone I whittled from the wood of a packing crate. After assembly, needed a way to ignite the powder remotely. I didn't want to use a traditional fuse. (That would put me too close to the rocket. I scrounged a bit of with from a discarded hot plate and wrapped between two nails and inserted it into the tail of the rocket. I had an old piece of two-conductor wire with a plug on it and attached one wire to each nail. Time for the countdown. 3-2-1-(plug it in)-Blast-off!
Smoke and fire were forthcoming, but it did not move.
My family was upset about the loss of electricity. I was severely admonished for another one of my "scientific" projects.
I can't help but wonder what I could have done with the shop below.
No comments:
Post a Comment
What do you think of this post?