Make your own Chewing Gum…
Tasty project! “Make your own chewing gum with chicle, the sap of the Sapodilla tree that grows in the rainforests of Central America. Everything you need is included in this kit and it’s easy! You can make your own gum on the stove or with a microwave. Once all chewing gum was made from chicle. That’s the sap of the sapodilla tree, which grows in rainforest in Central America. Men called “chicleros” climb up the tall trees, and with their machetes, cut criss-crosses in the trunks so that the sticky sap flowed out. Then the chicle was processed and turned into gum.” [via] Link.
Awesome derby car mod – “I wanted to show you all the cool car my son Matthew and I made for his cub scouts pinewood derby. We wanted to do something entirely different and decided on mounting a very small camera to it along with an LED in the back to look like a jet engine. It was powered by a 9V battery which also served as the car’s weight. The car broadcast wirelessly to a receiver which we recorded on mini-DV. We won 7 prizes and finished 4th in the races.” [
Phil writes “Spare time projects of engineers. Some wierd, some wonderful. It’s a regular feature of Design News magazine, and always gets passed around here in the lab – Design News celebrates the third anniversary of the Gadget Freak files. This popular column, sponsored by Allied Electronics, profiles the sometimes useful and always entertaining inventions that Design News readers come up with in their spare time.” 
This week’s Cool Stuff Being Made video – heat treating! “You will see on this 18-minute video the many things that we use every day that are heat treated. As they say, heat treating puts the spring in springs. It also strengthens the metal used in axes, knives, saws, aircraft landing gears, jet engines, space ship launchers, computers, agricultural implements and oil drilling and refining equipment, to name just some. There’s also a scene toward the end that shows how many everyday things are heat treated. You see form one of the scenes the difference between a drill bit that is heat treated and one that is not. The former works while the latter fails.” 
Mitch writes “The following is the basic pattern for building cantilevered structures with Pennies. Although it looks trivial, we can build amazing structures with these pillars. All penny columns are ten high, a “stack”. Two side-by-side pennies held in place by a penny above them is called a “triad”. Below is a stack with two triads resting on top.” Thanks Tim! 
This is a great Google map project – when you’re out and about in New York City and spot something cool destined for the dump, take a photo with your phone, send a description and an address! The photo and location will show up on Garbagescout.com, there’s also a RSS feed! Dumpster diving just went Web 2.0 – [