Power Inverter

I got this inverter a few years ago at Goodwill. The store had sorted it with the cups because it's shaped like a cup to fit in a car cupholder. This inverter is not great for electronics, but my pencil sharpener seems to be fine with it. I mostly use it with my solar power system. 

 

The spiky wave is from the inverter. The smooth sine wave is from the grid (both through a 120v to 3v AC to AC transformer.)

Kiwi Dragonfruit Soda and Jam

 Now that I'm in college, I'm addicted to Mountain Dew. I like to try all the new flavors. Then I started thinking about how I can make my own flavors of soda. My dad bought a used soda stream machine at a garage sale, and then I checked out a cookbook from the library, "Homemade Soda" by Andrew Schloss. 

The first recipe I tried is for kiwi syrup. I made a 1/4 recipe with 1 kiwi and added a few frozen dragon fruit chunks for color. I chopped the fruit into small pieces and then cooked it in a pot with sugar. Then I strained it into a container and added lime juice. The fruit pulp left over was coated in sugar syrup. I tasted it, and it reminded me of jam. For the second batch, I used 2 kiwis. I blended the kiwis and dragon fruit in my magic bullet. I thought this would make it easier to get a smooth syrup. Instead, it made a thick fruit pulp that would not go through the strainer very well, so more of it turned into jam.