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Woah! That last balloon post was cool, but check out this blog of amazing balloon creations - these are incredible! Who knew you could make balloon clothing - or a balloon hand tunnel or a life-size balloon monster truck? CRAZY
The fourth of July is just a few months away...if you live in the US, maybe you could celebrate by making a red white and blue ribbon - out of balloons! Or maybe you'd rather make a ballon-Bart Simpson riding a skateboard, a balloon crocodile, or a duck? Better yet, maybe you'd like to learn how to make ANY kind of balloon creation you can imagine by learning the basics of balloon art - "twisting", "locking", "pinching", and "popping". Magical ballon-dude Dale teaches you how to do all of this at the Kids Stuff website. In addition to the basics, there are detailed step-by-step instructions to make a number of shapes, as well as Dale's blog on "balloon entertainment" and other features.
Check out the video of Dale demonstrating the red white and blue ribbon, below! Can you figure out how to make a balloon Tuck and Celine?? Send us a picture if you do!
The annual Maker Faire, held for the third year running in San Mateo, CA (just south of San Francisco), is a celebration of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) science and engineering, technology, arts, and craft. The Maker Faire is sponsored by Make Magazine, a super cool publication packed with great instructions and ideas for cooking up all sorts of interesting projects on your own time.
Howtoons founders Saul Griffith and Nick Dragotta will be at the Howtoons booth at Maker Faire – come check it out!
Ever wonder what the view looks like from a balloon as it floats up into the sky...all the way to space?!
Amateur hobbyists around the world are attaching cameras, videocameras, GPS (global positioning system) and radio equipment to large helium balloons and launching them up to 35 kilometers above the Earth's surface! Take a look at this website for links to Amateur Radio High Altitude Ballooning (ARHAB) groups around the world.
Also, check out this video, from the Long Trail High School in Dorset, Vermont, of a balloon taking off, reaching the upper atmosphere, then returning to earth - it's a bumpy ride!
Mr. Woo is not your average Chinese farmer. Despite no formal education or training in science or engineering, Mr. Woo has created walking robots of all shapes and sizes that parade around his farm in rural China. Mr. Woo says that his creations mimic "marvelous human motions" - and they do! But that's not all, because Mr. Woo has created miniature robot dogs as well.
Maybe most impressive, all of Mr. Woo's creations are made from scavenged materials recovered from trash - amazing!
Check out a video of English actor Paul Merton traveling to visit Mr. Woo - and getting a ride around the farm from a life-sized walking robot!
I thought I had some crazy yo-yo tricks, until I checked out this website, yoyoing.com.
Check out the videos - these guys are amazing!
One of the world's coolest jobs must be designing roller coasters! Brendan Walker gets to do it everyday. In this article he describes the science of thrill.
The Lilly Library at Indiana University hosts the Jerry Slocum mechanical puzzle collection. More than 30,000 cool mechanical puzzles and 4000 puzzle books to test the mind.
They have some cool animations too.
Here is Burrtools an amazing open source tool for designing puzzles. One day we'll use this to make our own puzzles... Or you can download it and make puzzles yourself. Works for windows and macintosh computers.
Inc. Magazine just published its interactive list of The Top 30 entrepreneurs under 30.
The achievements of these engineers, programmers, scientists, hackers, and business men and women is incredible - especially since many of them began inventing before they even started high school!
Inc. calls this list "The 30 under 30", but I would call it ... AMAZING PEOPLE DOING AWESOME THINGS
Did you see the post about the Aquaduct water filter/bicycle, below? That's not the only amazing thing that a creative engineer can do with a bicycle! Mayapedal is an organization, based in Guatemala, that turns simple bicyles into all sorts of clever, useful machines. They call their creations "bicimaquinas". Bicicleta is Spanish for "Bicycle". And maquina is the Spanish word for "Machine". So bicimaquina = bicycle-machine! In this video, they have made machines to do the laundry, pump water, grind grains, and even make fruit smoothies! Villagers use the smoothie machines to sell fresh drinks at the market, with no electricity!
Have you ever spent a beautiful summer day selling drinks at a lemonade stand while you wished you were out racing around on your bicycle? Just think, you could be doing both - at the same time!
Last year, we posted a contest sponsored by Specialized Bicyles - Innovate or Die!. The Innovate or Die contest challenged contestants to invent a pedal-powered machine (like a bicycle) that would help make the world a better place. As an example, Specialized created a bicycle that, when pedaled, generated enough electrical power to run a laptop computer.
Months later Specialized had received hundreds of entries - maybe some of you came up with inventions! The winning creation was from a team in Palo Alto, California, and is a machine called "The Aquaduct". More than ONE BILLION people around the world live in places where their drinking water comes from lakes, streams and rivers that are dirty and unsafe to drink. Worse, these streams and rivers are often miles from where people live. The Aquaduct is a bicycle that makes it easier for villagers to transport large amounts of water from a river or lake to their home and - at the same time!! - pumps that water through a filter to make it safe to drink.
To see a demonstration of this amazing technology, check out the video below. Congratulations to the Aquaduct team and thanks to Specialized for helping to support such creativity!
How would YOU use a bicycle to change the world?!
Here's a fun and easy way to try out writing your own computer programs all in your browser!
Lily is a browser-based, visual programming environment that lets people create programs graphically, without writing code, by drawing connections between data, images, sounds, text and graphics. Lily's cross-platform, free, open source and is written in JavaScript. Did we mention it's fun? Check out our demos or read more about it.
Try making a gift this year, for family or friends. Here's a snow-globe making Howtoon. All you need is the aluminum foil wrapping from a chocolate bar, an old mason's jar, super-glue, and some interesting objects to put inside!
Happy Holidays & link to our Holiday Card
