The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for bikes, rockets, R/C vehicles, toys and other diversions.
All card-carrying members of the NAR may want to look away now. The West Oakland Rocketry Club, based out of West Oakland CA, breaks pretty much every rule in the NAR Handbook. This is not rocketry for kids, or those who are particularly safety-concerned. Dubbing what they do “art rocketry,” the group (a lot of […]
Mindstorms Rubik’s Cube solvers are a dime a dozen, but David Gilday’s bot offers two cool twists (sorry) — first, it solves a 4×4 cube rather than the classic, ordinary 3×3 cube. Second, and cooler, rather than relying on the NXT Intelligent Brick to do the heavy lifting, it uses a Nokia N95 mobile phone […]
The crazed DIY artisans and mischief makers at Philadelphia’s Tango Echo have a new video showing one of their members, Paul Carson’s, giant 12-sided die he welded together and then deployed in a vacant lot. More: 12-sided die as big as your head!
Alicia Kachmar of Create! shares her crochet fortune cookie pattern with colorful Valentine’s Day versions.
Although the “look” of this dancing-girl automaton by English toymaker Ron Fuller is not personally to my taste, I could not resist the fact that it is powered by a stream of falling sand, which is a trick I’ve never seen before. Thanks to YouTuber greninmotion for the video. [via The Automata / Automaton Blog]
MacArthur fellow and MIT Media Lab alumnus Karl Sims brings us this great tutorial on how to build your own complex harmonograph (Wikipedia) for making cool…um…”geometric figures?” I’m looking for a 50-cent mathematician’s word (which may or may not exist) for these periodic spirally figures. Can anybody help me out? [Thanks, David!]
Need a way to help the youth around you learn about flight? Try out some paper airplanes! Most people know how t make a basic paper airplane, but there are other designs out there. Inside the Dangerous Book for Boys is a two page section on paper airplanes with a few alternate designs you may have not tried.
