The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for bikes, rockets, R/C vehicles, toys and other diversions.
While Princeton University’s National Spherical Torus Experiment was shut down for improvements over the winter break, scientists and engineers availed themselves of the opportunity to recalibrate the reactor’s neutron sensors. To do so, they assembled a circular toy train track around the torus and ran a toy locomotive carrying a chunk of neutron-emitting californium-247 along it for three days. The New York Times explains:
Bill Shaw creates and sells Lego Technic-compatible aluminum bricks. It all started as a supplement to enhance Bill’s Mindstorms projects. All the elements are made to work with the original Lego Technic elements, but what makes them interesting is the fact of being made from high grade 6061 aluminum, instead of plastic. All the elements […]
All the buzz about the movie Avatar has me reminiscing about the Optics issue of MAKE. In Volume 14, award-winning filmmaker and digital artist Eric Kurland showed us how to build a 3D dual-camera rig, and make a live 3D video monitor and PSP stereoscope to go with it. Here’s Eric’s intro and backstory, and […]
Check out the work of Ottawa maker Andrew Plumb. A few months ago, he created the .stl of a four-stud disk, uploaded it to Thingiverse, prototyped it on his Makerbot and then sent it off to fabbing service Shapeways to be output in plastic as well as bronze-infused steel. In more recent experiment, Plumb used […]
The recently announced AR.Drone from Parrot may be the coolest toy I’ve ever seen. The AR.Drone quadricopter is controlled by iPhone & iPod Touch via wifi and provides a live video stream from the unit’s ‘cockpit’. It uses a second onboard cam facing downward to measure speed and compensate for turbulence, and in case of […]
Oh my gawd, this is hysterical. These guys launched their Christmas tree on 32 rocket engines. The launch is glorious. Christmas Tree Rocketry: The Art and Science of Holiday Recycling
The DIY mavens at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories made this tabletop playable Pong game and very thoroughly documented the build and functionality. What is PONG supposed to represent? Our answer to this question is a game somewhere between pinball and ping pong: Two players each have a single knob that controls the position of a […]
