April Maker Challenge #29/30 : apartmentHerbPlanter

WHAT: so i was listening to Kasper on a splendid table while cooking dinner. makes a LOT of sense to me to start a food garden. but alas - i live on the 3rd floor of an apartment. i DO have windows, and i DO have a balcony. thatll do.

OBJECTIVE: make a planter that can sustain fresh thai chillies, cilantro (and parsley), holy basil, and green onions. (i tend to use a LOT of these). hopefully yield enough for a 2 week harvest cycle.

HOW: will probably be a staggered launch of this thru the summer. i eat a LOT. which means i have to put out quite a bit of balcony real-estate to get that done. so i might crop rotate and freeze many of chillies and basil. to be determined.

APPLICATION: food! homemade food! would go well with the vermicomposting i plan to startup. on top of the CSA for staples .. i would only need to go grocery shopping for meat and outlying stuff.

April Maker Challenge #23/30: wokNroll

WHAT: i want to make a propane fired wok stove. i live in an apartment that has electric element burners. (and so far, 4/5 of my previous apartments were all electric element stoves). optimally - this would be something that would also come with an extractor - or something that i can run outside.

OBJECTIVE: make a *portable* wok stove. has to be able to run at least 1 giant wok. i need some MASSIVE BTU's here (or kJoules out). hopefully, it should reach the 400 Fahrenheit mark. i need to achieve what is referred to as "wok hei". will either have to run

HOW: not sure. probably get a propane tank, and a commercial burner ring (or possibly several?). i'd need a whole bunch of stainless for this build - since there is gonna be vaporizing oil particles and stuff. a fire extinguisher and emergency cutoff is probably a good idea.

APPLICATION: this is like the opposite of sousvide. fast and furious chemical conversion/combustion needs to take place. the "browning" technique here is an understatement.

April Maker Challenge #17:30: sunBake!

WHAT: a homemade solar oven. yea, they have some stuff on instructibles - but i'd like to design and build one myself.

OBJECTIVE: should be able to get warm enough to cook meat (not necessarily boil water). hold a constant(ish) 200 F. temp control obviously isnt the primary objective - but the easiest first test is to cook an egg to completion within an hour (i think thats a modest goal). extra nice if i could get away without actually PURCHASING any new supplies specifically for this project.

HOW: cardboard, HD tinfoil, possibly some insulation material, and a light focusing apparatus (havnt figured this part out quite yet)

APPLICATION: sun cooking! eat em up yum!

April Maker Challenge #5/30 : sousvide

What: a closed loop temperature controlled hot water bath. the size of a crockpot. most probably - for food experiments. typically known sous vide. (vac bags are commercially available)

Objectives: closed loop control temperature with a ±1 Celsius accuracy. should probably hold temps of 21C to 95C consistently. and recirculate the water. hopefully on the cheap.

How: temp control is something that is pretty well documented online. i just have to source the thermistor (cheaper than thermocouple right?) and maybe come up with a nice 7seg/LCD for an interface and on the fly temperature programming. next step is to make sure i have the thing insulated so i'm not pumping in crazy amounts of heat into it. i also have to figure out what kind of thermal mass i want to deal with and the average size of cooked food and whatnot.

Application: i want to be able to prep a whole bunch of vac bags with raw/semiraw foods, freeze em, and throw a pack in 2-3 hours before i need to eat. the niceness of temp control is that i can maintain a specific temp so i never overcook my food.

bonus points: if i can only hook this up to an affordable xbee/zigbee/bluetooth module, which i can connect to my computer - then i can start this up (or shut it down) from online or via email.