Paper clips

Holiday Card Ornament

Holiday Card Ornament

Christmas cards were never thrown away at my house when I was growing up. As soon as the Christmas tree was taken down — always on January 2nd — you’d find my mom sitting at the dining table (which served as her craft table during the day) with pinking shears in hand, cutting up the […]

Mechanical Image Duplicator

Mechanical Image Duplicator

Before Chester Carlson invented photocopying, inventors engineered various mechanical devices to replicate images. With a few everyday items found in the home, you can make a pantograph, an image duplicator that allows you to use one pencil to trace an image while another pencil follows its path in parallel to produce a near-identical copy.

$5 HeliRocket

$5 HeliRocket

The HeliRocket is propelled by a standard model-rocket engine, but instead of the engine’s ejection charge deploying a parachute, it releases the rocket’s 3 tail fins. The fins then swing up into a helicopter blade configuration, which slows the rocket’s descent by converting much of its kinetic energy into drag and angular momentum (spin). Some […]