Wednesday, April 25, 2012
A girl and her TARDIS...
This video is by no means new, but I still can’t get over how awesome it is.
Or rather how awesome its creator is.
Going by the Youtube handle of Sillysparrowness, this “Doctor Who” fan from Germany decided to build her own TARDIS.
And not just any TARDIS.
She built one that she can knockdown, move about her home and reassemble on a whim.
Just because.
She’s had it “appear” in her garden, in her living room and even in her bathroom!
How awesome is that?
I’m not sure if she just made up her plans on her own or got them from somewhere else, but they are pure genius. She made foldable front, back and side panels that lock into four upright rails which in turn attach to a square base section with some wooden pegs. The roof with her home-made lantern light on top locks the whole thing together. Four long rectangular “POLICE BOX” signs that hang just beneath the roof add the finishing touch. Her system requires no tools for assembly/disassembly.
Her obvious love of the long-running BBC science-fiction show about a mysterious time traveler and his oddly shaped time machine may make her a geek, but she’s my kind of geek. She is smart and incredibly witty with an excellent problem solving skills and despite her self-deprecating humor, possesses some pretty mean DYI skills.
To me that’s just an awesome combination. Smart, geeky and a woodworker? I’m in love!
About the only thing I didn’t like about her project was the way she used her table saw (she calls it a circular saw in the video). Her freehand crosscuts without the use of a miter gage and with no blade guard made me cringe. As a woodworker myself who has had a one or two close calls using a table saw even with the proper safety equipment, I cannot stress how dangerous that was. Making freehand cuts is just a recipe for kickback which could have resulted in her hand being thrown into the moving blade. So if you are reading this Silly, please, please NEVER DO THAT AGAIN! Either stick with your jigsaw or contact me and I’d be happy to give you a few lessons on how to safely use a table saw. (I’ll trade you the lessons for your TARDIS plans).
Now you might think that most people droning on for 17-minutes about how they built a prop from their favorite TV show would make a boring video. And you’d be right.
Luckily for us, Sillysparrowness isn’t most people.
She’s several people.
Or rather several people who represent different sides of her own personality. And these other “selves” not only talk to us, the viewer, they talk – and sometimes even argue – among themselves. It’s a gimmick she uses to great effect not only in this video but in several of her other video blogs as well. I really like the interplay between all her different “selves” in her “Why I didn't make a 10,000 subscribers video.”
It’s a technique that doesn’t get old, because she doesn’t use it all the time. In some of her blogs she just examines the usage of language in her favorite poem or discusses why she thinks Schrödinger's Cat makes for the worst of metaphors. But then again, she’s what we’d call a “language arts” teacher, (she teaches German to German students, so I can’t really call her an “English teacher”) so what would you expect? But even in these non-“Doctor Who” videos, her intelligence and wit shine through. Makes me wish I had had more teachers as cool and as awesome as her when I was in junior high school.
But perhaps the thing I find most awesome about Sillysparrowness is that her real name is Astrid – which if you rearrange the letters spell out TARDIS!
You can subscribe to Silly’s video blogs here: http://www.youtube.com/user/sillysparrowness or friend her on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002668942390 And if you happen to know anybody at the BBC props department, please, please have them send her a copy of the light that belongs on the top of the TARDIS. It’s the least they can do for such an awesome lady! Or if you are a friend of current “Doctor Who” show runner Steven Moffat, please make sure he sees this video and beg him to give her a cameo on the show!
Because she is that awesome.
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Too cool. So when are you building your own??
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