Inside Foxconn: Exclusive look at how an iPad is made

Marketplace Shanghai Bureau Chief Rob Schmitz is only the second reporter ever to gain access to visit the factory floor at Apple's Chinese producer Foxconn. See highlights from his tour of the assembly line and the Foxconn facilities and connect to his full audio reports on your public radio station and at http://www.marketplace.org. Marketplace is produced and distributed by American Public Media. LINK: Youtube
Source Credit - American Public Media's 'Marketplace'. Reporter Credit - Rob Schmitz, Shanghai Bureau Chief

The worlds most amazing toy... mechanical engineering

This is one example of Uberstix and what one Uberstix part can do. Actually Uberstix are NOT bendable... the parts are rigid... that is why you can build the twin tower at the end and pick it up... if the parts were bendable, the tower would not be stable... and that's pretty cool from an engineering standpoint... From unsinkable pirate and sail boats to skyscrapers with real blueprints, Uberstix opens up a whole new world and makes anything possible... 8 Uberstix parts will build things that Fly, Float, Sail, and build simple and compound machines and robots 8 Uberstix parts= more than 125,000,000,000,000,000 options. LINK: Youtube

5300 Homemade Dominoes

My brother Steve and I hand-cut and hand-painted 5,292 wooden dominoes plus some bigger-sized blocks after efforts to find large amounts of professional quality toppling dominoes fell short. This is the result of about $100 worth of materials and a whole lot of man-hours. LINK: Youtube
For close-up photos of key stunts and explanations on how they work, visit http://www.mazeguy.net/basement.html

Belarusian Builds Impressive Car Part Bison Sculpture

Roman Beybutyan, a young car enthusiast from the Grodno region of Belarus has built an impressive bison sculpture exclusively out of car parts.

Using shock absorbers, springs, steering rods, clutches, chains and various parts from soviet era cars like UAZ, Moskvich and Lada, Roman and his father managed to create a life-size metal bison, in three months. Roman and his father got all the parts they needed from their neighbors’ garages and from the local scrapyard, and welded them together using a photo for reference. Although the young boy, whose family arrived to Belarus from Armenia, has never seen a real bison, he did a fine job recreating one from metal parts.

Beybutyan, who now plans to start work on car part sculptures of a horse and foal, dreams of having his metal bison placed on display in his country’s Białowieża Forest, known as a sanctuary for the mighty European Bison. He is confident it would draw a large number of tourists to this natural paradise. LINK

Octopus Table

This Octopus Table by artist Isaac Krauss is made out of bronze and pure awesomeness. Isaac and his collaborator Alex Friend put 1,500 hours and about $5,000 to build the 8-armed table. LINK: Neatorama

Laughing Squid has more pics: Link | Alex Friend's web page about the build process

World's Biggest Ostrich Farm?

An entrepreneur in Mali hopes to build the world's biggest ostrich farm. LINK: Youtube

A Machine That Builds Brick Roads

(Video Link)
This video allegedly shows a machine that can lay 400 yards of brick road a day. But I can’t find any information about it beyond Internet buzz. What do you think — is it real?

Via: Gizmodo, Via: Neatorama

Five Places Where Land is Free

Some communities need residents. Some need jobs. Some need development. In order to get those things, a few communities will give you free land! These small communities want you to build a house and make yourself at home.

Several small cities in rural Kansas will give you a land lot if you agree to fashion housing of at least 1,000 square feet on it. Mobile homes are welcome, and we’ll be sure to wave as yours flies by in the next tornado. If one lot isn’t large enough and you’d like to garden, the city of Marquette, Kansas would be pleased as punch to just give you a second lot adjacent to the first, also for free, says its website. These are developed lots, by the way — they already have water, sewer and electricity.

There are opportunities in Nebraska, Iowa, Maine, and Michigan as well. Link, -Thanks, Steven Johnson! Via: Neatorama

Man Tries to Build Telegraph from Scratch

Jamie O’Shea is a conceptual artist. We’ve previously featured his bed, which is designed to be used standing up. More recently, he became interested in the role of knowledge in developing our technological civilization. Is knowledge alone enough, or are we dependent upon tools made by others? To find out, O’Shea decided to build a telegraph completely from scratch — including the tools — using only what he found in a New Jersey forest. At the link, you can watch a video of his attempt.

Link, Via: Slashdot | Artist’s Website | Via: Neatorama

How to make a homopolar motor

How to make a homopolar motor. LINK: Youtube

Man Builds Matchstick Models of Every Ship in the Royal Navy Since 1945

Phillip Warren’s hobby for the past 62 years has been building models of warships out of matchsticks. So far, he’s used 650,000 matches to build 400 ship models.


The master modeller, from Brandford, Dorset, has created every ship built in the Royal Navy since 1945, as well as 60 other ships from the US navy and other impressive floating fortresses from 18 other nations. One of the largest ships in his collection is the famous USS Nimitz, the largest aircraft carrier in the world.

Throghout his career as a ship model builder, Phillip Waren created over 400 individual ships, as well as 1,200 airplane models that make his aircraft carriers look more real. The average ship in his collection is made using around 1,500 matchsticks and takes about a month to complete, but for his larger creations he used over 5,000 matchsticks and 200 wooden boxes. These took him about a year to complete. All in all, Phillip Waren used around 650,000 matchsticks, to create his entire fleet.

Article Link and Gallery Link, Via: Ace of Spades HQ | Photo: ModelWarships.com, Via: Neatorama

Champion cardstacker builds capitol with 22,000 cards

Using 22,000 cards over 3 days, record-holding card stacker Bryan Berg builds the Rhode Island State House, home of Brotherhood, Sundays at 10PM ET/PT only on Showtime.

Bryan Berg broke the Guinness World Record for the World's Tallest House of Cards in 1992 at the age of seventeen, with a tower fourteen feet, six inches tall. His latest record-holding structure in the category is over twenty-five feet tall.

Touring regularly, Berg has stacked cards in virtually every major U.S. city and in Japan, Denmark, and Germany. LINK: Youtube

Spinning RGB LED Ball II

"QUOTE" When this baby hits 88 miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious sh!t!

Unlike it's predecessor this one has three axes. It was very challenging to build, with a total of 9 slip-contacts, not including the motors. I made it from scrap I had laying around and it took about a week to build. I use standard DC-motors controlled with pulse width modulation, the LEDs are controlled with a modified bike light with adjustable frequency. I'm very sorry about the quality, my camera can't keep up and it makes a lot of flicker that isn't really there, and the LEDs oversaturate the image. LINK: Youtube

Big Depron Lazy Bee

Wingspan: 150 cm
Weight: 1.1 kg with batteries
Motor: Nippy Black 2510/114
ESC: Hyperion 30A V3.1
Batteries: 2 x 3S 1800 mAh in parallell
Radio: Futaba 6EX FASST
Servos: 3 x HXT 900
Materials used: 6mm Depron, some wood, carbon rod wheel axel. Wheel is made of 4 layers of depron. LINK: Youtube

World's Best Card Stacker Explains How He Does It

Want to learn to be a world-class cardstacker? Bryan Berg discusses how he does it.

Using 22,000 cards over 3 days, record-holding card stacker Bryan Berg builds the Rhode Island State House, home of Brotherhood, Sundays at 10PM ET/PT only on Showtime. Visit www.sho.com for more about Brotherhood.

Bryan Berg broke the Guinness World Record for the World's Tallest House of Cards in 1992 at the age of seventeen, with a tower fourteen feet, six inches tall. His latest record-holding structure in the category is over twenty-five feet tall.

Touring regularly, Berg has stacked cards in virtually every major U.S. city and in Japan, Denmark, and Germany. LINK: Youtube

HOMEMADE WATERSLIDE LOOP

“These guys can build one, but my local water park doesn’t have any loops? LINK

Building the Ship's Brain

Man-Made: World's Largest Cruise Ship : THU JUN 10 10P et/pt : http://channel.nationalgeographic.com...

Filled with cables and wires that send messages to different machinery around the craft, the bridge acts as the ship's brain. LINK: Youtube

Compass Table

http://www.instructables.com/id/Compa... Build a compass table and never lose track of which way is north again! LINK: Youtube

30 Marvelous Motorcycles

Now That’s Nifty has a gallery of thirty unusual motorcycles, including those converted into campers, limos, and tracked vehicles. Among them is the massive Leonhardt Gunbus, which is powered by a massive 410 cubic inch engine:

When it comes to custom motorcycle builders, there’s crazy and there’s really crazy. Falling into the latter category is one Mr. Clemens F. Leonhardt, who has just finished building what he refers to as “the world’s biggest motorcycle.” Excluding some other crazy creations, such as the Monster Bike, the guy’s got a point. Unlike other two-wheeled behemoths, the Leonhardt Gunbus is actually ready to ride on normal roads and will soon go into series production. That’s right… you’ll actually be able to buy one of these. Next on the agenda is an equally massive sidecar, which somehow seems just right for this bike.

Link, Via: The Presurfer | Information on the Leonhardt Gunbus | Photo: Niot, Via: Neatorama

Beautiful wooden clocks to build at home

Clayton Boyer makes incredible wooden clocks and clockworks, and sells the plans to build them -- you'll either need some leet woodworking skills, a CAD rig, a laser-cutter, or a lot of willingness to learn.

Clayton Boyer Clock Designs, Via: Boingboing