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

June 16, 2004
GM15 Nano Robot Sumo

We've had some requests about our own demo Nano robot sumo "BittyBad", which uses a pair of GM15 gear motors. On the GM15 detail page, you'll see a picture of it! It features 2 GM15 gear motors, two 90mA/h LiPoly 3.7V batteries (in series), two "ProxDots" objects sensors, a pair of edge-sensors and a (gasp!) […]

August 31, 2001
Closed for the Holiday!

As the rest of North America will be closed Monday September 3rd, so will we. Business as usual on Tuesday!

April 4, 2020
New Product - Pico of Canada

In the process of trying to keep business as normal, we've added the cable-management products from Pico of Canada. It's all the standard interconnects, looms, and wire terminations you'd find in almost any electrical box. They're now online, and also viewable in our Virtual Store!

February 10, 2016
Solarbotics at the Calgary City Teachers...

Solarbotics will be at the Calgary City Teachers' Convention Thursday & Friday February 11-12, 2016. We will demo a variety of educational kits for teachers to use in classrooms, including introductory kits to develop skills in programming, mechanical construction, and soldering. Come put a face to the name at booth 326 and find out how […]

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Warning: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.
Please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov for more information. This item was manufactured prior to August 31, 2018.

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