If simplicity is the heart of elegance, then this one-wheeled motorized scooter far out-glams its two-wheeled cousins.

Twin Cities-based type designer Mark Simonson augmented his flatbed scanner with filmstrip holders made of Lego.

Talk about cheap transportation — how about a jet engine made from a couple of commuter coffee mugs and a sink strainer?

Like many of us, Matthias Wandel spent a lot of time robotically swapping disks in and out of his CD burner, ripping music, and doing backups. Then he thought he could rig up something to perform the tasks for him.

With the peak oil crisis looming, the Vee 9 solar vehicle has been getting a lot of press recently. And for good reason — it promises the same guilt-free commute experience as trendier rides like the Toyota Prius and Ford Escape — but for nearly $20,000 less.

With big, expensive equipment and closely con- trolled experiment schedules, particle physics has never been a field for the do-it-yourselfer. But that didn’t stop Tim Koeth from building two operational cyclotrons on his own time and dime.

Forget billionaire Richard Branson’s overpriced tourist spaceships. For a few thousand bucks, physics student Art Vanden Berg put his computer-controlled model glider 79,000 feet into the stratosphere.