So, this is the 100th post on kymera-wand.com. I want to take some time to celebrate and review the things that happened since I became a fan of the Kymera Wand.

First I want to thank Chris and Richard for their ingenious invention that has sparked magic not only in my life. To come up with such an awesome product is really a work of a genius. Thanks for being so creative, welcoming, helpful and generous all the time. I really enjoyed collaborating with you guys and am very glad to have two such friends on the British Islands. Please keep up the great work and surprise us now and then.

Yes, it has been 9 months since the Kymera Wand was presented to the public. In September 2009, I contacted Chris and Richard about issues with their site thewandcompany.com for the first time.
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While looking at the signature of Sir Richard Barons’ letter, I felt something not quite right. The signature didn’t look like the name at all.

But it looked like the name, the wand maker Chris Barnardo used for several years to present his creative projects on instructables.

Thats Kaptin Scarlett for you. And here is how he got his name (from the beautifully made description of the making of theGolden Filigree Dragon’s Eggcase:

After our extensive journey, our supplies were running low and in order to finish the presentation case we used to store and later show the egg, the luscious scarlet velvet lining of my favourite all-weather coat had to be cut up for to make the pillow covering. I made such a fuss over this calamity that the rest of the party nicknamed me Kaptin Scarlet, and name that has endured to this day.

velvet scarlett eggcase box

Of the many projects he presented there, the mentioned one as well as those may be of interest to the dear reader:

• Make a real wand out of paper and glue gun glue which inspired the Kymera Wand
• a magic wand for lumos and revealing your secret charms
• Distress your Kymera Wand
• Make a gorgeous Dragon Egg

Even more projects of the Wand Makers inspiration can be found on the amazing DadCanDo site that is dedicated to parents caring for the fun and joy in the lives of their children.

Especially the Wizadry and Magic and the Dragonry categories offer a lot to the lovers of these fantastic things. But it is worth to explore the whole site for lots of ideas and inspiration.

Carl and Pete had wand waving fun in their show #46, controlling the TV in the recording room.

The transcript with some pictures is available as is the podcast itself.

Carl:

I always thought you were a geek – what with the glasses and the bow tie, you all right, Harry? Have you ever seen that picture of Pete on the website – he does look like Harry Potter! You’re such a geek! But this is great, I like the toy.

Carl:

Can you get this to control your wife? – when you thrust it forward, and you get her to go “ouch!” I don’t know, I’m sure someone out there has got a wife that needs controlling.

Carl:

I think this is phenomenal, but I actually see another application with this, because you know like some people, it’s like I remember my gran getting old, and she used to have trouble with her remote, pointing it in the right direction, but this would be brilliant – she was good at waving sticks at people, hitting you over the head with a walking stick, and all that stuff.

Here we’ll collect blog entries of proud Kymera Wand Owners:

Fibro Witch Revere, Massachusetts, United States

Had to go with LEET speak for this post. My magic Wand has arrived. … Much like any wand there is a learning curve for both user and wand. … Looking forward to it. Does anyone else have one? Would they like to share stories of their learning curve??

http://www.kymera-wand.com/

A great and enthusiastic review by Rave

One word here… awe-sommme!!! This wand is a brilliant addition to my neo-Victorian, Steampunk-ish, Tolkien-esque, Medieval-influenced, 100% “geek cave”.


I think I just had a nerdgasm.

Praise and a Harry Potter with the Kymera, by Juliette

Harry Potter with Kymera Wand

This is too good to be true! … The UK has produced a godsend for all of us Harry Potter fans out there: The Kymera Magic Wand….Baha, them Brits are so clever!!!

Masterjan’s Blog – Kymera Remote Wand

Yes… This post is actually about a “magical” wand remote. It’s something I’ve recently found on the internet, and it’s pretty cool! It can control things that uses a remote, for example a television. I’m not sure how much people, who own the wand, is using it, but I like the idea “a real magical wand” very much!

Joe has been using the wand for some days and now gave his feedback in this forum thread.

I’m now actively using it to control (part of) our home theatre system. It certainly does work, even the twirling gesture that was tricky to pick up. Some comments:

• this really is very cool, I’m not getting tired of it.
• you want to think about your neutral hand position when you pick it up because some gestures don’t work well from some positions
• the stabbing gesture is harder, not that it’s hard to do but that it’s hard to cleanly do it from some hand positions (and it’s easy to accidentally do the withdrawal gesture from it)
• double-taps can be hard to execute quickly (I’ve got the Mute command on one and the phone rang…)
• the IR emitter seems to have a pretty tight cone of effect compared to other programmable remotes; for some commands to some devices I have to point it right at the device
• using it reinforces my desire to have an “activation/deactivation” command, i.e. a safety, in the next revision
• yes, you can get a pair of commands in, but it takes repeated tries
• I would like to be able to do longer code sequences, but you knew that
• it’s actually quite convenient as an additional remote for me because unlike the bigger universal it doesn’t have to sit on a charger, please don’t change this (though I do wonder how quickly I’m going to kill the batteries)
• thanks again for making this, it’s really a class act in so many ways!

Thanks for all the feedback and keep enjoying the Kymera Wand.