Author: Kristina Panos

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Mushroom Canoe Is Rooted In Nature

Mushrooms might be the most contested pizza topping after pineapple, but can you build a boat from pineapples? Probably not, but you can from mushrooms. Mushrooms, or rather their mycelium root systems, can be used for things like packaging, insulation, and furniture, and it could be the next thing in floatation, too. Just ask [Katy […]
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Circuit Sculpture Breathes Life Into Discrete Components

We’ve probably all given a lot of thought to breathing this year in various contexts. Though breathing is something we all must do, this simple act has become quite the troublemaker in 2020. They say the best art imitates life, and [bornach]’s Astable Exhalation certainly does that, right down to the part about astability. It’s […]
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A Good, Hard Look At Pre-Stressed Concrete

From the looks of the average driveway or sidewalk, it may seem as though concrete is just destined to crack. But if concrete is so prone to cracking, how are we able to use it in so many high-stress applications like bridges and skyscrapers? This question came about while I was researching 3D-printed thermite for […]
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Circuit Board Origami Puts You Face-to-Face With Low-Poly Electronics

Paper craft has been around almost as long as paper itself. It’s fun to mimic paper craft and origami with low-poly 3D prints, and [Stephen Hawes] wondered whether it could be done with copper-clad PCBs. Two years after the question arose, we have the answer in the form of a fantastical mask with light-up eyes. […]
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This LEGO Air Conditioner Is Cooler Than Yours

What’s the coolest thing a person can build with LEGO? Well it’s gotta be an air conditioner, right? Technically, [Manoj Nathwani] built a LEGO-fied swamp cooler, but it’s been too hot in London to argue the difference. This thoroughly modular design uses an Arduino Uno and a relay module to drive four submersible pumps. The […]
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See This Casio? Watch It Unlock My Tesla!

The whole point of gaining the remote unlock ability for our cars was to keep us from suffering the indignity of standing there in the rain, working a key into the lock while the groceries get soaked. [Mattia Dal Ben] reports that even Teslas get the blues and don’t unlock reliably all the time, in […]
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Inputs Of Interest: The Infogrip BAT Chording Keyboard

I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that by researching weird and interesting keyboards, I would uncover more weird and interesting keyboards. This is the BAT personal keyboard by Infogrip, and it’s something I came across while researching the DataHand keyboard and mentally filed away as something cool to look into. When I came across a […]
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Tired Of Regular Keebs? Might Be Time To Split

No matter how much geek cred your old vintage keyboard pulls, it’s not worth suffering through wrist pain or any other discomfort while using it. Especially now, when there are so many points of entry into the rabbit hole world of DIY mechanical keebs. Once the wrist pain started, [Ben Congdon] switched from a big […]
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No-Melt Nuclear ‘Power Balls’ Might Win A Few Hearts And Minds

A nuclear power plant is large and complex, and one of the biggest reasons is safety. Splitting radioactive atoms is inherently dangerous, but the energy unleashed by the chain reaction that ensues is the entire point. It’s a delicate balance to stay in the sweet spot, and it requires constant attention to the core temperature, […]
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Commodore SX-64 Keyboard Upgraded From Trash To Treasure

Released in 1984, the Commodore SX-64 Executive Computer was one of the first portable luggable color computers. It cost twice as much as a Commodore 64, had a tiny 5″ diagonal screen, and couldn’t actually support both 5¼” drives as advertised. On the upside, people say it had a slightly better keyboard than its classic […]
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