Tag: Graphics

Pocket Leaflet First Aid (Dutch)

In 2017 I participated with the “Nijmeegse vierdaagse” also called the The Four Days Marches. This is a walking event where people (~43.000 people) walk four consecutive days a distance between 30 to 50 kilometers a day, depending on age and gender.

During this event I had to go numerous of times to the First Aid, provided by the Dutch Red Cross, for my blisters on my feet. The organization was really impressive. As follows I decided the join the Red Cross in the Netherlands as a First Aid volunteer.

At our branch of the Red Cross, so called “LiBoZa” cards where shared. “LiBoZa” is short for “Linker Boven Zak”, which translates to “Left Side Upper Pocket”. It is a small leaflet which fits in the pocket of your blouse. This type of leaflet shows all kind of useful details about a certain topic summarized. These are used to;

  • For one as to remember the most important content. As a trained individual you are supposed to know all the content. However, in the beginning when I had little to no experience I found these leaflets very useful to check upon.
  • Discussion, nowadays I use the leaflet more as a conversation starter

Since I liked providing aid to people I also joined the emergency response officers at my company. At that moment I decided to produce my own leaflets. For two reasons; i) optimizing the content of the leaflet. Online there are various leaflets and all of them have different content, ii) I wanted to add leaflets about safety and fire related topics.

So without further I want to share my produced leaflets with you. Three notes;

  1. I am not a (medical/fire/safety) professional, I just got the content from the internet from multiple sources and tried to combine the best out of all of them, so in no way I will be held responsible. In case you need help always request help from a professional.
  2. Furthermore, the leaflet is in Dutch. So I apologies if you are English. I do want to create a translation someday, but at this moment it is only in Dutch.
  3. If you are interested in the source documents, you can always contact me.
LiBoZaDownload
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Birthday Calendar

Since recently I did not yet had a birthday calendar in my apartment. This was because I namely dislike the very ordinary “toilet kind” of birthday calendars, see below on the left. More than a year ago I stumbled upon a very original birthday calendar on Pinterest. Immediately I became spontaneous, it has a very nice look, it is original with its clothespins and easy to maintain as well as built.

A while ago I finally gave myself the time to replicate the idea. Using the clothespins I determined what the minimum size of the wooden plank had to be, 125 [cm] in length and 25 [cm] in width. At first I tried to find an old plank of a pallet. Those often have that old look which I wanted to go for. Unfortunately none of them did met the requirements w.r.t. the size. So in the end I just bought a plank from a hardware store and sawn it to the correct dimensions.

To do the writing of the header “birthday”, the months and the names of the people I bought a white and black acrylic marker called “DECO painter matt” of the brand Marabu. To make sure that the letters on the wood of the word “birthday” would be consistent, I made a small mold out of paper. The months I just drawn out of hand, same for the names and days on the clothespins.

DECO painter

In the example on Pinterest the clothespins are colored. This can be achieved by coloring the clothespins with paint or by buying colored clothespins. You can find the latter by searching on children toys. I did not color them and searched for old and worn clothespins. If you do not have those you can buy new ones and put them in the watery garden and wait a week or two.

The result
  • Differerent result found on Pinterest
  • Differerent result found on Pinterest
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Symbol to represent Emergency Response Team (ERT) Bedrijfshulpverlening (BHV)

Emergency response officers (ERT), or in Dutch Bedrijfshulpverlening (BHV), within companies are trained in providing both first aid and limiting and combating (small) fires. All to limit the consequences of accidents. Various icons are used to resemble these organisations. One symbol which I have seen quiet often is the combination of first aid and a fire symbol.

However, since there was not yet a vector format available, I created one. Using the established first aid and fire sign from ISO 7010.

Emergency Response Team (ERT), or in Dutch Bedrijfshulpverlening (BHV), icon.

On the left the fire symbol with the red color. On the right half of the first aid cross with the green color. The red and green color form a gradient in the middle.

You can download the vector file here.

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Your own Happy Salmon game

Recently we had a game night with some friends of mine. At the start of the night we played the game “Happy Salmon“. It is a very simple game but really energetic. Every player gets a set of cards. Each card resembles an action. The goal is to get rid of your cards as fast as possible.  You will have to find another player with the same action and perform it. To find another player you simply shout your action out loud in the open. The actions are either:

  1. High five, players high five each other
  2. Pound it, players fist bumb each other
  3. Switcheroo, players switch places
  4. Happy Salmon, players flip there hands against each other very fast, like two fish splashing.

The following video describes the chaos in my living room when we played the game.

Chaos!

As you can see the game is very energetic. However since we simply threw our cards in the air these would most likely do not hold that long. Therefor, I created my own “Happy Salmon” such that I could simply print out, cut it in pieces, and would not have to worry about cards being destroyed. In the process of creating these cards I also added some more actions. These new actions will make the game more challenging when playing with a large crowd. 

The game cards, shout out to Freepik for his icons: https://www.flaticon.com/authors/freepik

The cards background are transparent, meaning that if you simply use colored paper you will nice colored cards. Most pictures are self explaining but nevertheless, the following new actions are defined:

  1. Bro Bump, more or less the same as pound it but only with the knuckles and on shoulder height as in the picture. 
  2. Bro Shake, handshake in the air
  3. Pinky Swear, pinky swear with one another
  4. Hug, bit more intimate but should be fun nonetheless
  5. Handshake, seems obvious
  6. Teamspirit, for this action you need three people instead of two. You put each other hands on each other and cheer afterwards, something like, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGmp3zdRLyY
  7. Teamwork, for this action you will need four people instead of the regular two. Simply hold each others arms as shown on the picture.

The cards are simply created in office. Below you can either download the source file or download the original card set or the card set with the new actions. Both files are for one player.

Happy Salmon source fileDownload
Happy Salmon – English – 1 Player – OriginalDownload
Happy Salmon – English – 1 Player – ExtendedDownload

Have fun and good luck!

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Which tripod to buy?

In August I went on holiday to Sri Lanka. During this trip I wanted to do some landscape and long exposure photographing. A tripod is really necessary for the latter. Furthermore, it was also a good excuse to myself to justify the reason to buy a tripod. However, as with any product, there are various on the market and sometimes it is difficult to find the best buy. Each one of them have different features and specifications, such as, expensive versus cheap, light versus heavy, small versus big, et cetera. As with most of the products which I buy I tried to minimize the price but maximize the features. The two most important requirements which I wanted to optimize, besides the cost, were

  1. Minimize the weight of the tripod but ensuring the stability and endurance of the tripod
  2. Maximize the unfolded height of the tripod but minimize the folded height

Based on those criteria you are quickly directed to the tripods which are branded in the market as travel tripods. Below a table with the tripods which I took into consideration.

Manfrotto
BeFree		 MeFoto Roadtrip
travel		 Sirui
T-025X		 Oben
CT-3535
Minimal height [cm] 34 0 10.5 21.8
Maximal height [cm] 144 162.5 147.5 131
Folded height [cm] 40 39 31 30.5
Weight [kg] 1.4 1.6 0.9 1.1
Maximum load [kg] 4 8 6 4
Material Aluminium Aluminium Carbon Carbon
Head mount? Y Y Y Y
Quick release? Y Y Y Y
Monopod? N Y N N

After balancing the advantages and disadvantages I decided to go for the MeFoto Roadtrip. For several reasons:

  1. For one it had good reviews on the internet, one particular which I liked was the review by Jason in the YouTube video below, which I also recommend too you to watch.
  2. The tripod was not too expensive compared to other tripods.
  3. It had the highest unfolded height
  4. Of all the tripods in the table above it is the heaviest, however, I considered 1.6 [kg] still as lightweight.
  5. Because I wasn’t planning to use the tripod on a daily bases I decided that an tripod of aluminium, instead of a carbon fiber one, would be durable enough
  6. The bar to which the camera is attached has a hook on the bottom to which extra weight can be added to increase the stability of the tripod. Along with the feature that the bar could be mounted upside down, which added to possibility to take photo’s directly at ground level. Were two features which I particularly liked.

Apart from the reasons above the MeFoto Roadtrip had also most of the features which other tripods featured, therefor the decision was made.

If you are ever looking for a reason to buy a tripod consider the following reasons:

  1. a tripod helps when using long exposures, for instance, you will need this when doing astrophotography.
  2. taking time lapses, panoramas, panning and videos become a lot easier since you have great support for your camera.
  3. when using a tripod you actually think a lot more about the framing of your shot, this is because everything takes a bit longer, setting up the tripod, adjusting, et cetera.
  4. self portraits are of a higher quality then when using a selfie stick.
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Smuggling Game (Dutch: Smokkelspel)

The Smuggling Game is another running game which can be played inside the forest. The game takes place inside the forest. The group is divided into two teams. One team is called the smugglers and the other the police or customs. The goal of the smugglers is to smuggle goods (cards) from one part of the forest to another part. In both parts of the forest is a game leader, one who hands out and one who collects cards. The goal of the police is to make sure that the smugglers fail at their goal. The smuggler has to hand over his card to the police when he is tapped by them. The police then hands out the collected card to a third game leader who is located in the middle of the two other game leaders. The game leader who hands out cards to the smugglers has a fixed number of cards. Shortly after the game leader is out of cards the smugglers become the police and vica versa. Of course this team switching can also be time dependent.

To actually play the Smuggling Game there is one required accessories and one optional.

  • required: game cards (see below)
  • optional: sash, for identification of both teams

A few alterations can be made to the game to make it more difficult or exiting.

  1. If the police taps a smuggler, they do rock-paper-scissors or another simple game, to determine if the police wins the card from the smuggler. If the police loses he has, for instance, to stand still for at least 5 seconds.
  2. Instead of one location where the smugglers can bring their cards towards to, there are multiple locations.
  3. First the smugglers bring their cards to the first location. They can then decide to double the value of the card by bringing it to a second, more difficult to reach, location. Then they can bring to a third, et cetera.

Game cards

Click on the figure to go to the Google drawing. You can download a A4 paper sheets here with the cards in the correct ratio, to be printed on colored paper. The Dutch version can be found here.

Smuggling Game - Cards

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Stratego Alive (Dutch: Levend Stratego)

One week in the Summer I work voluntary as a camp leader at a summer camp for children. Each year there are at least three summer camps for different ages. The camp accommodation is located in the Veluwe which is a forest-rich ridge of hills in the province of Gelderland in the Netherlands. Hence a lot of the activities take place inside the forest. Every camp leader organizes some games/events for the children. This year I organized four events.

The last two games I want to share with you. In this blogpost I explain the details of Stratego Alive. In another blog I will give the details about the Smuggling game.

Stratego Alive

Stratego Alive is a variation on the strategy board game Stratego. It is a running game and is to be played in the forest. The group is divided in two or more teams. All teams have their own playing field, i.e. part of the forest, in which they hide their flag, note that the flag must still be, partially, visible . The flag can be for instance a colored towel or an old ripped bed sheet with some colored paint on it. The goal of the game is to capture the flag of the opposing teams.

Every team has at least one game leader. The game leader sits on a fixed location somewhere in the part of the forest of that particular team. The game leader hands out every player a card. On the card the rank is shown and depending on the card also some extra info. The table below shows the ranks. In general it holds that the card with the highest rank wins. If a player wins the player who lost gives his card to the winning player. Both players must then return to their respective game leader, the winning player is to hand in the card of the losing player. The losing player is to obtain a new card.

Ratio Name Rank Info
1 Marshal 10 Loses against the Spy if Spy taps first.
4 General 9
5 Colonel 8
6 Major 7
7 Captain 6
8 Lieutenant 5
9 Sergeant 4
6 Miner 3 Wins against Bomb
10 Scout 2
2 Spy 1 Wins against the Marshal if Spy taps first.
6 Bomb 0 Loses against the Miner. Cannot tap anyone

The Marshal is the highest rank and wins from all other cards, except if it is tapped by the Spy. The Spy is the only character which wins from the Marshal if he taps first. It is to be noted that sometimes children fight over who tapped first regarding the Marshal and Spy, therefore the rule can also be changed such that the Marshal always losses against the Spy regardless of who taps first. The Bomb is somewhat similar to the Marshal it also wins from almost every card accept that the Bomb cannot tap other players by himself and loses against the Miner.

If the rank is equal there are two rules which one can enforce, (i) either the two players exchange cards and return to their game leader or (ii) the two players ignore each other and continue playing.

This is Stratego Alive. This game can easily be themed when the game is to be played into a certain setting, for instance, pirates. You simply change the name of the Marshal to Captain Hook, General to Jack Sparrow, et cetera.

To actually play Stratego Alive there are two required accessories and one optional.

  • required: game cards for every team (see below)
  • required: flag for every team
  • optional: sash, for identification of each team

Game cards

Click on the figure to go to the Google drawing. You can download a A4 paper sheets here with the cards in the correct ratio, to be printed on colored paper. The Dutch version can be found here. Credits regarding the graphics of the cards go to Sjoerd.

Stratego Alive - Cards

 

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