Eclectic junk from the four corners of the ‘Net. And pictures too!
But the big question is: If something is found, will they tell anyone?
When astronauts return to the Moon, they should keep their eyes peeled for extraterrestrial artefacts – pieces of technology from alien civilisations that have wound up on the lunar surface either by chance or design.
[via Futurismic]
Simple and not so simple mechanical toys from the engineers at Hitachi. The designs are quite clear and should tickle your brain to come up with ones of your own. The ‘south’ pointing car is a classic design that could have some use as a maze solving robot, or at least one that keep track of what was was south when it started.
[via MAKE fourm]
This could be the next evolution of aircraft:
The Arc Wing VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) Airplane, is absolutely unique in being a true V/STOL as a fixed wing aircraft with the high cruise speed. This plane requires only the basic elements of fixed wing aircraft for VTOL or cruise flight, namely, full span flaps and high installed power usable in both VTOL and cruise. It has no need for heavy, costly, encumbering systems for conversion from one realm to another, no multiple rotors, no rotor folding devices, no cross shafting, no extra gear boxes, no “black boxes” for programming, no wing tip or tail jets, no tail rotors, no lift fans or lift engines.
[via Flight Nest]
A device like this is so amazingly handy to have in your photo bag. With a few of these attached to a few flashes salvaged from disposable cameras you can totally light up whatever your photographing. I think I’ll try that and see what sort of effects I can get with this. I’m thinking four plus point lighting on a sub shoe string budget can be achieved with this.
This is a project to make a Slave Trigger for an electronic strobe unit. The Slave Trigger is plugged into the sync cord (PC Type) from a strobe unit and will flash the strobe when it "sees" another flash go off. An older 1970’s Epoxy cased slave trigger (AC Plug Style) was used as a guide in developing this new version. Thanks to input from some of my web friends we now use a photocell from a $1 solar powered calculator as the photo diode. This Project uses a SCR, Capacitor, Resistor, Photo Cell, an Radio Shack Adaptor Plug, and a small plastic box. The parts were found at a local electronic surplus store and the Dollar Store.
Now this is the sort of project I can sink my teeth into. What do you get when you cross a disposable camera flash with a bit of wire, and steel BB’s? A coil gun! Yeah… That’s the good stuff. Jeff provides plans and links to build your own weapon of choice. Have fun and be safe, if you can do the two at the same time. If not you can go as a pirate for next Halloween.
