Lego Printing Press

Last weekend I made a Lego printing press. I used a lego board which had a space for an ink reservoir pre-molded on it. I originally designed it to work with silicone bracelets and print on the top but then I used rubber bands instead which print on the bottom. The paper is pulled through by a hand crank but I will try to make it motorized. The top wheel is just to press it down. It prints a stripe on the underside of the paper. Right now it has mostly water and green ink. I labelled all the parts on the picture.

Knitting Machine Monsters

One of Griffin's summer projects was making monsters. He bought a knitting machine at the thrift store (unfortunately there was no choice on the color). When Griffin saw the machine, he immediately knew what it was even though Mom didn't. He said that's because he watched the How It's Made episode about socks. The knitting machine worked well to make short knitted tubes. It did drop some stitches, and the holes gave him the idea to make monsters. Mom crocheted around the edges of the holes to keep them from unravelling further.
Griffin enjoyed experimenting with different colors and types of yarn. The knitting machine came with a ball of red yarn. He tried string, and the result looked kind of like chain mail. He tried variegated camo yarn, variegated rainbow yarn, slippery yarn, and fuzzy yarn. Then he tried fishing line, but when Mom tried to untangle it the yarn guide broke.