TeamDroid

Posted on 02.26.10 by John @ 8:02 pm

30 Best Practices for Writing HTML
Even if you are not a professional web developer and can only just cut and paste enough HTML to make a web page not totally suck these 30 tips are something that you should read. Lot’s of good practical advice, stuff like closing your tags and if you use inline styles an asteroid will strike you dead (not really but inline styles are still a bad idea). Read it and remember it the next time you are working on your magnum opus ‘Hello World’ page.

30 HTML Best Practices for Beginners

Popularity: 2% [?]

Filed under: Artistic andComputers andDIY
Comments: Comments Off

Trackback URL for this post

Bigshot: Focus on Cool!

Posted on 01.11.10 by John @ 7:49 pm

I can only hope that this eventually makes it into the regular market:

A camera designed for kids can be much more than just a toy: it can serve as a powerful educational medium. We believe that such an educational camera must have a radically different design from that of a typical consumer camera. (a) It should be designed as a kit for assembly by students. The assembly process should not only demystify the workings of the camera, but also expose students to various science and engineering concepts. (b) It should include features that cannot be found in other cameras, allowing students to explore new creative dimensions. (c) It should be low-cost, with the potential to serve as the basis for a scalable social venture. Bigshot has been designed with these goals in mind.

The killer is the rotating lens board on the front. The lens wheel (or polyoptic wheel as it’s called)has three settings: normal, panoramic, and stereo. Normal is what you would think it is, normal photo. The panoramic lens gives you a 72 degree field of view and creates a nice barrel distortion, and the stereo is a small prism that acts as a beam splitter to shoot a left and right image onto the sensor.Software that comes with the camera will adjust the distortion from the pano lens and create red/blue anaglyph stereo images when you use the beam splitter. Oh, did I mention that the camera can be powered by either a single AA battery or a few cranks on the built in dynamo?

[via MAKE]

Bigshot: A Camera for Education.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Filed under: Cool andDIY andMad Science andPhotography andTechnology
Comments: Comments Off

Trackback URL for this post

It’s Halloween Again!

Posted on 10.26.09 by John @ 7:51 pm

Over the years I have put together a few costumes for Halloween. Some took a few hours, some took days to build. The DIY Cricket bat and the robot costume have been my favorites:
(more…)

Popularity: 2% [?]

Filed under: DIY andGeneral andHistoric
Comments: Comments Off

Trackback URL for this post

Tony Stark / Arc Reactor Iron Man Costume of 2008

Posted on 10.26.09 by John @ 5:43 pm

Arc Reactor (Tony Stark) costume In 2008 I needed a costume fast. I had a party to go to in a few days and I was at a loss as to what I should make. I was half way through moving and money and time were both in short supply. I built this passable version of the Arc Reactor from the film ‘Iron Man’ in about three hours. As I wasn’t going to take it out from under the shirt it didn’t need to be near film accurate, just look the part. Ah, the magic of Hollywood…. I got dozens of great complements about it from the various parties I went to…”
(more…)

Popularity: 8% [?]

Filed under: Artistic andCool andDIY andHistoric andMods
Comments: Comments Off

Trackback URL for this post

Steel ‘Velcro’

Posted on 09.05.09 by John @ 1:59 pm

Need to keep something heavy stuck to a wall? Fire proof Velcro sneakers for Iron Man? Maybe you just want a better way to hang your solid rocket boosters off your space ship. Super industrial strength steel hook and loop to the rescue!

Hook and loop fasteners have become commonplace features of both industry and households. However, they have one snag: they are too weak for many applications. Hook and loop fasteners made of spring steel have now been developed at the Institute of Metal Forming and Casting of the Technische Universitaet Muenchen. These fasteners are resistant to chemicals and can withstand a tensile load of up to 35 tonnes per square meter at temperatures as high as 800°C.

It’s called “Metaklett” if you want to try and find some.

Extreme steel ‘Velcro’ – Physorg

Home page (translated from German by Google)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Filed under: Cool andDIY andGeneral andTo be used for Evil
Comments: None

Trackback URL for this post

Rubber Band Gun Mayhem

Posted on 08.10.09 by John @ 7:09 am

Not only is this super fun looking, but there are some very nice build photos that show how the SRBG2007SideWinder is constructed. Electric powered, fires hundreds of shots, simple design, what more could you ask for in a rubber band gun?
But if that wasn’t cool enough, you should look through the pages of the Japan Rubber Band Gun Shooting Association. Yes, there is a group of people that get together and compare notes on how to build rubber band guns.