This is understandable, really, because the chemical composition of many crayons, even if you ignore the wax binder and just focus on the coloring, is extraordinarily complicated, containing many different pigments carefully blended to achieve just the right color. Even if the formulations weren’t trade secrets, it’d be doubtful if many of them could be fit on a crayon label in a legible typeface.
Over on BoingBoing Maggie Koerth-Baker interviews Jordan Needham about the underwater fort he and his family built at the bottom of a lake.
Ryan Palser, whose replica AER-9 laser rifle we covered a couple of weeks ago, has since finished up his second Fallout 3 replica, of the game’s A3-21 plasma rifle, that is, as I predicted, even more impressive than his first. The Flickr set includes some good build shots too, including some details of his casting process. [Thanks, Ryan!]
Instructables user spookylean shows us how to make this cool little folding prop based on a weapon from the video game Batman: Arkham Asylum. He does it the labor-intensive but inexpensive way–cutting the profiles by hand from clear hardware store Plexiglas and then painting them black. I am too lazy for that and would probably just have them laser-cut from black plastic to start with. Embedded magnets lock it in the deployed position.
Ever wonder what would happen if you outfit a toy gyroscope with an electric motor and add an adjustable drive wheel? You get a super fun Gyrocar that can balance and run on a monorail, string, rim of a pot, you name it. The Gyrocar by Matthew Gryczan is one of the major projects in […]
Although I can’t say I cared much for the recent Indiana Jones movie that sparked their latest vogue, nor for the aura of new-agey-ness that generally surrounds them, nor for the outright chicanery that originated the trope in the first place, there’s no denying that crystal skulls are cool. And Lego is cool. You can probably see where this is heading.
The quintessentially Dutch, singularly functional, aesthetically innovative, and yet alluringly strange table in question is by designer Wouter Scheublin. “Walking Table,” as it is cleverly named, is human-powered, incorporating a mechanical linkage that converts gentle lifting and pushing of the top into oscillations of the legs that move the table across the floor with little effort. [via NOTCOT]
