Announcements

Support Action Kivu

Support Action Kivu

Alissa Carlton, of Handmade by Alissa, checked in with us to let us know about the third annual Action Kivu fundraiser. Action Kivu helps women who are victims of the conflict in Eastern Congo by teaching them to sew at a sewing workshop. Action Kivu also pays for children to go to school. Check out […]

Makey Awards 2012 Nominee 05: Parrot USA, Most Repairable

Makey Awards 2012 Nominee 05: Parrot USA, Most Repairable

The Parrot.AR drone teardown on iFixIt saw one of the highest repairability scores that our pals over there have ever awarded. They cite the Parrot.AR’s repair-friendly design, the use of easily demountable fasteners, connectors, and subassemblies, and great repair support from Parrot itself, including readily available replacement parts and a series of how-to-fix it videos on the Parrot.AR site. And while a certain amount of repair-friendly design is just common sense in any R/C aircraft, common sense is not always so common, and even in the R/C market Parrot’s repairability still goes above and beyond the norm.

August is Metals Month

August is Metals Month

Well, what’s left of August is Metals Month, I should say. A broad subject, to be sure, and with only a couple of weeks to explore it, I want to be fairly ruthless about focusing on interesting and unusual metals themselves, and processes for working with them, rather than more general “cool stuff made from metal.”