The Code Companion Cube

Bar codes. They're incredibly resilient. They can be torn in two, or faded to where you can hardly see them, or all dirty, and they are still scannible!!! One of the occasional duties that I end up doing at work is retiring (or as everyone calls it, killing) labels on the containers that get used up. The actual retiring is pretty easy, the time consuming part is peeling the label off afterward.



One of the guys started making his labels into a ball, kept working on it every time it was his turn. Got near to the size of a bowling ball. Said he was going to urethane it and drill it with finger holes when it got to the right size. I said he should get a chain and shackle it to his leg and go around dragging it behind him, see how long that lasts!!! Anyway, many others of us did the same, although none of us got to such a grand scale. I just did one day's worth that came out about the size of a tennis ball. Brought it home and called my younger boy. When he looked my way, I pegged him with it and shouted, "Bar code ball!!!" Well, he fell in love with it!!! He'd get upset when his brother would take it, took it to school, ect. The week before Sammy and I went to the hockey game, I made a puck of labels. I did a few days worth of labels, the last day being a couple days before Christmas, and when one of my friends was admiring it, I replied "Yeah, at least now my kid will have something to play with on Christmas morning!!!" I did it, too, wrapped it up in a box and gave it to my younger boy. My wife was manning my old point and shoot camera while I was shooting video with my SLR, and she got this picture a split second after he'd tossed it in the air and caught it.




So, a few weeks ago I'm killing labels again, and starting another ball. It was kind of lumpy, with a couple flat spots. One of the guys sees it and says, "Everyone does a ball, you ought to make a cube!!!" Challenge accepted. Could this be done??? The flat spots were already close to 90° , so I started on from there. I filled low spots as best I could, and would fold them along the middle and stick it to 2 sides. The corners were pretty soft to begin with, but eventually it came together. Not a perfect cube, but everyone who saw it was quite impressed. The last day I was working on it, this Wednesday, I took some blank labels and colored them red and cut them into hearts on my last break. When I wrapped up for the evening, I applied them to the sides for my own bar code companion cube!!!

It's now on display in the boys' room...