It’s not a blow-by-blow tutorial, but these two posts from professional modeler Michael Fichtenmayer give a great general overview of his process for building these cool “DF.9 Anti Infantry Batteries” from the “Star Wars” universe from styrene stock and Bondo.
Our good friend Tod Kurt, of ThingM, shows how to control a strip of RGB LEDs using the BlinkM MaxM driver and a FreeM IR remote receiver. I used some similar strip lighting and a MaxM for a friend’s Halloween costume, and really liked being able to program the blink pattern via Arduino. The addition […]
A friend gave Tyler Neylon a small Lego set for Christmas last year. The set came with instructions for three different models. Tyler didn’t think this was adequate given the versatility and expressiveness of LEGO, so he took it upon himself to create 50 original designs using just the 50 pieces that came with the set and posted photos of them online.
Love this great video of Andrew Byrom, faculty at Cal State Long Beach, who mingles typography with product design. From TedX LA. Andrew takes us through his obsessive inner workflow, where anything can become letters. Starting with words written on streets, to the way that blinds hang, anything has the potential to be turned into […]
Aaron Amatnieks, aka Flickr user akama1_lego, built a Lego dragon that breathes real fire! A tricky proposition when your medium is a polystyrene copolymer that melts at a temperature below the boiling point of water. A butane lighter has been fully incorporated into the structure, including a mechanical start-lever disguised as a rocky crag on the back side of the mountain.
I love this work by artist Jesse Houlding: The Magnet Drawing Machines are kinetic sculptures in which a series of magnets draws a circle on a sheet of paper with iron filings. The iron filings make different marks based on the strength of the magnetic field that holds them in place. As the magnets revolve, […]
To celebrate the publication of my new book, The Practical Pyromaniac, the Chicago Review Press (my publisher), is sponsoring a contest to see who can write the most creative Clerihew about fire, scientists, and similarly geeky subjects. For the budding poet, writer, or wise acre with a scientific bent, it’s a great opportunity for creativity!
