Don’t give up on the stacks of your local library as a source for project ideas. “Low Tech: Fast Furniture For Next To Nothing” was last printed in 1984, but it was well worth a browse. 4 of my favorite projects: Bike seat / frame to barstool. Kind of obvious when you see it, huh? […]
Paperforest points us to this excellent article about pop-up book design in the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) newsletter. The article, by artist and paper engineer Ray Marshall and artist Wilson Swain, is about their book, The Castaway Pirates – I’ve seen this book, it’s complicated and awesome. The article starts on […]
Our pal I-Wei Huang, of Crabfu Steamworks, has issued a challenge on the Trossen Robotics Forums. It’s a contest, judged my I-Wei, to find the most “characterful” robot. He writes: To bring a bunch of hardware the illusion of life and character. This is NOT about AI or fancy software or hardware. It’s not to […]
The Buckminster Fuller Institute has an annual Buckminster Fuller Challenge, a $100,000 prize for “comprehensive solutions that radically advance human well-being and ecosystem health.” The 2008 prize was awarded in June, in NYC. Check out their Challenge webpage for a list of submissions and winners. The 2009 Challenge will begin this fall. Welcome to the […]
Trossen Robotics has announced the winners of their latest Trossen Robotics Community building contest. This scratch-built Wall-E, by TRC member 4mem8, won first prize (a SG-5UT Robotic Arm). Trossen writes: We got to watch 4mem8 bring this guy to life and document every painstaking step that he took building this Wall-E robot from scratch. That’s […]
I’m one of those people who has mixed feelings when I see altered books (and chairs made of books!) – I love the creativity, but I hate seeing books full of information destroyed. If you have a book you’ve found at a yard sale that you want to fix up, or a favorite book that […]
Dover Publications has a really extensive catalog, everything from coloring and maze books to clip art to engineering and tech books. They’re the publishers of the wonderful 507 Mechanical Movements. You can sign up here for the Dover Sampler – every week they send out an email with links to book content. It’s a complete […]
