News and Events

Keep up to date with Steve Nurse's designs and 3d printing.

Tuesday 24 December 2019

Modular Dice

Discussing Cycling Board games with Alyson.
Deconstrucable dice parts, the "1" side is made into the cube and the 2's, 3's, 4's and 5's are scattered around.
A few of the cubes 

The "1" dice close up.
Cad detail of "6".

Hi

Last Friday, I visited a friend Alyson, and she interviewed me for a chapter of a new edition of my bike book.  We were talking about my cycling board game and the very first version of the game I had envisaged and had a go at making.  This used alternatively numbered dice to give different bike types advantages in different races in a series of 6, where ultimately advantages average out over 6 races. Anyway, the game wasn't silly and given that I've made other game pieces, the whole concept seems worth pursuing again.

So anyway, here is the deconstructable dice I made when I got home. I'm very pleased with the way it turned out and when I get time (I have some study and a few other projects on) will incorporate the dice into a game,

If a regular dice is an atom, then this is muons and quarks. Or maybe just not-so-sexy protons and electrons. Interested to hear your comments, regards

26/12/2019: Update, I have put the files on thingiverse.  Eventually I will write them into a cycling boardgame. Here is the link

Steve Nurse


Saturday 7 December 2019

The Kids are Allright

Palm Beach Accommodatation

Bus to Gold Coast City

Bus to Gold Coast City

Walking to buy tickets to Bus to Gold Coast City

Cic, Jarrod, Richard, Lost Palms Brewery

Lost Palms Brewery, Cic drives the Lost Palms Brewery Van

Faser & Abby

Making Stock

Abby, Cic, Fraser

Cic, Fraser

Rich, Abby

Abby


Me!

Rich, Abby, a bicycle I fixed up (a bit)





Hi

A few weeks ago I spent a few days at Palm Beach on the Gold Coast. My brother Richard was visiting from England, and two of his adult children live near the Queensland. New South Wales border, Cicely in Palm Beach and Fraser in Yamba. Anyway, Richard was flying up to the Goldie (Gold Coast) to visit them, and I decided to go along.

I rode to Mum and Dad's place on a Sunday morning, and we got a taxi from there to the Airport and a bit of a wait around for the flight. Cicely met us at the Goldie airport in her van, and we chugged down to Palm Beach and checked in to our accommodation then went on to Cicely's boyfriends work: a pub and brewery a bit closer to Gold Coast city. A bit later back at Palm Beach, Fraser and Abby turned up. They had driven an hour and a half or so from Yamba after their work and we got Pizza for dinner.

The next morning I went for a swim in the ocean which wasn't bad but I was a bit unused to the shallow sandbank and managed to bong my head on the sandbank and get a graze. Could have been much worse! We all went up to the Gold Coast city by bus and tram after that.  Both buses and trams were very efficient and we never had to wait too long. 

Schoolies, or "Year 12 breakup week" was on, and the city was slightly overrun by school leavers with "Schoolies" dog tags around their neck, and a large section of beach was being set up for a schoolies party. We had a coffee and an op-shop visit, and then we got back on the tram and bus to Burleigh Heads. Mercifully, this was beyond schoolies territory, and we did another caf and op-shop.

Cicely knew all the op shops in Palm beach and I visited all 3 of them when we got back to Palmy. Quite liked Palm Beach, it's not a very developed part of the Goldie and has all the shops and restaurants you might need within walking or cycling distance.  The whole Goldie is quite flat and there's a pretty relaxed attitude to bikes (lots of cruisers) and helmets (only worn about half the time despite them being compulsory).

We went round to Cice's the next night, had a few beers, and Fraser cooked a boned chicken (all the kids work in Hospo (Hospitality). It was a good night.  Next day after a swim, one of our mates from Melbourne (Jic) came around and we went out for a coffee but that was cut short, I had a call from a friend in Melbourne to say I was needed there because my wife Christine had had a fall.

Back at the accommodation I bought forward my flight back by 24 hours and caught a bus to catch an afternoon flight back to Melbourne, catching a bus to the city then a train home.  It was a nice short trip and the photos came out well so I thought I'd share them.

Best Wishes Steve Nurse