Archive for April 12th, 2006

Tic Tac Flashlight

Wednesday, April 12th, 2006

Grynx has a simple project to build a LED flashlight using an empty Tic Tac box.

A disposable torch with long life (I hope I don’t invent the wheel once more) I bought ‘tic-tac’ mint candy and found out that this package must be ideal for 3 AAA batteries to make a small torch (or lamp) with.
Yes the batteries fitted perfect - I soldered them in series and used a small micro switch from an old circuit-board together with an ultra bright white LED (25.000 mcd - 3,8 volt and 20 mA - 35 degrees) and a serial resistor of 27 ohm (to make it 3,8 Volt).

Posted in diy, electronics | No Comments »

Amazing Rube Goldberg Machines

Wednesday, April 12th, 2006

This is a video of some freakin’ brilliant Rube Goldberg machines. Brings back memories of The Incredible Machine.

Posted in funny | No Comments »

Jumpy eggs caught on camera

Wednesday, April 12th, 2006

Apparently a spinning hard-boiled egg can make small jumps into the air.

After two years of work, with a purpose-built steel machine wired up to high-speed cameras, microphones and electronic sensors, a team of Japanese researchers has finally proved that a hard-boiled egg can jump. All it takes, according to Yutaka Shimomura and colleagues of Keio University, is a good spin.

A spinning egg will spontaneously rise up from lying on its side to standing on its end. Shimomura, along with physicists at the University of Cambridge, had previously worked out why this is so, and predicted that the forces involved could also make an egg leap a tiny bit into the air.

I don’t know what possible use this could have but there you go.

Posted in odd, science/nature | No Comments »