The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has been widely used by the military for surveillance and reconnaissance missions—even armed combat. But there are other beneficial applications of an unmanned aircraft, such as search and rescue operations, scientific exploration, locating mineral deposits, transporting goods and even filming bikini models. But drone development can be pretty pricey, unless you just happen to have a 3D printer...
Make delicious raw mint chocolate cookies in a few minutes! Tips
Giveaway Tuesdays has officially ended! But don't sweat it, WonderHowTo has another World that's taken its place. Every Tuesday, Phone Snap! invites you to show off your cell phone photography skills.
If you liked the idea of cutting duplicate keys from a personal 3D printer, then you might be interested to know that researchers at the Vienna University of Technology in Austria have successfully designed the smallest 3D printer to date. The prototype device is smaller than a shoebox and weighs only 3.3 pounds. It uses stereolithography compared to the RepRap's extruding molten plastic, and it's not a self-replicating machine and costs a bit more, at nearly $1,800 each. But compare that to ...
Over years of almost-daily orange eating, I have developed a 90% effective workflow for removing the peel from an orange in one piece. While this might not seem important, people who see me do it generally ask about it, so I thought it would be cool if you would illustrate the process for the world. Having a nice hand-drawn set of instructions to frame on my wall would save me time explaining it to people as well.
Why is it so satisfying to squash, snap, squeeze and splatter? You know, squashing a juicy grape, snapping a twig, squeezing ketchup out of a packet—perhaps with your fist—or splattering mud across a sidewalk. But all of these actions are child's play next to animators Laura Junger and Xaver Xylophon's Joy of Destruction. The real joy of destruction is illustrated below—we're talking sawing ladies in half, exploding corn into popcorn with dynamite, burning cities, and rolling over statues wit...
There's no reason to waste a perfectly good Cheeto just because it dropped on the kitchen floor, right? The "5-second-rule" makes it fair game if you can swipe it up fast enough (this doesn't apply for liquids or foods with floor fuzz stuck to them.) But, is that errant piece of chocolate really safe after it's mixed with the bacteria-laden mud from your shoe?
Tired of getting calluses from incessantly strumming along to 'No Woman No Cry'? Just hook up to the brain-music system and use your brain power to play a tune instead. I'm not talking—humming along in your head. The machine, created by composer and computer-music specialist Eduardo Miranda of the University of Plymouth, UK, is composed of electrodes taped directly onto your skull that pick up tiny electrical impulses from neurons in your brain and translates them into musical rhythms on a co...
Matt Reed, a web developer at Nashville interactive ad agency Redpepper, built a massive, real life Facebook Like "button" out of Legos, which lights up whenever someone clicks Like on his Facebook page. The programmer loves LEGOs, and draws an affinity between the legendary building blocks and engineering: "[Legos] are great for prototyping physical objects. I don’t manufacture things, but I do click blocks together. Plus, most things I deal with on a daily basis are pixelized. Legos are som...
Famed artist and photographer Laurie Simmons boasts an impressive career spanning over three decades. She's shown at some of the world's top art institutions and galleries, and appeared on art world popular PBS television series Art 21. She also happens to be the the proud mother of promising young filmmaker Lena Dunham, the 24-year-old director of last year's indie hit Tiny Furniture.
Eric Jacqmain is one smart cookie. Borrowing from the same principles of Archimedes’ mythological death ray, the Indiana teenager used an ordinary fiberglass satellite dish and about 5,800 3/8" mirror tiles to create a solar weapon with the intensity of 5000x normal daylight. The powerful weapon can "melt steel, vaporize aluminum, boil concrete, turn dirt into lava, and obliterate any organic material in an instant."
How can a small curtain cover a window three to four times its own size? With a motor and a robot brain, that's how!
Remember Willy Wonka's magical gum? Wonka promised the flavors of tomato soup, roast beef, baked potato, blueberry pie and ice cream. As the avid gum lover Violet Beauregarde tested it out, she exclaimed: “It’s hot and creamy, I can actually feel? it running down my throat!” Um, yum... I think. Good news. Wonka's three course chewing gum is finally a reality-in-the-works. Scientists at the Institute of Food Research (IFR) have been developing recent advances in nanotechnology, which could pot...
Introducing the National Ignition Facility. Not only is the name curiously amazing (a facility designated for the act of … combustion?), but it also happens to house the largest, most high energy laser in the world. Why would they create such a thing? To create a miniature star on Earth, with the goal to achieve fusion (re: an unlimited supply of free energy).
Android-enabled mobile devices are taking the world by storm, giving Apple's iPhone a run for their money. And if you're holding an Android cell phone in your hand, getting accustomed to all the flashy features can be daunting, especially if you're new to multimedia smartphones.
Shot with a Nokia N8 cell phone equipped with a 50x CellScope microscope, Dot is the world’s smallest stop motion animated film. Created by the makers of the Wallace & Gromit series, the figures were made with a 3D printer, each hand-painted with the aid of a microscope. Watch as the heroine hops from scene to scene, Mario style: Via PopSci:
Inspired by Jules Verne sea demons, Bea Szenfeld's “Sur la Plage” collection includes 12 pieces handcrafted with cardboard. The idea of unconventional material constraints is a classic art school "test", as well as a typical (and somewhat tired) formula for competitive design reality shows. However, Szenfeld's garments do transcend the material and would surely win any Project Runway challenge.
The idea that you could buy a cellphone sized video camera that shoots 720p for a hundred bucks would literally seem like nonsense to me five or six years ago, as I sat trying to get a shot worth looking at out of my old Sony pd150. They're here, though, the Flips and iPhones and Kodaks and whatever else and while most of their impact can be measured in the increased frequency of Bieber-tribute videos hitting youtube, having a $100 hd camera also puts me in a mind to go - me a regular old idi...
In the mood for a treat but can’t decide between salty or sweet? Why choose when you can have the best of both worlds? Chocolate covered pretzels are a mouth-watering snack perfect for satisfying even the most wicked cravings. They are a huge hit at parties and get-togethers, and your guests will be impressed you made them yourself (not to mention that store-bought versions can cost a pretty penny!)
Apparently the Canon 7D can (with a little help from GigaPan, of course). Via WonderHowTo World, Canon EOS 7D:
Researchers Hiroto Tanaka and Isao Shimoyama (of Harvard University and University of Tokyo) have constructed a tiny replica of the swallowtail butterfly. The crudely made model uses just balsa wood, rubber bands, and a steel wire crank. The goal is to better understand the biomechanics of butterfly flight. Via Wired,
Two research teams, in Turkey and Iran, both recently discovered an incredibly rare species of bees. Coined the Osmia (Ozbekosima) avoseta bee, the insects use colorful flower petals to create papier-mache cocoons for their offspring.
Another example of outstanding resourcefulness and ingenuity in the medical community (see earlier this week: Blood Sucking Plunger Could Heal Millions).
Space is tight (not to mention expensive) in Hong Kong. What's the solution? Architect Gary Chang has come up with an ingenious design: a small, 344 sq. ft. "accordion" apartment that can transform into 24 different rooms, simply by employing the use of sliding panels and walls. Via the New York Times,
Dalton Ghetti has been carving teeny, tiny pencil tip sculptures for 25 years. Mr. Ghetti, who owns about as many possessions as a monk, is aware how unusual his craft is. He started carving tree bark when he was a child and experimented with everything from soap to chalk before settling on graphite. It's second nature now, and for 90 percent of his work, all he needs is a sewing needle, a razor blade and a carpenter's or No. 2 pencil.
With an impressive series of viral music videos to their name, it is no surprise that the latest video from indie rockers OK Go is another hit. The video is directed by James Frost, in collaboration with Syyn Labs, a collective of engineers that work on elaborate art projects. A huge Rube Goldberg machine was built in a warehouse, for a one-take video for the song This Too Shall Pass.
Chemical engineers at Cornell have created a small device that may one day turn troops into real life spider-men. The device would cradle in the palm of the hand, allowing troops to scale walls. It uses an adhesive inspired by the Floridian leaf beetle, an insect that "can adhere to leaves with power 100 times stronger than its own body weight".
Martha Stewart and kids editorial director Jodi Levine shares ideas for decorating Easter eggs with crepe paper. Crepe paper is one of my favorite materials. It's actually tissue paper that has been reinforced with sizing and "creped," a crinkling method that yields a medium that is incredibly pliable yet sturdy enough to iron and sew. Beautiful and durable, it lends itself to countless applications. In fact, I walked down the aisle with a bouquet of crepe paper blooms! I recently realized ho...
Swiping between pages on your iPhone's home screen feels very natural, but surprisingly, Apple has another way to switch between screens, and it's been staring us in the face this whole time.
A few things on Android and iPhone have not been perfected. For instance, selecting and copying text is a task I often find myself fumbling over. But recently, we stumbled across a nifty way to select text that's a huge improvement over how we've been doing it.
Apple used to be a great, innovative company. But lately, it's filling its coffers with money raked in from selling folks on "new" and "unique" features that have been blatantly ripped off from Android.
While walk-in closets are nice, not many of us actually have one. Instead, we're stuck with tiny wall closets or those oddly-shaped spears. Add a roommate or girlfriend and you have yourself a classic dilemma—"Where in the French toast do I put all my damn clothes?"
If you have ice cube trays lying around in your refrigerator and chilling your drinks with ice cubes is not a huge priority for you, you can still make use of these handy kitchen tools in a number of useful ways, both edible and non-edible.
Whether you've had them for years or bought them used off Craigslist, old appliances can always benefit from a facelift. One of the first things to go is usually the lettering on the knobs, buttons, and other surfaces that are frequently touched, leaving them faded and difficult to read.
Build up your arm strength and beautify your local community in a single stroke by dropping homemade seed bombs in and around your neighborhood. A guerrilla gardening technique anyone can participate in, seed bombing is a fun and effective way to add tiny oases of wildflowers and healthy green plants in vacant lots and other overlooked and neglected parcels of land.
There are over 38 million people who wear contact lenses in the United States, but nearly a quarter of those never replace their contact lens case. If you're one of those folks, you probably have a drawer full of empty, unused lens cases in your home. Start putting them to good use!
If you've got a Samsung Galaxy S3 or Galaxy Note 2, you probably either love or hate the Social Tag feature. Using facial recognition, much like Facebook does, it scans your photos and lets you tag a name to a face. If your device recognizes the face by itself, it will automatically tag it for you. If the person is in your contacts, it will give you the option of calling, texting, or emailing them. While it's a great feature for some, it doesn't always work perfectly. If the flash from the ca...
Whether or not you like its minimalist, "puzzle" style, it's hard to argue that Shadow of the Colossus is a gorgeous game. It got rave reviews from critics and players alike, was the 11th highest rated game of 2005, and was so popular that it even has its own wiki.
So, you finally got the Jelly Bean update on your Samsung Galaxy S III, but one little problem—you've got some red glow around the edges of your screen now. Is your phone messed up? No, it's just a tiny glitch that some users have been reporting after updating their Galaxy S3s to Android 4.1.1, and there are a few quick ways to get rid of it.
Most cars made in the last ten or fifteen years can be unlocked with a keyless remote, and once you get used to them, unlocking your car with a traditional key feels like a pain. The most common reason they stop working is just because the battery needs replacing, but when they're broken for real, a new one can cost a small fortune. So before you go out and buy one, try this quick fix that worked for Redditor diggalator, and cost absolutely nothing. Basically, he pried the remote apart and to...
