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February 9, 2010

Screw-in coffin patent issues

This is a choice selection of images from the application for U.S. patent 7,631,404, which has since issued to Donald Scruggs of Chino, CA. The title is "Easy inter burial container." [via Neatorama]

February 8, 2010

Since there's almost any size and shape of solar panel available for purchase from a myriad of vendors across the Internet why would anybody want to go through the hassle of tabbing together their own cells to build a solar panel? Because you can, obviously. This DIY video will run through the basics of chaining together polycrystalline cells and leaves the details like enclosure and such to the user.

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Bowling lane coffee table

William Stranger specializes in building furniture out of repurposed wood. I especially liked the massive coffee table whose top is a four-inch-thick slab of bowling lane. It's part of a exhibit(?) called Second Growth:

A second growth forest is one that has re-grown after it has been heavily logged or clear-cut. The installation of reclaimed materials, organic furniture and hand carved objects suggests the life cycle of a tree. It encourages a closer look at the relationship between consumption and conservation and promotes the idea of a culture in balance with the natural world. A tree is borrowed from its cycle without breaking it. The wood is worked with attention, treated with non-toxic finishes, and after its long second life it will return to nourish the earth. Scrap wood is saved and becomes the raw material for innovative design.

[via dornob]

February 5, 2010

"You can lazzzer biodegradable plastic!"

Make biodegradable "bioplastic" out of common household ingredients, then laser-cut it with ease. [the Shapeways blog]

January 30, 2010

Apartment-sized vertical herb garden

Xavier Calluaud's "Urb Garden -- A vertical food garden for the urban gardener" complete with a composting 'worm farm' and internal watering system. [via Inhabitat]

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myPod looks like a neat pad

Need a unique spot for your studio/workshop/cave? Perhaps you could get inspired to incubate your latest crazy ideas inside one of these. They're being pitched as an environmentally benign alternative to commuting and less expensive to heating a whole house for a home office. These appear to be production models with standardization of design and materials. Anybody have other versions we can see? Do you or your neighbor have one we can view? [Via StumbleUpon]

January 29, 2010

Creating an "E-Tractor"

Students at Bonham ISD High School, in Bonham, TX, are turning this old on tractor, donated to them by the Ivanhoe Christmas Tree Farm, into their Electric Vehicle Project for the 2009/2010 school year. Plans are to use the tractor in a farm tractor driving certification/safety course. Primary charging of the E-Tractor will be via a solar array, with the option of a plug-in charger for emergency and quick-charge situations.

Bonham ISD: E-Tractor 2009/10 Project

FabLab House: MIT cribs?

So apparently, MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms is in the housing biz. Recently they sponsored the FabLab House, a futuristic-looking concept house designed for the Solar Decathalon Europe.

January 23, 2010

"Low-Impact Vehicles" grant program

This is rather last minute (the deadline is 5pm PST Monday), but it was just sent to us and we thought some of you might find it interesting:

Seattle, WA + aLIVe: a Low-Impact Vehicle exhibition

4Culture is seeking ideas that will inspire and engage the broader community in a conversation about transportation. This opportunity is open to artists and artist teams, architects, landscape architects, designers of all types, engineers, tinkerers and community members residing in Washington, Oregon, California, and British Columbia.

Currently, our transportation system is designed around 40 ton trucks, but what if we were to design around the human body instead? A bicycle is a low-impact vehicle. What else can be imagined? Selected project ideas will be funded and exhibited in a variety of ways, depending upon medium and context. This is a great opportunity for people working across disciplines to explore how the arts can enhance existing systems and stimulate public conversations about energy, livability and design. Citizens from all backgrounds are encouraged to submit ideas for everything from poetry to prototypes. This project is produced in collaboration with artist Cheryl dos Remédios and Great City.

Deadline: January 25, 2010
Budget: varies by selected idea or project

More Info: http://www.greatcity.org/about/alive/

Application Guidelines: http://www.4culture.org/publicart/calls/index.aspx

January 22, 2010

New catalyst turns atmospheric CO2 into useful chemical

Anyone who suggests that we might fix the atmospheric carbon problem just by recycling carbon dioxide from the air and turning it into, say, plastic, probably hasn't run the numbers: the 3% human contribution to annual global carbon dioxide emissions is 23 billion metric tons, whereas annual global plastics production amounts to only 91 million metric tons. Even if the necessary technology were practical, in other words, the entire annual global human plastics demand would consume less than 1% of the entire annual global human carbon dioxide surplus.

Still, every little bit helps, and this copper-based catalyst recently developed by Elisabeth Bouwman and co-workers at Leiden University in the Netherlands represents a vast improvement over previous atmospheric carbon-dioxide-fixing processes. Most of these are poisoned by oxygen, which means that you can't just pump air into the reactor without removing the oxygen first. Bouwman's catalyst, however, reacts with carbon dioxide but not oxygen, producing oxalate, which is a useful feedstock for the manufacture of methyl glycolate and other organic compounds. And while Bouwman's material is not a "true" catalyst in that it actually forms a compound with carbon dioxide and has to be regenerated in a second reaction, the regeneration step can be done electrochemically with remarkably little energy.

Here's the abstract of Bouwman's recent paper in Science, and here's an audio interview with Bouwman from the Science podcast.

Wind turbine covered in LEDs

It's a Xmas-time publicity stunt from German engineering conglomerate Siemens AG, which counts a couple of wind power companies amongst its vast holdings. The "Siemens Superstar" was created in collaboration with Munich multimedia artist Michael Pendra and installed on a large wind turbine in Fröttmaning at the gates of Munich, overlooking the A9 autobahn. It was up from November 29 through January 6. The Siemens publicity site has lots more info and some beautiful video. [Thanks, Rachel!]

January 21, 2010

Clever die makes biodegradable seedling pots from newspaper

The "PotMaker," from Toronto herb gardening specialists Richter's, is a two-part hardwood die that makes it easy to manufacture free biodegradable pots for starting seedlings. The pots are made from strips of newspaper and don't have to be removed before planting. Anja Bartlett has posted a good phototutorial demonstrating its use; if you're interested in buying one please consider getting it through her site!

January 18, 2010

Cracking ice sheet sounds like blaster battle

This recording was made and posted by German composer Andreas Bick at a frozen lake in the Berlin area over the winter of 2005/2006. He explains:

Underwater microphones proved especially well-suited for these recordings: in a small hole drilled close beneath the surface of the water, the sounds emitted by the body of ice carry particularly well. The most striking thing about these recordings is the synthetic-sounding descending tones caused by the phenomenon of the dispersion of sound waves. The high frequencies of the popping and cracking noises are transmitted faster by the ice than the deeper frequencies, which reach the listener with a time lag as glissandi sinking to almost bottomless depths.

[via Boing Boing]

Tree branch in a jar...well, a bunch of jars

This work, titled Ubiquitous, is by New York artist Naoko Ito. It consists of a forked tree branch, almost 6' across, which has been carefully dissected into many pieces, each of which is carefully positioned in a glass jar. These jars, stacked together with empties, are then carefully assembled to recreate the natural form of the branch. [via Neatorama]

January 15, 2010

Japanese wooden humidifier has no moving parts

I have no idea how well it works, but I'm loving the minimalist zen-garden aesthetics of this Mast Humidifier from Masuza. The wood, supposedly, is naturally rot-resistant and imparts a lemony smell to the air. [via Gizmodo]

January 13, 2010

Chandelier from recycled eyeglasses

From designer Stuart Haygarth, these beautiful chandeliers made from recycled eyeglasses and/or eyeglass lenses. [via Dude Craft]

January 8, 2010

Alt.CES: Wood-housed electronica: ostensibly green or faux-maker?

One of the products released at this year's CES is iWave's Grass Roots Collection of personal electronics accessories -- iPhone cases, earbuds, and earphones, all cased in recycled wood.

They're due out Q2 of 2010 with a MSRP of $10-40.

iWave's press release explains:

The design-forward electronic accessory company is offering its loyal customers the opportunity to enjoy the green lifestyle without having to sacrifice stylish appeal to do so. The Grass Roots Collection will offer a selection of accessory options, including headphones, earbuds and cases for the iPhone/iPod, all made from reusable, environmentally friendly and fully recyclable materials like plastic, wood and bamboo.

Setting aside for the moment whether Grass Roots accessories really are green -- I'll take their word for it -- my first thought on looking at these was that they're meant to look like DIYers modded them.

This begs the question: are we going to start seeing companies mimicking the garage-borne aesthetic of maker projects? What would headphones look like if Kaden Harris built them? Will the low-rez look of Makerbot output catch on?

Leave your thoughts in the comments section.

January 1, 2010

MPG boosting tail cone

Darin is doing some amazing work to upgrade and test the aerodynamic improvements to his Pontiac Firefly, which was sold in the US as the Geo Metro. These cars were often sneered at for rolling off the assembly line with a tiny 3 cylinder engine. They didn't sport much power, but they also went an incredibly long distance on a gallon of gas. Excellent data and documentation of the mods is available at MetroMPG, and on EcoModder.

[Thanks Chad via Edmunds!]

December 22, 2009

Flooring from reclaimed leather belts

Shown above is actually an (absurdly overpriced) mat available from Branch, but designer Inghua Ting also makes permanent-install tiles based on the same idea. Clever idea, but will it really hold up over the years? Would be an easy remake. [via Dornob]

December 19, 2009

Full video of William Kamkwamba speaking at MIT

A few months ago, William Kamkwamba spoke at MIT as he wrapped up a speaking tour of the US with coauthor Bryan Mealer. This video is the whole evening's presentation, and includes the introductions and question/answer session afterward. William starts at around 11 minutes.

The talk was sponsored by MIT's Technology and Culture series and he was introduced by Amy Smith of D-Lab. There is a brief segment in the evening on Moving Windmills, a documentary film about William and his story. The Boy who Harnessed the Wind is an excellent and inspirational read that makes real the importance of supporting local makers around the world.

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