Several years ago I watched a viral YouTube video that starred Jerry the Dachshund, whose engineer owner had built him his very own automated ball launcher. I had two dogs at the time, and was also unemployed with some time on my hands, so I decided to try my hand at building one. After a […]
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I bought a new scanner recently, and soon found myself spelunking through drawers of old photos from my many misspent years in photography. Some of the most interesting shots were the pinhole camera experiments I had done as a teenager. With ghostly outlines from multi-minute exposures, and shapes warped into boomerangs by curved film, these […]
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This balsa wood glider catapults up with wings folded back, wings pop open and it gently glides down.
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The perfect action scene needs combat, gore, and at least one actor going through a window. Here’s how I shot a scene with all these ingredients, from making the special effects to shooting and editing the footage.
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The BeatBearing is an exciting and intuitive way to make music. Move the balls on a grid, and you change the beat. Music sequencing couldn’t be simpler. Like countless other musicians, I use a computer to create beats and sequence them into mixes. Pointing and clicking with a mouse is fine for a studio, but […]
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It seems as though nearly everything “high performance” these days boasts some amount of carbon fiber in its construction. Originally used in aerospace, carbon fiber has moved into the mainstream and can be found in luxury automobiles, mountain bikes, and sports equipment. Some laptops and cellphones even use printed decals to simulate this lightweight material’s […]
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Use a solar-powered motor and a shade to follow the sun, maximizing its energy.
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