Wednesday Cool Links: The Flying Stuff, ...

Solar botics
March 20, 2013

Solarbotics and the Useless Box have been mentioned in the Wall Street Journal article "Looking for Something Useful to Do With Your Time? Don't Try This"! It is dedicated to the historical overview of the uselessness starting with its invention in the 1950s to nowadays. The useless box can take many guises, names and materials to be made of, but the initial impulse for pure purposelessness keeps on fascinating " tinkerers and thinkers alike". It's an interesting read, check it out if you haven't already. And now to our traditional portion of links:

"Wings" by Dukno Yoon
Not sure whether these would qualify as jewellery, mobile or art piece, I think - a little bit of everything, but definitely these look cool. By using this mechanical structure jeweler and metalsmith Dukno Yoon explores the nature of movement of the wing, and the interactive relationship with the body.
This is What Happens When You Run Water Through a 24hz Sine Wave
First it might seem that the water stream is vibrating only because the hose is doing the same, but when you get to about 1:43 in the video, it gets almost eerie, as if the water is running upwards.
A Hovering Magnetic Cloud and Other Kinetic Sculptures by Laurent Debraux
Kinetic sculptures by artist Laurent Debraux using primarily magnets, ferrofluid and metal objects with a touch of vintage. More stuff on his youtube channel.
A million times (Time Dubai) by Humans since 1982
What happens if you orchestrate 288 clocks to wave their hands in a specific fashion? Pretty mesmerizing, I say...
Retrotechtacular: flying foot-soldiers are coming for you (sixty years ago)
Here's a remarkable piece of the 1950s experimental military technology- a single-rider flying platform. Two rotors are mounted underneath and provide enough lifting power to hover the platform above the ground.

Also, according to the Wall Street Journal Useless Box  has also been called a "green machine" as one of its inherent attributes is energy efficiency. Our links are also very… green! They last only until you click them, leave minimal environmental footprint, with the exception of, maybe, brain. But, you know, that regenerates, so grow some more neurons by the next time we'll see you here!

MORE POSTS

August 16, 2001
Vibebots for fun

We do some stuff around the office just for fun once-in-a-while. One of these projects resulted in this set of Vibebots, built by Grant McKee. Simple, a bit noisy, but FUN!

November 25, 2011
Not Your Average Door Bell

Wireless doorbells have a tendency to... suck. I speak from personal experience on such matters. When they fail to get my attention while at home, apathy generally wins out and inevitably forces me to head down to the FedEx/UPS depot to pick up my missed package. David Watson, a man of action, took matters into […]

March 23, 2005
Closed for Good Friday

Please be advised that Solarbotics will be closed this Friday, March the 25th. We will resume operations Monday, March 28th so any Express Orders that come in after 2:00pm this Thursday will not go out until Monday, March 28. Take it easy on the chocolate!

January 19, 2007
Scheduled Website downtime

I suppose the Internet tubes need cleaning once in a while... Our ISP is scheduling some downtime for upgrades on January 27, 09:00-12:00 UTC (that's 2am to 5am Mountain time here where Solarbotics is). Sorry for the hiccup!

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