“The Breakfast of People Who Stay Up All Night”
OK, so this started with an off-hand comment on Twitter a few days ago. I nearly left it at that but for some reason the idea took hold and wouldn’t let go. I mean, you see athletes on cereal boxes all the time. Why not scientists?
The Cereal
I used Frosted Cheerios with the stars and moons from Lucky Charms. Yes, I actually sifted through an entire box of Lucky Charms, picking out the stars (well, shooting stars, at least) and moons. These two cereals just happen to be made by the same company, so this is totally doable. Are you listening, General Mills?
The Bag
I made the liner bag from a piece of waxed paper, ironed to form the seams. This was reasonably easy to do, except for the final seam when you have the cereal in the bag. Hard to get everything to line up just right with all those bits rattling around.
The Box
I made the box from two sheets of card stock (one for front and right side; one for back and left side), folded and glued together. The maximum printable area for my printer is 10.5″x8″, which translates to a box 8″x5.75″x2″ in size. That’s about 2/3 the size of a regular cereal box.
And here’s what it looks like all put together.
Practical? No.
Pointless? Possibly.
Fun? Definitely.
Just for fun, I tried fitting an entire box onto a single 8.5×11″ sheet. It ends up about the size of a single-serving box. I halfway considered doing a six box variety pack with, say, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Cassini, Huygens and Herschel.
And I suppose you could do other sciences as well. Say, take the A, C, G and T from Alpha Bits with maybe some double helix marshmallows. Or Sugar Frosted Quarks. Or Apple Pi Crunch. Or…
This is the kind of thing that makes me love MAL & Skepchick. I also wouldn’t have been able to stop thinking about an awesome idea like this until it was done.
I’m currently working on a silver Russell’s teapot necklace and I can’t wait to leave the office to get back to it.
This rocks so hard I don’t even know what to say. Wow. Well done.
I am so glad that some people have too much time on their hands! It’s basically win in a box.
You’ve found a niche market that must be filled!
But now every time I think of a scientist, I will wonder what their cereal should be…
I just want you to know that, if this ever *were* mass-marketed, you can bet I would be buying it in bulk.
“Fortified with star stuff!”
Love this. Love it sooo much.
You, sir, are a genius.
And now I want some Galile-o’s: ‘So Delicious, It’s Been Repressed by the Church!’
You’d make a killing selling these at NECSS and TAM.
so AWESOME! 🙂
Genius is even better when it’s delicious.
This is a fantastic idea and I’d love to make a box for my boyfriend. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to release the file that you printed to make the box? I’ve looked at your astro8.jpg image (second from the bottom) and it’s the sort of thing I’m hoping for, but it’s a bit too low resolution to produce good results. If you wanted to sell the file on http://www.redbubble.com/ or similar, I’d be more than happy to pay!
Well, since I don’t have rights to all the images used on the box, I don’t think I’d feel comfortable selling them. On the other hand, if you were to click on that second-to-last image (which has now mysteriously increased in resolution) and print it for your own personal use, I don’t think anyone would complain.
I did find Frosted Drakes on reddit but it wasn’t Frank Drake.
omg, this is awesome.
Thanks so much.
What’s the Recommended Daily Amount of Star Stuff, I wonder?
So, this weekend I drove down to Atlanta for the Atlanta Skepticamp fundraiser and took along a slightly altered version of the cereal box, which I donated to their auction. It did surprisingly well.