"I never thought I would find myself describing a Robot as gorgeous"

On a road trip, coming home via the Wimmera, I had the chance to meet my second cousin Reuben Grieger. I only knew him as Mum's cousin and that he "makes things", quite a broad description. My other half enjoys gadgets and tinkering so I thought this might make an interesting detour, a change of scenery from mallee prickles and paddy melons.

Whilst having a cuppa we got to see some of the items he has made: vehicles, plaques and clocks carved from wood. In another room I spied a home built crank organ.
Out in the shed is where it happens - from bits and bobs he constructs machinery (recycling at its best) from which he can make circuit boards to construct other items or punch
out rolls of paper music for the crank organ. A small Hit N Miss machine runs on a tiny amount of petrol. A Miniature Train awaits its next outing! And then we get shown his amazing
Miniature JET ENGINE, of which there are only a few in Australia and this one had done demonstrations at the Avalon Air Show.

For me the most "gorgeous" item is the Robot he was currently working on and programing - it can clap, cheer, karate kick, do push ups, headstands and more. Each limb has several
motors to control it! I have to wonder what else Reuben has in the works! This is a world of CAD/CAM and model engineering, things I know so little about, but it was so fascinating.