Lego Antikythera mechanism

Found on Tinkernology: http://tinkernology.blogspot.com/2010/12/antikythera-mechanism-in-lego.html

The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient mechanical computer used to predict solar events and positions by Greeks (we don't know exactly who made it and used it). It was recovered from a ship wreck in 1901, and X-rays performed in 2006 revealed more about it. Its advancement and accuracy was unprecedented for the time.

Andrew Carol, an Apple software engineer, has made a working replica of the Antikythera mechanism out of Lego, with 1500 Lego Technic pieces and 110 gears. Here's the video:

"Blind Juggler Robot" bounces metal ball

Found on BotJunkie: http://www.botjunkie.com/2009/09/16/blind-juggler-robot-juggles-without-sensors/
Website: http://www.blindjuggler.org/index.php

I thought this was a super cool idea when I first found it. This robot has a bouncing/oscillating plate that is very slightly curved in a concave shape. It bounces a metal ball and the curvature of the plate keeps the ball over the plate. As you'd imagine, if the plate was flat, the ball would eventually randomly bounce off the side.

There's a lot of theory and mathematics that they put into this robot, check it out on BotJunkie and their website.

 

Flexible tank tread robot

Found on Tinkernology: http://tinkernology.blogspot.com/2010/12/caterpillar.html

A very innovative and interesting robot design. Tinkernology describes it well: "Take a tank tread, but make it flexible.  Throw the other one away and don't mount anything on top. What you have is an absolutely awesome crawler that actually looks like a caterpillar when it moves."
 

Senz umbrella

http://www.senzumbrellas.com/en/the-idea/

The senz storm umbrella line are umbrellas with a unique, airfoil-like shape that avoids being blown away by the wind. It actually bends into the wind, about 70 mph winds at that. Check out the videos on their website.

Vi Hart's Math Doodling videos

http://vihart.com/doodling/
http://www.youtube.com/user/Vihart

Vi Hart is a YouTube user and self-proclaimed mathemusician. She has made a number of really cool videos on doodling with math. They creatively show how math can be fun and interesting. I really like math, and the topics she talks are exactly what I like to give as examples of "fun math" (fractals, interesting relationships, etc).

Fast motion video of constructing Dudney's Dissection

Dudney's Dissection is a way to break up an equilateral triangle into four parts that form a square when rearranged. I read about it in How Round Is Your Circle?, which included instructions for how to mathematically construct it. I filmed my self doing so and sped it up 4x.

 

Make: Electronics book

This book has been published by O’Reiley Media, which also publishes Make: Magazine, a great DIY, “maker,” and hobby magazine. Make: Electronics is meant to be a new kind of introduction to learning electronics as a hobbyist. It teaches with “learning by discovery” and has the reader experiment and make mistakes, instead of just learning theory.  I agree with this method for learning and have experienced how this makes the book very good. It explains difficult concepts well and its atmosphere is very friendly.

Multiple people have said Make: Electronics is the new, main, go-to book for an introduction to electronics. Many people used to say this of Forrest M. Mimm’s An Introduction to Electronics. I own his book and did not find it very good. I found it quite advanced, abstract, and confusing. Even when I came back to it after a while I still couldn’t grasp some important concepts. I would strongly recommend Make: Electronics instead.

Note that if you want to get through Make: Electronics, you need to buy many tools and components. There are two kits you can buy from the Maker Shop that cover the parts for the first and second half of the book. This can be very helpful, but both of these kits cost about $100 each.

How Round Is Your Circle? review

Here is my previous post on this book and its website, howround.com

The subtitle for this book is Where Mathematics and Engineering Meet. This is a good summary of the book, as it looks at interesting ideas, concepts, situations, and problems in both fields, but relating both to the current topic. The major topics are on making accurately straight lines and round circles. Other ideas discussed are constant width solids (not always spheres), leaning stacks of dominoes, mechanical linkages, drilling square holes, and other irregular shapes, solids, and methods for doing physical, mechanical things.

I think the authors hit the nail on the head for a good topic to right on. The book appears to be interesting and written very well, and I plan to enjoy it a lot.