inventions

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Gamera, the Human-Powered Helicopter from Maryland

The Sikorsky Prize has been unclaimed since its establishment in 1980. The winner will take $250,000 for achieving a simple-sounding set of goals: make a human-powered helicopter that can fly for 60 seconds, reach an altitude of 3 meters, and remain within a 10-meter square area during that time. It turns out this is incredibly hard to do. In the video below, a team of students from the University of Maryland attempt to claim the prize. Their helicopter is named Gamera, after the flying monster... READ ON

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9 Things Invented For Military Use That You Now Encounter In Everyday Life

A surprising number of military inventions have found their ways into our civilian lives. Here are just a few military-turned-everyday items. 1.... READ ON

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How Did the Game Genie Work?

The Game Genie was the technological holy grail of my Nintendo-playing childhood. Here was a device that would let me play Super Mario Bros. with infinite lives, or get infinite rockets in Metroid. Here's exactly how it worked, and how people are still using it today. Plugging In From the start, the Game Genie was marketed as a "game enhancer," though there's a fine line between "enhancing" and "cheating." In short, it was able to modify games at startup, so you could change them in ways that made... READ ON

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Inventor of the LED Discusses LEDs

Fifty years ago today, on October 9, 1962, physicist Nick Holonyak demonstrated the first "visible" LED (in other words, one that emitted non-infrared light). And that tiny invention has helped to light the world. GE has released a publicity video featuring Holonyak, who invented lots of things in addition to the LED, including light dimmers. In this video, Holonyak recalls his early experience making the first visible-light LED, and how the red LED was such a breakthrough, such a practical and... READ ON

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The Autofrisk: All the Groping Action, Just 40 Pence

Cheeky engineer Tim Hunkin (of Secret Life of Machines fame) invented the Autofrisk, a device that gently gropes the user in exchange for a few coins. (In the U.K. apparently one cannot get this experience for free at local airports.) The Autofrisk is one of many coin-operated machines Hunkin built for an ongoing show under the Southwold Pier in Suffolk, which looks to me to be a kind of geek Mecca. Hunkin and compatriots made a ten-minute film about the process of making the Autofrisk and similar... READ ON

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Adam Savage Made His Own "Indiana Jones" Bullwhip

In this eight-minute video, MythBuster Adam Savage describes the construction of a replica Indiana Jones bullwhip. Savage made his first bullwhip in the early 90s, then got some advice from master whip maker David Morgan -- so Savage bought a piece of kangaroo hide (apparently kangaroo leather is exceedingly strong) and proceeded to make another whip, an 11.5-foot long one. (For the record, that's way longer than normal, making Savage's whip both dangerous and awesome.) The video is full of geeky whip... READ ON

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Pencils Down: Scantron Inventor Michael Sokolski Has Died

(Modern Scantron test sheet; photo by Josh Davis, used under CC license.) We learned this week that Michael Sokolski, a soldier, engineer, and inventor of the Scantron, died on June 13. Sokolski was an immigrant to the US from Poland, and later an engineer and inventor best known for his work with Scantron. Today, we dig into some Scantron trivia -- please make sure your trivia bubbles are completely filled or the machine may not give you credit. How Does the Scantron Work? The original... READ ON

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Your Partner for Mushroom Processing on an Industrial Scale

Havatec makes, among other things, massive industrial machinery for processing mushrooms. Now, the world of industrial mushroom processing may not seem that interesting, and I'll admit I'm glad it's not my day job, but it's impressive to see how much effort and thoughtful mechanical work has gone into sorting, trimming, and otherwise preparing mushrooms for sale. It's a complex process, and most of it is automated; human workers guide the process at key points, but for the most part this gigantic machine... READ ON

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Adam Savage: About My "Indiana Jones" Hat

At this year's Maker Faire, Adam Savage delivered a speech about "why we make" -- a discussion largely about how Savage gets kids interested in making things. But first, he started with a story about his exquisitely perfect Indiana Jones fedora. He begins: "This is a replica of Harrison Ford's hat from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Yes, one of the most important movies ever, it came out when I was 13 years old, [it] changed my life, gave me a new ... kind of action hero I fell in love with. And the same... READ ON

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Making Your Own Disneyland Parade

Alex George is a bit of a tinkerer. He got his hands on the Disneyland Main Street Collection, a series of miniatures that replicates the Main Street attraction at Disneyland -- including various floats that go by in its lighted Main Street Electrical Parade. But there's one big problem: the miniatures don't move. So George engineered an elaborate, ingenious system to mechanize the Electrical Parade. The project is truly impressive in scope, involving CAD renderings, lots of construction, and... READ ON