LEGO Technic Difference Engine
Andrew Carol’s LEGO contraption “Before the day of computers and pocket calculators all mathematics was done by hand. Great effort was expended to compose trigonometric and logarithmic tables for navigation, scientific investigation, and engineering purposes. In the mid-19th century, people began to design machines to automate this error prone process. Many machines of various designs were eventually built. The most famous of these machines is the Babbage Difference Engine. Because of engineering issues as well as political and personal conflict the Babbage Difference engines construction had to wait until 1991 when the Science Museum in London decided to build the Babbage Difference Engine No.2 for an exhibit on the history of computers. Babbage’s design could evaluate 7th order polynomials to 31 digits of accuracy. I set out to build a working Difference Engine using LEGO parts which could compute 2nd or 3rd order polynomials to 3 or 4 digits.” [via] Link.
Book of Joe has a handy overview of things you can do with a Rubbermaid 300 Gallon tank: “I happened on a photo of San Diego Chargers tackle Wesley Britt happily sitting in one in the latest (August 8) issue of Sports Illustrated. The caption describes him as catching up on the headlines in the shade and ice water as he comfortably reads the paper and soaks in one of these giant grey tubs (above). Rubbermaid got about a zillion dollars worth of free advertising from that magazine photo. I asked my crack research team to find out more about this sturdy-looking tub, which the Chargers have in multiples at their training headquarters. Turns out that those whose hobby is “ponding” — creating and maintaining your own pond at home — swear by these Rubbermaid tanks.” 
Tom sent in this fun how to from Jared and Dan “The idea for this project evolved out of necessity. Dan and I are both avid gamers. After a few hours of gaming with our normal high-end mouse pads you get a build up of sweat. The mouse and mouse pad becomes slippery and you start to loose your competitive advantage due to the loss of precision. While there are a couple mice on the market that have small fans in them to dry out your palm, they all have major failings in precision and accuracy. So after some thought and discussion we chose to build out our own custom mouse pad with a blower in it to suck the air down through the pad and away from the gamer’s hand. The result is astonishing!” 
Hey Makers – Any large format printing, vehicle wrappers interested in working on a MAKE magazine project with 
It’s LED day today it seems – “Want to make a neat courier bag light? This light goes through the straps on a timbuk 2 bag and blinks in really cool patterns using a BS2. You’ll need: 16 x 470 ohm Resistors, 16 x LEDs 24 Pin IC Socket on/off switch, 9v Battery 9v Battery connector, 9 x Molex KK Connectors, 18″ 3/4″ Flat webbing, Breadboard, Wire… oh you’ll need some wire.” 
We’ve seen a 
