Month: October 2009

Super cements aka “geopolymers”

Super cements aka “geopolymers”

Think cement is just cement? Not so. These unlovely mugs are nonetheless very special. Prepared from special synthetic aluminosilicate materials called “geopolymers” (Wikipedia) by members of Dr. Waltraud M. Kriven’s research group at The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, these mugs were tested in a special “mug drop” event at the 2004 American Ceramic Society (ACeRS) conference, and supposedly “were impossible to break at even 50ft onto bare concrete.” Danger Room’s David Hambling recently posted a nice overview of geopolymer technology with a view towards defense applications. These presentation slides by Dr. Kriven include some actual formulae.

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Flashback: Gory Ghoul Makeup

Zombies and ghouls are all the rage this Halloween, and adding some macabre makeup to just about any getup will immediately zombie-fy it. I have a friend who is a forest ranger, and he’s going as the zombie ranger, by just donning his work uniform and adding some gory makeup and some dismembered limbs coming […]

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T-Shirt Memory Scarf

While I was cleaning out my closet a few weeks ago, I found an old brown paper grocery bag with the words, “Clothes of sentimental value! DO NOT THROW AWAY!” scribbled on the outside in black marker. Inside were more than a dozen t-shirts and items that I’d saved throughout my life, and I was […]

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The gravity-powered xylophones of Charles and Ray Eames

901 documents the dismantling of the offices of famous U.S. designers Charles and Ray Eames following Ray’s death in 19XX. The Eames office was a kind of maker fantasy-land, with finished and unfinished projects scattered about, meticulously organized tools and supplies, and wonderful little gewgaws in every nook and cranny.

The first few minutes of the film feature a delightful bubbling xylophone soundtrack that is eventually revealed to be coming from these prototype toys designed by the Eameses themselves, and installed in their office for their own amusement.

The towers are wooden boxes six inches square and about 15′ tall, fronted with acrylic, and having sides slotted to accept metal xylophone keys which fit loosely enough to allow free vibration and easy rearrangement. The slots for the keys are angled toward one another, slightly, so that the surfaces of the keys present a series of alternately-sloped platforms for a small hard plastic ball which, when dropped from the top of the tower, will plunk its way slowly down to the bottom, playing a little tune as it goes. The balls are injected using a manual pneumatic piston which shoots them up a pipe to the top of the tower.

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