Festo CyberKite
Windmil of the future? The latest advancement in kite fighting? Kitesurfing robots? The Festo CyberKite deftly controls the graceful movements of a rather large kite with relative ease.
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!
Handmade recycled oak wine barrel furniture
Etsy sellers Stil Novo Design make one-off hand-crafted furniture from reclaimed French white oak wine barrel staves. The pieces are good-looking and quite reasonably priced for handmade furniture. [Thanks, Camilla!]
Soft-setting adhesive putty
Sugru is a lot like epoxy putty, except that it sets on exposure to air (so you don’t have to knead two different components together) and that it dries to a soft, pliable, bouncy silicone elastomer. It sticks to most surfaces and bonds especially well to metals. [via Hack a Day]
Book giveaway: The Physics of Superheroes
Sporting the slogan “More heroes! More villains! More SCIENCE!” on the cover, the second edition of The Physics of Superheroes, by James Kakalios, delivers the goods. Revamped since the first edition, with more examples and a new section on quantum mechanics, this book makes learning physics exciting and fun. No more “ball falling off a […]
“Math Monday” and the Mathematically-Correct Breakfast
Wake up to a mathematically-correct breakfast with this bagel “hack.”
How-To: Mount a video camera in a model rocket
James Yawn’s site Recrystallized Rocketry has lots of great information about DIY rocketry, including this great tutorial about mounting a video camera. This hot pink rocket is called the “sugar rush,” because it is powered by Yawn’s homemade potassium nitrate/sugar rocket fuel. [Thanks, Kenneth!]
How-To: Chemistry-themed Xmas ornaments
Bethany Halford’s column in this week’s Chemical & Engineering News drew my attention to BEYONDbones, an official blog from the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences, and particularly to a couple of chemistry-related holiday projects. This page teaches how to make a crystalline ornament from pipe cleaners and saturated borax, and this one, how to use washable markers and a coffee filter to make tie-dye-like paper ornaments based on the principle of paper chromatography.