A couple of updates on unrelated items:

No Knead Bread

I made my second loaf of this, and it came out pretty well. Better than the first–the dough was much less watery. I also baked it longer (closer to 60 minutes total). However, I’m still not quite happy with it. Even with less water and more baking, it still seems to be too moist inside. The crust is wonderful, and the bread is nice and airy, but it’s too much like eating cake (in the moisture–not the crumb). I’ll try again with a little less water, and less “steaming”. Maybe 20 minutes with lid on and 35 with lid off. Sorry, we missed the photo op again. So no pictures of bread.

Scratch Board

I mentioned the Scratch Board when discussing programming languages for kids. Well, at long last the board has arrived. Here’s what you get for your $30 ($25 for a board, $5 for shipping):

 

Click Here For Large View Of Scratch Board

You get the following:

• The board.
• Four on/off sensor leads (alligator clips)
• Serial to USB Converter (very handy if you have a newer PC without a RS-232 port–nice touch!)

On the board you get:

• Small jacks for the alligator clips, or your own sensors. Looks smaller than 3.5mm (1/8th inch). Four of them.
• Microphone (the black thing toward the bottom left).
• Momentary pushbutton (yellow square thing).
• Light sensor (tiny–near the 9 pin jack)
• Sliding potentiometer (long thing along one side of board)

I’ve yet to hook it up, but it seems pretty cool, and very well designed. Perfect for the budding scientists out there.

Update: I’ve hooked up the board and it works fine. You do need to use the included USB converter, as they use that driver (available on their site). The four alligator cable connections can be used in two ways: Either on/off or as resistence sensors. I’m glad they did that, as it allows you to do more elaborate sensing. Pretty cool.