Make: Online: Made On Earth Archives

Archive: Made On Earth

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 7, 2010

Warship camouflaged as tropical island

A commenter on my recent dazzle camouflage post alerted us to the fascinating story of the HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen which, in 1942, escaped destruction by the Japanese fleet because the crew moored her among other small islands and covered her in a thick layer of tree branches, thereby disguising her as a small island. [Thanks, rekinom!]

February 6, 2010

Beautiful cube sculpture from copper pipe fittings

This 2007 piece by Vancouver artist Steven Shearer (Wikipedia) is called "Geometric Healing Cell for Youth - Model III." It reminds me of some of my favorite work by Tom Friedman. I love art that challenges our expectations of everyday materials. [via Neatorama]

February 5, 2010

Teeny tiny evil fairy sculptures

British sculptor Tessa Farmer makes these amazing little vignettes featuring 1-cm-tall skeletal fairies made from "bits of organic material, such as roots, leaves, and dead insects" pitted against actual insects and other, larger taxidermied critters. Both creepy and awesome. Crawsome? [via Dude Craft]

February 3, 2010

What Was I Thinking? Part 1: Light fishture

It's "Failures!" month here at Make: Online. Throughout February, we're going to be celebrating the flip side of making, doing, and risking: Sometimes things don't work out as we plan.

On the other hand, sometimes things work out exactly as we plan, but when the passion of inspiration is gone and we look back in the cold, sober light of morning we come to a painful realization: I just made a giant piece of crap.

Thus it is that I hereby inaugurate a limited weekly series of posts called "What Was I Thinking?" in which I will be publicly ~~cringing to recall~~ celebrating some of my own more humbling morning-after moments. And possibly those of others. If I can get them to agree to submit to outright public mockery.

Which is why you're looking at a picture of a goldfish in a light fixture.

Or "light fishture," which is such a bad pun that I was already apologizing for it when I first posted this project on my old personal homepage back in 2005. Let me set the scene for you...

February 1, 2010

How-To: Make a giant octopus

YouTuber bluworm took on the task of making a great big octopus puppet for stop-motion animation in a film by his friend Daniel Lennéer. Along the way he produced this informative and entertaining video describing the casting, sculpting, and armature-work that went into it, as well as showing off some of the finished animation (starting around 5:00). Besides the cool propcasting info, I gotta give it up to bluworm for his video editing chops. This is definitely one of the most watchable how-to videos I've ever seen, and I've seen a bunch of them. [via Propnomicon]

January 25, 2010

Cocktail blueprints for engineers

These detailed technical drawings for various cocktails were first created, per the revision log, by one RJ DININO in 1978, and most recently updated by one J GOTTA in 2008. You can download a printable PDF at FlowingData. [Thanks, John!]

My toilets runneth over

It's like one of those champagne fountains at a wedding. Except, you know, made of urinals. And running water (er, one hopes) instead of booze. A "Duchampagne" fountain, perhaps? No, SRSLY: It's a 2005 installation called "American Standard" by Vancouver artist Reece Terris. [via Boing to the Boing]

January 20, 2010

Blu-Ray Star Trek laser pops balloons across a room

MAKE rockstar Kipkay first put a Blu-Ray laser diode into a Star Trek phaser toy back in 2007. Hack N Mod's Jay has added an illuminated safety switch, a large heat sink, and a custom focusing adapter at the tip. The laser operates at 320 mA and gives 465 mW of power, and is, to be fair, quite dangerous for the eyes. Definitely not a toy. Even though it's, um, built into one. [via DVICE]

January 18, 2010

Awesome/morbid Cold War era Civil Defense poster

This wall-mounted flyer titled IN CASE OF NUCLEAR ATTACK was produced by the city of Portland, Oregon, some time between 1981 and 1985. Thanks to step #7, I now know the international stick-figure symbol for "Comfort the dying." Those were the days, eh? [via Geekologie]

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

World's biggest disco ball

Seven-and-a-half metres across, with 1,000 mirrors, suspended 50 metres in the air from a crane, and illuminated by spotlights from all over the city of Paris during this year's annual Nuit Blanche arts festival. The work is La Maîtresse de la Tour Eiffel by French conceptual artist Michel de Broin. [via Dude Craft]

Penny-shooting business card

Thingiverse user clide made this awesome folding business card that can be loaded with a "magazine" of 10 US pennies and will shoot them out one at a time under rubber-band power.

January 12, 2010

Real-life "landspeeder" prototype

Noah Shactman just brought Israeli defense contractor Urban Aeronautics' AirMule VTOL UAV project to my attention. The photo released by Urban Aeronautics, shown above, purports to show the first successful hovering flight of an AirMule prototype, secured against wandering off by guy-wires. Video would've been more persuasive. The design goal of the AirMule project is to produce an unmanned vehicle that can be used to ferry supplies into, or wounder soldiers out of, a hostile, closely-packed urban combat environment. [via Danger Room]

January 8, 2010

Anti-flamethrower mosquito

Wait. Strike that! Reverse it! It's an "anti-mosquito flamethrower." By one Johannes Vogl. [via Boing Boing]

January 6, 2010

Cool brain gear doodad

According to Thingiverse user mappum, who recently published an STL version of a similar gizmo, these beautiful do-nothings are printed to test commercial rapid prototyping machines.

January 5, 2010

Mummified alien hand prop

Supposedly from the personal wunderkammer of Austinite video game bazillionaire Richard Garriott. Some of the other items are NSFW. [via Propnomicon]

Wooden car burns wooden fuel, travels Europe

Artist, traveller, & inventor Joost Conijn spent the better part of a year building his own very custom automobile - almost entirely from wood. And what more fitting way to power such a vehicle, than with an onboard wood-burning stove! You might assume such a novel machine wasn't intended for any lengthy excursions, but in fact that was Conijn's aim from the project's onset.

Free from the trappings of petrol-dependent transportation, Joost ventured through remote & tourist-free terrain of Eastern Europe documenting his journey in video. Fueled by donations from local villagers (and forests), he managed to explore - "Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, Slowakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldavia, Transnistrië, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Italy, France, The Netherlands" Epic road trip indeed, Conijn explains some of his motivation and experiences -

January 2, 2010

Chocolate guns and ammo

Your one-stop shop for chocolate guns, chocolate bullets, and chocolate grenades is ChocolateWeapons.com. I'm holding out for the chocolate suitcase nuke. [via Boing Boing]

December 29, 2009

Awesome flying drawbridge

This thing is called the "Slauerhoffbrug," and it lives in Leeuwarden in the Netherlands. The road section is lifted on a single massive counterbalanced arm up to 90 degrees in the air. There's a good photo gallery, including aerial views, over on frozenly.com. [via Neatorama]