ArduiNIX demo looks pretty darn cool
From the MAKE Flickr pool Some Nixie tube eye candy courtesy of the ArduiNIX shield. More on its usage with Arduino over at Flock of Butterflies.
Retro
Virgil England’s fantasy-land
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Virgil England’s life-size dragon skeleton installation in Alaska’s Chugach National Forest. A lot of readers were curious about the elaborate back-story that England has created for his fantasy armory work, so Virgil himself pointed me to Debra McKinney’s article from the Anchorage Daily News of last May that explains more:
Tiny solar-powered brass engine in a wineglass
This is the work of Szymon Klimek, whose work has been honored by the Internet Craftsmanship Museum. [via The Automata / Automaton Blog]
Vacuum tube prototyping board
Bruce Heran made this prototyping board for his tube projects. He writes: This is a project that I made to take care of an ever increasing need to prototype vacuum tube (valve) circuits. As you can see from the photos, it really is a test “board.” I do a lot of work with tubes and […]
Sundial cannon fires at noon
The glass is aligned to concentrate the sun’s rays, lighting the cannon’s fuse at high noon. More pics here, and a very detailed .pdf from the British Sundial Society on so-called “noon cannons” here. [via Neatorama]
Nintendo cartridge throne
A throne fit for a retro gamer! Nintendo cartridges comprise this seven foot chair.
1979 LEGO minifig patent
LEGO minifig patent from 1979! [via @grantimahara] Update: A reader writes in with this clarification: Its not a patent but a design, in the legal sense (and practical). The difference is subtle, a patent is protects something like an apparatus (thing), a method of doing this apparatus and possibly how to operate said apparatus (let’s […]
