When the moment approaches

Tomorrow I should pack my prepared gear and head to Turku. It's the Tähtipäivät weekend! I'm very happy that soon the whole hassle will be over, I'm not ashamed to admit that. I've been doing the stuff for it since last September, so it's nice to get it over and done with. Still, I think (and hope) it'll be fun and everything will work out fine!

I'm especially interested how the content I've been doing will work... (And Neil's, too, he's been doing some pretty awesome art!) One of the things I've luckily managed to finish (on top of that floor puzzle and Väisälä exhibition), is a task track for people to solve. There will be few hints spread around the venue and people can try to find them and "break the code". Here's an example of the hints (the astrolabe will be there, too;):

More prints

I've got a new love: the big Epson printer downstairs in our school. For Tähtipäivät, I've also put together some stuff about Yrjö Väisälä, one of the most famous Finnish astronomers (and telescope builders and geodetics) of all time. This year is his birth's 120th anniversary and his life is one of the themes in Tähtipäivät. Originally I got the idea already years ago, when I visited Tuorla, the observatory he built. I was unhappy to see that everything one could read about Väisälä's achievements there were a couple of articles clipped from magazines on the wall of one of the domes. That's why I wanted to make something more tributary about his life for Tähtipäivät.

It took me quite a while to investigate his life and put these things together. It also took me some time to figure out how the interference comparator works and draw the explanatory image. And it took me some time to get the pictures from Tuorla to use with the exhibition. When I did the test prints, the small printer printed some stupid boxes around some of the transparent images. I did the best I could, but was a bit doubtful how it would turn out with the big printer.

But Epson did it and the boards came out just great! I am hugely relieved. :)

Finished puzzle

...continuing from the last post. :) I managed to get the thing printed and cut at school, so the puzzle does actually look quite nice now! It was tricky to do, though, since I had to print it in two pieces and then place it on several different boards. Some of the pieces ended up having funny looking edges, but you can only see them from close distance anyway. All in all it turned out great! (Anyone who knows me well enough knows also how seldom I say that. Too seldom, actually.)

The puzzle will be in Tähtipäivät for trying it out. ;)

Midway

I haven't been able to finish too many things since there are quite a lot of fuzz going on with Tähtipäivät. I also had a short holiday, which did help me relax a bit. (Organising big events are dangerous for my perfectionism inclined attitude.:P) Still, I guess and hope that I'll be able to finish the things in time and have fun in the event, as well. :)

I've been having fun with the editing programmes in that CS5 package I mentioned in my previous post. I guess next big buy will be bigger computer for the proper video editing... XD We'll have some lessons about After Effects at school soon, I hope I'll have time to attend to few lessons, since I'll be pretty busy with other stuff, too.

Next Tuesday I should try to print a bigger version of this constellation puzzle I've been working on. It's funny how challenging it seems to be, even if all the constellations are so familiar! Great stuff, though! :D