I’m useless at a lot of stuff. But if there was to be only one thing I lack adept skills at, its anything fiddly. I lack the dexterity and patience to deal with delicate situations and dread the moments in life that require me to proficiently thread needles.
So a house of cards seems like the natural challenge to give myself in this situation. I have obviously made yards towards conquering my needle threading issues when knocking off #14. But I still get infuriated with the most light of touches needed to balance two playing cards against each other.
My inspiration for this challenge is Gromit. When searching the archives of my mind, I have early memories of a Wallace and Gromit animation where they decide to go on holiday to the moon. In this episode, they have a good amount of time to kill during the 384,400 km journey to the satellite. So, Gromit ends up building a huge house of cards. Not only does my respect go out to Gromit for this astounding achievement, my heart also goes out to Nick Park and his team for actually having to create this in a miniature form using modelling clay.
If tedious was an orange squash, that is drinking the whole bottle undiluted. Long live Aardman Animations.
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Sadly, Gromit is mute, thus I cannot fill my head with his words of wisdom as I attempt a house of cards on the 12.53 East Grinstead service from London Victoria. Yet, I’m quite impressed with my progress so far. On previous attempts I have barely managed more than a single archway. Here I am getting on for a Brunel-esque viaduct.
My problem is that, like anything using a Brunel-esque viaduct, the train I am on is not static. Every twist and bump caused tremendous structural issues for the building. Definitely going to struggle with building insurance in this situation (sorry, that’s my new job talking).
Another issue is the fact that the pack of cards I am using – London Underground Map – has a very smooth surface to it. Trying to place cards on top of one layer was like trying to free stand a single crutch. Not gonna happen.
With my newly found appreciation of train bridges, I try it back at the house. This time with a more traditional deck that had a glossy card consistency – better for friction. Also, using the dining room table made famous by this blog that has a cloth with similar resistant surface properties.
Finally, another tactic I adopted was to consider my card-laying technique. Normally you would think of taking a card in either hand and bringing them ceremonially together above the surface they are about to encounter. Instead of this, I chose to create a sustainably balanced pair on the table separate to the construction site. I would then crane this piece into place with my arm. So, I was opting for a prefab design.
And after 1 hour and 20 minutes, here is what I had:
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I’m pretty satisfied with that. 3 layers with a base of 5 pairs. I’d call that a success.
For those looking to go into playing card property construction, a couple of technical points to consider:
- When placing the row, think about all dimensions. Keep all of them straight otherwise disaster might strike. I had trouble with my cards, not moving left or right, but back or forth. Observe your structure from a number of perspectives.
- When placing an arch, make it a taller arch with a more acute angle than you would hope for. The reason for this is that when you layer on top, the weight will push them apart.
- Don’t do this too much in public, it’s not great for your street cred.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
