Designer wraps bike around pole to secure it
To make it easier to lock up, design student Kevin Scott built a collapsible bicycle that can be wrapped around a pole and secured with a normal bike lock
Science
DIY science is the perfect way to use your creative skills and learn something new. With the right supplies, some determination, and a curious mind, you can create amazing experiments that open up a whole world of possibilities. At home-made laboratories or tech workshops, makers from all backgrounds can explore new ideas by finding ways to study their environment in novel ways – allowing them to make breathtaking discoveries!
How to beat the summer heat?
It’s been really hot here in Pittsburgh the past few days, and finding ways to beat the heat have been paramount to getting anything done
3D printed reaction vase
Jessica at Nervous System writes: I created this design yesterday for the Shapeways SIGGRAPH competition which asked designers to submit any design that costs less than $200 to 3dprint. Our submission is a sculptural vase generated by reaction diffusion, a process which simulates how chemicals diffusing across a surface react with one another to produce […]
Solar system necklace – “Each bead represents 20 million miles”
Laura Cesari, aka Chain of Being, makes beaded models of the solar system that, by the way, can also be worn as necklaces. Her work was recently featured on the blog of Carl Sagan’s Planetary Society:
How-To: Build a star-tracker for your camera
The best stellar photography requires long exposure times to capture the dimmer stars. The problem with long exposures of the night sky, of course, is that it moves. Or rather, it appears to move. So if you don’t have some way of keeping your camera pointed at the same location over the course of the exposure, you get “trailing.” Eric Chesak built this impressive star-tracking camera mount bracket and won a Design News contest back in March with it.
Cleared and stained animal specimens
Depending on your tolerance for preserved corpses, this may strike you as incredibly cool or incredibly creepy. Maybe a little bit of both. Personally, I lean toward the “cool” side. “Clearing and staining” is actually a very old technique in anatomy and biology in which a dead animal is treated with a series of chemicals that simultaneously preserve it, render its soft tissues transparent, and stain its skeletal and nervous systems different colors. The resulting preserved specimens are both scientifically useful and, often, strikingly beautiful. These pictures are from a Japanese gallery; here’s an English-language gallery of mutant frog specimens that are also pretty amazing. [via Core77]
Mobile optometry solution for developing countries
MIT’s Camera Culture team has created a very unique and cost effective mobile optometry solution for developing countries using an Android phone and a small plastic device clipped on to the front of the mobile.