Theodore Gray Gift Guide
Father’s Day (June 19) and Tau Day (June 28)
Not sure what to do about Father’s Day? Can’t get him flowers because that would be weird? How about my book on how to do dangerous science demonstrations that are actually seriously dangerous, not “dangerous” like those wimpy other books? Or if he’s into mechanical things I’ve got a book about how they work, and a couple dozen kits that let him build working transparent acrylic models of interesting mechanisms.
And since we’re coming up on tau day (6/28, because tau is 2pi, which is 6.2831…) you might also consider one of our line of tau quilts at the bottom of this page. We also have pi quilts, but if your dad is a tau-enthusiast he will be blown away that we actually make quilts of this fairly obscure variation on pi. Pi day was March 14, but if you’re a traditionalist and just really want an excuse to get a pi quilt, you could get it in honor of European pi day, 22/7 (because 22/7 = 3.1428… is sometimes used as a rational approximation of pi, and Europeans sensibly put dates in day/month/year order). I just made that up by the way.
COMPLETE CARS
These models show, in transparent 3D form, the key ideas behind the major mechanical components in an internal combustion engine car. All the parts work, including the engine (with LEDs for simulated spark plugs), steering wheel, gear shift, and differential. Electric motors can be added to make the models run on their own.
