Roland's Cube

A tribute to some of our First Responders. This is a dangerous and hard job these folks do. We had a fire in our townhome some years ago and I was amazed at how fast the fire company responded and the level of their professionalism (Fairfax County, VA Fire Department). The damage kept us out of our house for about six weeks. You don't want to go through that, especially with small children!

This GollyGee Blocks® scene was done by a North Carolina teacher in Orange County. All of the objects are constructed from basic geometric shapes. The detail is wonderful. His students have done great work as well.

Posted by Roland Blocksom at 09:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"If the dog's prayers were answered, the skies would rain bones."

My son brought back a neat book from his recent trip to the Sultanate of Oman (another story sometime) entitled Apricots Tomorrow. The book is a compilation of Arabic sayings transliterated into English accompanied by some very clever cartoons.

The bones were the hard part of the scene. I used a column for the bone shaft and merged spheres to make the bone ends. Since the scene is in 3D, the placement of the spheres on the column proved to be a daunting task, since it is hard to approximate exactly where the column is in space. Maybe you can find an easier way to do it. I just used the brute force method!

Posted by Roland Blocksom at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I heard an interesting discussion about why we won't be able to view the rings of Saturn very well over the next two years. The program on the Kojo Nnamdi show yesterday (Wednesday 4/16/08 "Backyard Stargazing") was about this subject. I listen to this program (on at noon every day in the Washington DC metro area) frequently. Seems the planet tilts with respect to our view on its' orbit around the Sun and the rings appear on edge and very narrow. This subject and the new extension of the Cassini satellite mission around Saturn, would make wonderful Science Lesson projects.

I have used GollyGee Blocks® to give you what I think the view might look like. I'm not an Astronomer so you may want to check a more authoritative source for this. A good place to start would be Astronomy Magazine or with the Public Affairs Officer at the US Naval Observatory. Both activities had guests on Kojo's show.

Posted by Roland Blocksom at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While I did some marketing at a local school I noted that their mascot was a wolf. I came home and ginned up this rendition of their school logo. Now... if I could only convince them to buy GollyGee Blocks® !! They liked the program but budgets don't allow them to buy the product.

I used spheres, cylinders, right prisms and pyramids in this construction.

Posted by Roland Blocksom at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April showers seem to be the rule so far this month. The daffodils are out in full bloom in my yard. The cottage picture sort of reminds me of the feeling of the coming of Spring. The Cottage is a pyramid stacked on a cube. The pond is a stretched sphere with water texture added. Actually, I should put some windows on the cottage as it looks more like the old fashioned outhouse now (although I've never seen a brick one!). I still remember visiting an aunt when I was a kid and they had no indoor plumbing.

Posted by Roland Blocksom at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm sure this rendition of a motorcycle would not pass the muster of the gang at Orange County Choppers but here it is anyway. Tank is made from elongated sphere. I could do better, but wanted something quick here today.

Posted by Roland Blocksom at 04:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)