From traditional crafts to modern crafts, we’re covering news and interesting projects to educate you and keep you inspired. Design trends and pop culture related projects are here to inspire.
Stefan writes “A nice detailed description of Oregonian Adrian Carbine’s record-setting amateur rocket flight. Powered by twin “N” motors, the two-stage model soared to over 40,000 feet. Dimensions: Length: 17’4″, sustainer dia: 4.25″, booster dia: 4.6″. Pad weight: 96.5 lbs. Weight without motors: 43.5 lbs (including parachutes, tubular nylon, electronics, avionics bays, CO2 systems, etc.). The entire airframe weighed 28 lbs empty.” Link.
Monopole writes in about an open source 3D camera – “Stereoscopic Camera and Camcorder Synchronizer using the commonly available LANC camera control ports. Based on the Atmel ATMega8 microcontroller. Both the software and the hardware is open source, with board layouts on the website.” Link.
Ok we want every single one of these great Japanese craft books! Each photo is complete with ISBN number so you can try to find them through Amazon Japan, YesAsia.com or through the Japanese bookstore, Kinokuniya. (There’s a Kinokuniya in San Francisco’s Japan Town with lots of crafty books.) But just looking at all the covers is inspiration in itself because we aren’t sure we’d be able to read the directions! Link and more resources here.
Want a fun way to watch the Winter Olympics? Yarn Harlot has started the 2006 Knitting Olympics where anyone who wants to participate must cast on a project during the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Olympic games on Feb 10th and have the project finished by the time the Olympic flame goes out on Feb 26th. Everyone who completes their project in time, gets the gold medal (for your blog). [via] Link.
Wow, this stereoscopic motion picture camera uses two Mac mini’s as its brain – “The built in recorder of the 3DVX3 is comprised of two extensively modified Apple Mac Mini computers. The compact size and CPU horsepower offered by the Mac Mini coupled with the power of Mac OS X make the 3DVX3 a truly unique camcorder. Flash memory modules replace hard drives in the Mac Minis for fast booting and reduced operating temperature.” [via] Link.
Harvey writes “Where US Taxpayer’s have already bought the best equipment (Like $2,000 hammers) and you can pick up it up for a faraction of its original cost. Get electronics and test equipment, pumps and motors, battaries and computer equipment by the pallet! Buy entire pallets of parts at a time and make the impractical dream a reality! NOTE: Read the fine print and watch out for shipping costs!” Link. I’m bookmarking this for the occasional requests we get for surplus or bizarre decommissioned gear.
Jason from Preshrunk writes “The gang over at Vestal Design have made and documented a really killer bar made out of somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 discarded library books. Well, I know I’d totally make one if I had that many books laying around.” Link.
