How many different methods of achieving flight do we have? Airplanes, jets, helicopters, blimps, gliders, and nature has flapping wings…thats about all I can think of. This guy seems to have come up with a new one. The FanWing puts the propulsion on the wing, spreading it across the surface in such a way that it provides lift directly, rather than relying on the speed of the aircraft to create the air flow for lift. as in conventional winged aircraft. The bonus of this is that you end up with a much more stable aircraft with the ability to fly at much slower airspeeds. That may not be good for long distance air travel, but for things like crop dusting, news coverage, or even flying cars, the ability to go at a reasonable speed with high stability is a big bonus.

Despite the increased number of races, there has been a decrease in the quantity of the more impressive and original machines, owing mostly to the loss of Calistoga and Yakima as sponsors. In recent years, Duane Flatmo has been almost carrying the race, with his fire breathing dragon from last year being the best I’ve seen.  There are still a good number of smaller entries as well, which are what keeps the race unpredictable and full of personality, as well as some returning favorites.

Duane Flatmo’s entry this year was an aluminum lobster made of recycled parts and complete with pinchy claws and working jaws and tail, done in the same style as his previous Kinetic Carp and dragon. He was sponsored by FoxFarm.

Mad River Brewing Company sponsored this train. Just look at this guy racing a beer train through the streets of Arcata, he couldn’t be happier.

By far the most daring entry of the year has to go to this float, entitled Classical Nudes. Its drivers were dressed in nude suits and created quite a stir. They were pursued by a pit crew filled with some very stern looking nuns in mini skirts and roller skates. The statue on top was hinged, and could be easily secured for the tougher parts of the race.

There is one float that has been in the races in recent years that pretty much just gets a new name and paint job each time, but I’m always glad to see it. It has won numerous awards and seems to me to have the best engineering for the various trials of these races, taking to the water like a duck. Why mess with perfection? This year it was going under the name A Black Tie Affair.

I don’t know the story on this one, so I’m going to say it was inspired by something someone saw in a vision after eating some bad sushi.  It would seem to be a giraffe from outer space with ruby slippers.

Guy racing a camel. The legs were attached to his pedals. I think he was associated with a group riding a flying carpet.

This is one of those events that brings all sorts of people together. I thought this was a great picture of the spectators around the judges. Worthy of a caption contest.

For more on these races, crossing the sand dunes, and some video see my post on Kinetic Sculpture Race 2009.

HackaDay has a fun little project up for those of you who play the guitar and have a do-it-yourself mentality. This little device can be used like a guitar pick. Using the buttons to select your note will cause the LEDs to flash at that frequency. The light will only be visible on the string when it’s in tune.

I’ve got a problem with people wandering off with my pens. I can’t stand those awful bic pens wihth their gummy ink and tendency to fail at crucial moments, so I buy good pens. Functional pens. Pens that disappear long before they die. When I find them, their new owner always says something like, “Oh, I don’t remember where I got that”

It’s Payback Time.

Music has continued to be re imagined at an ever increasing pace throughout the ages. With the advent of social media, every nut has their own personal stage. Combine the two and throw out the inevitable million monkeys trying to write Shakespeare, and you are left with some real gems, like Greg Patillo, the beat-boxing flautist. Give the video a watch, he is genuinely entertaining.

Related Post:

Flute Hero, Flute as Video Game Controller

It seems like every week I’m complaining to someone about the size of Band-Aids. The mixed pack always seems to come with two of the sizes I want and a dozen huge gauze covered slabs which really only seem useful if you are in the business of polar bear wrestling or roller skating down lava tubes in shorts.

My typical injury is more along the lines of paper cuts that I don’t want to get lemon juice in. I generally find myself slicing up little bits of the sticky part of Nexcare  (the best) bandages and sticking them over the cut, which is very effective, but without the little pad it means I’m pretty much stuck with it until I’m healed.

The device pictured was designed by Miyeon Kim & Hoyoung Lee. It has a roll of adhesive and a roll of padding. you can adjust the length of each as it dispenses, meaning no more big box of bandaids that are all the wrong size. It doesn’t seem to have made it to market yet, but I’m hoping.

With the flood of dumbed-down instrument games like Guitar Hero that do wonders for your button pushing but don’t do much for your guitar skills, there has been a flood of innovators trying to rig controllers that will make real instruments work in the game.

In the above video, we see a simpler solution. Instead of focusing on the instrument, focus on the sound. By using the Rock Band mic, she is able to control the game via flute.

Obviously, this would be better if the game were designed for such, but I don’t see much chance of that coming from the big developers. What we need is a good open source program to do for the mic what StepMania did for the dance pad. If anyone out there knows of a good equivalent, let me know and I will update this post accordingly.

(via Neatorama)

I don’t know what it is about clocks, but they are a magnet for innovative designers. I love the simplicity of this device, which is made from a gear and a bicycle chain with copper digits. I think it would be fun to make a clock under this principle with scoops on the numbers. Put the bottom of the chain in a basin with ball bearings or some other scoopable which would ring the hour when they fall from the top.

Unlike a lot of the more unusual clocks, this one is available for sale, although it will set you back, via amazon

This mechanical pencil from Japan has an internal gear system that automatically rotates the lead as you go, keeping it sharp at the tip. I’m he kind of person who will just walk into a pen store and spend fifteen minutes trying them all out to find the best ones. I can’t stand writing with those gummy-inked bic pens. that always leak, fail, and skip. It’s about time the rest of us started to appreciate quality again. It’s one of the things that made this country great. What we purchase makes a difference to what is made, who succeeds, and who does not. Buy quality. Buy Innovation. It will lead to more of the same.

This Kuru Toga pencil can be found at amazon, or go straight to the source and buy it from J-List, which if you haven’t been there, is well worth looking at. They have all sorts of awesome Japanese stuffs and if you buy enough to make thge shipping worth it, their prices are very competitive.

Advertising with flies has to be simultaneously one of the ingenious and disturbing marketing tactics in history. Watch the above video of the Frankfurt book fair to see unsuspecting people’s minds blown as a house fly buzzes by trailing a tiny red advertising banner like one of those planes at the beach. I don’t know how effective it would be once the novelty wore off, but in this instance, there were bookworms aplenty stalking flies with their fancy digital cameras, hoping to get a picture. If you have the kind of business where any publicity is good publicity (check your spam box), then this may be your next gimmick.

Before you run off to rile up PETA, the flies were supposedly not harmed, and were only attached by a small amount of wax which fell off in time. You might think I’m kidding about PETA, but they already went after Barack Obama earlier this year for swatting a fly that landed on his arm. I’m not a fan of cruelty to insects, but a swatted fly is hardly cause for a national incident.

I wonder if this adverfliesing was inspired by the recent Bill Gates talk where he released a swarm of mosquitoes on the crowd at the beginning of his speech about the death toll of malaria.

(via Geekologie)