One of the points in Avilaâs video is on how the story that gatekeepers expect us to tell them-âI am a âfooâ in a âbarâ bodyâ-doesnât fit every trans person, but we have to tell it because thatâs what the gatekeepers expect from us in order for them to issue the âmedically necessary careâ plot coupon.
Along the way he mentions Judith Butlerâs book Gender Trouble1, which comes up often when we trans folks talk about our diverse experience of gender stuff. I appreciate Butlerâs description of Gender as Doing.
Femme as a way of being in the world is more natural for me than masc. And I count myself as lucky that I stumbled upon a gender therapist who understood when I said that I was exhausted with trying to deal with the world while presenting as a man. It was like trying to drive a moon rover from oneâs desk.
Do my pursuits of rocketry, machining, and fabrication complicate femme? Maybe2. Iâm happy to 3D print or CNC a sign for conservatives reading: âthis lack of absolute truth is scaring meâ that they can mount over the mantle of their extremely binary gendered homes.
Complicate may not be the right word here. Itâs more the willful or learned misinterpretation of femmes doing STEM. Xyla Foxlin talks about the time she was helping another rocketeer get their L3 rocket ready to fly at LDRS 40 and a community relations person from NASA insisted to her face that she had to be the âsocial mediaâ person, never mind she was helping prep the rocket. That lead to Spite, a 75mm, minimum diameter sky puncher that hit Mach 2.2. ↩
A rocket kit designed in response to limits placed on STEM students, who are still expected to build and fly a high power rocket as part of coursework.
The design responds to the limits dropped on undergrads (no epoxy in labs or dorms, etc.) expected to build and fly a high power rocket as part of their coursework.
Iâve seen plenty of enthusiastic students get less than civil push back at the Range Safety Officerâs table on the flight line. Epoxy may still be drying, fins not aligned, or motor retention not installed correctly because the student fliers didnât have the time or the space to build a plywood three-fin-nose-cone rocket properly.
With this kit, a student (or anyone else) can build and fly a NAR/TRA level one certification-capable rocket thatâll pass range safety inspection, in an hour or so, in a dorm room or a lab, using a hex key, straight edge, ruler or calipers, and a drill.
The fins bolt into rails which are in turn bolted into two machined aluminum centering rings through a kraft paper airframe. A 38mm composite rocket motor goes into the centering rings and is held in place with a retaining screw.
Iâve ordered one and will update this post once I get it next month and have had a chance to build and fly it.
Even though I donât spend a lot of time messing about with Conwayâs Life, itâs fun to blog about interesting versions of it.
Someone on CodePen, with the username foretoo, posted a version of Life with an added time-dimension as âvoxelsâ. The current state of the automata is the top layer, and the camera rotates about the centerline as the automata runs.
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