Chapter 225 - 102: Rat Affairs
To be honest, the frying pan gave Chen Zhou too many unnecessary expectations.
On July 25th, he got up early, quickly ate breakfast, and rushed to the beach to learn about the reward contents as soon as possible.
In the center of the wooden stone wall, there was still a small square cardboard box, looking similar in size to the last frying pan package, just slightly longer.
While fantasizing about this reward being a grill, pressure cooker, iron colander, or other hard-to-manufacture useful kitchen tools, he opened up the wooden stone wall and unboxed his disappointment.
Under the yellow corrugated paper packaging, there was another long blue package box.
The box didn't contain kitchen utensils, or other practical tools or materials, not even toys, but a wireless mechanical keyboard.
Inside the package, besides the keyboard, there were a few keycaps for replacement, a Bluetooth adapter, a charging cable, ten postcards, a keycap puller, a cleaning cloth, and a brush.
Out of this heap, only the keyboard structure was considered complex.
The Bluetooth adapter and keycaps were basically useless.
The keycap puller was a wire-type, burning off the plastic grab handle left a steel wire about 20cm long.
The postcards had a light blue front and a white back, printed with black horizontal lines, sized about half an A4 sheet, useful for drawing or note-taking.
The cleaning cloth was palm-sized, the fabric was quite nice, very absorbent, Chen Zhou thought it could be used as a dishcloth.
The brush used nylon and plastic, besides fulfilling the regular function of a brush, no special use could be derived.
Seeing it, however, reminded Chen Zhou of his postponed "goose feather duster" project, those plucked goose feathers were still at home, likely completely dried.
With some spare time in these few days, he planned to make two goose feather dusters.
The bedroom floor was laid, but the ceiling wasn't installed, every day soil fell down, covering the bed, shelves, wooden boxes, and low tables and chairs with dirt-yellow dust.
Having a goose feather duster would make cleaning easier.
As for the main event of the reward—the mechanical keyboard, it wasn't completely useless.
Taking it apart would provide some screws, wires, keycaps, switches, a PCB board, and some plastic and metal materials.
Since this keyboard was wireless, it also had capacitors, resistors, a battery, and a charging interface for a Micro-USB cable, features other mechanical keyboards didn't possess.
If he had enough copper wire, magnet rods, iron rods, or aluminum rods, along with washers, hot melt glue or epoxy resin, and for abundance, island-wide wood, Chen Zhou was confident he could make a simple generator.
Of course, if driven manually, such a simple generator would produce weak and unstable current.
Ideally, a small pulley should be installed on the generator's shaft to produce fast enough rotation speeds for stable electricity generation.
If lacking these materials, relying on rewards—like directly sending a hand-crank generator or two large enough motors—would be necessary.
A hand-crank generator, after modification, could be placed in the river for hydroelectric generation.
But the voltage would likely be insufficient, Chen Zhou estimated it difficult to reach battery charging levels.
Entering the electrified era was a dream far out of reach.
To achieve this dream, the simplest way was to wait for mysterious rewards to deliver a generator or a "Future Technology" battery.
The battery's total capacity needn't be much, 60 kilowatt-hours would suffice, equipped with an inverter or diesel generator to support several small electronic devices generously.
If there were photovoltaic panels, even better, the island lacked everything but the sun, with a prolonged dry season of two to three months, with constant sunshine, photovoltaic panels would have optimal utility.
Unfortunately, not to mention batteries, inverters, diesel generators, and photovoltaic panels, Chen Zhou didn't even have small electronic devices now.
Arguably, that Electronic Wooden Fish and the Divine Light Stick given with the leather case might count as two items.
Between these two, the Divine Light Stick had some use, plugged with batteries it could barely function as an emergency flashlight, while the Electronic Wooden Fish was essentially useless.
...
Apart from the battery, quality plastic from the keyboard could be used in modifying firearms.
Some thick plastic plates could be directly carved with a knife into desired shapes, not as good as metal, but durable and lightweight enough.
Besides, the improved flintlock gun's internal structure wasn't complex, requiring few plastic parts.
Even if there was wear, timely replacement was possible without affecting the firearm's usage.
...
Standing in the center of the wooden stone wall for a while, having thought through the utilization of this reward, Chen Zhou packed up the keyboard and began his every-15-days construction of the wooden stone wall.
After finishing work and returning to the kiln, it was nighttime.
Lighting the oil lamp, he placed the mechanical keyboard on the wooden rack in the storage room—without a screwdriver, he currently had no intention of dismantling this keyboard.
Upon leaving the storage room, Chen Zhou took a look at the mice in the mouse enclosure.
Nighttime was when the mice were most active, if outdoors or in dilapidated rural dwellings, they were often heard gnawing on the roof or running around.
But in Chen Zhou's home, there was no such worry.
Because not far from the mouse enclosure, two big cats resided.
Tizi had long shown an extraordinary interest in the mice in the enclosure, were it not for the stone wall and slab, the unraised juvenile mice might have been gobbled up by it long ago.