I have long been enamored of catapults. Invented around 400 B.C., they were used until nearly A.D. 1300. So for 1,700 years, catapults were arguably the largest, most expensive, and most powerful machines on the planet. Today, people build catapults for fun: Scout troops, historical reenactors, fathers and daughters, beer-stoked college students. Having built more […]
The Kinect is a peripheral for the Xbox 360 console that allows a user to interact with the Xbox 360 without touching a controller. A general description of the Kinect is that it is a depth camera. This means that you can place objects in front of it, and it will compute the distance from […]
Calling a rocket that sprints over 100 feet into the air a “toy” might be a bit of a stretch. Toy or not, this rocket really packs a punch.
I’m an average-height guy… but I needed to finish drywall. Being as I have no stilts, and I have a project that needed limited use of my own vertical improvement, I did this quick 3-minute mod to move myself up two feet while remaining stable.
On a June afternoon in 1978, while most normal kids were focused on sports or getting Dad’s car keys, I was busy readying another one of my quixotic contraptions, made out of junk-at-hand, for its maiden voyage. Assisted by a good friend who also enjoyed such nerdy pursuits, I stoked a fire inside an improvised […]
Inspired by a robot exoskeleton built by some Japanese college students that was online recently, I really wanted to try building one myself. My son decided he wanted to help and then wear it for Halloween. We did the arms the same way they did but decided to do the legs as bucket stilts; it […]
