Zen and the Art of Prop Making

A simple as hoc lathe can be made in a matter of hours to turn polystyrene foam. You will need access to a MIG welder, metalwork tools and some scrap RHS steel to make the frame and bracket to mount the drive motor.The size of the frame of the simple lathe will depend on the size of the block of polystyrene you will be working with. Fitting polystyrene to the simple lathe Prepare the polystyrene block for the simple lathe by glueing two circular pieces of 12mm plywood on both the ends of the block. This gives a solid mounting point to fit the polystyrene into the lathe. The long edges of the block are trimmed at 45 degrees to make it easier for the initial turning. Step 1 The heart of the lathe is an electric motor that has a small pulley fitted to its shaft. I used an electric motor from an old gem tumbling machine but any electric motor that is available is suitable as long as it has enough torque to turn the polystyrene block. A larger pulley on a short shaft is fitted thro...

A quick search on YouTube for Rubik cube robots will illustrate how many people have devoted their time to solving this puzzle. There are robots that look like humans that have been designed to solve the Rubik cube puzzle but they seem clunky and awkward in their operation. They do finally solve the puzzle but none of them do it as quickly as Ruby, the brainchild of students at the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne. Not only does Ruby solve the Rubik cube puzzle in record time but her design and operation is a beauty to behold. Ruby is also a work of art and a credit to her designers. YouTube Videos of Rubik cube You think Ruby is fast solving the Rubik cube puzzle? It is still not as fast as a human. Below is world champion Feliks Zemdegs solving the Rubic cube puzzle in record time of 6.24 seconds! Will robotics ever achieve the blinding dexterity of the human hand? More Rubik cube videos available on YouTube.

The idea of a mechanised suit that gives a human being super strength is not new. Numerous examples of an exoskeleton suit can be found in movies such as Aliens, Iron Man and, more recently, Avatar and District 9. Most people will appreciate how fanciful such concepts are, particularly with modern advances in CGI technology. A practical exoskeleton suit In a good example of life imitating art, the folks at Raytheon have made some pretty impressive steps in making the concept of an exoskeleton suit a reality. The video below shows a working example of the XOS 2, a tethered exoskeleton suit which gives its human operator super strength.

Rube Goldberg was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer and inventor. He was born in 1883 and died in 1970 and was best known for his cartoons depicting impossibly complicated machines doing very simple tasks. Any device that is designed to do a very simple task in a highly complicated fashion is known as a Rube Goldberg machine . We all remember as kids seeing a room full of dominos falling in patterns after one is knocked over triggering a chain reaction. The same concept was used in another Rube Goldberg machine - the game called Mousetrap where a ball operates an interconnected series of chutes, levers and buttons on the machine. The "OK Go" Rube Goldberg machine I saw this OK Go video for the first time today and the technical aspects of their machine blew me away. This Rube Goldberg machine that the band OK Go built takes the concept and launches it into the stratosphere! Here is the official OK Go video for the recorded version of "This Too Shal...