Besides being π Day, today was also Make: Day at the Science Museum of Minnesota. In a
collaboration with Make:
television (which is from TPT),
individual and community-made projects were displayed around the museum.
I think my favorite quote from the day was when a little kid pointed to
a tabletop trebuchet and John Park said Oh, it's perfectly safe. Push
down on it as hard as you can.
A small beanbag was quickly launched
at head level through the crowd.
For exhibits, there were plenty of robots from Twin Cities Robotics Club, as well as some robots from a high school. Both apparently have competitions somewhat regularly. Kinda like Battle Bots, but in just achieving a goal (push the other one out or shoot baskets from an unknown but likely slick surface) rather than destroying other robots.
One exhibit was Tripoli Minnesota
High Power Rocketry Club, which unfortunately didn't have any actual
rockets there (given the size in photos, they wouldn't have really fit).
As one of the guys said while handing us a flyer, Rockets for big
boys
. They have a launch day on May 9 from 9am to around 4pm, which
could be an interesting event. A prominent line on the brochure is
Spectators Welcome
— anyone interested in going to watch on
May 9 or one of their other scheduled dates this summer?
The Flash & Glow exhibit was rather interesting. It was very interesting material to play with, but unfortunately does not appear to be cheap. The 3D printing and many audio devices were interesting as well. Links to the different projects are available on the Make: Day site.
I did take photos and video of Make: Day, and also threw together a short video of the photos. Enjoy.
I posted links to web versions of the timelapse videos on Twitter recently, mentioning I'd eventually post the real versions (that don't look horrible from compression, but are also several hundred MB each). I did get them online recently, but never really publicized the links. I now have a page online linking most of my Brushaber Commons construction captures (photos and videos). Enjoy.
This message came through one of the mailing lists I read.
Hi,
This is an automatic reply. My mailbox does not accept messages without a Subject. Your email did not appear to contain a Subject and was automatically deleted. Please re-send it with a meaningful subject and I will receive your message and respond.
Thank you!
While the fact that it went to the list is indicative of a rather broken auto-responder system, I thought the message itself was funny and maybe even a useful thing to do in certain limited cases. Although it might be most appropriate for subjects that consist of things like "read this" or "important" rather than blank.
Free
at last, they took your life / They could not take your pride.
- U2
- Pride
And may your
dreams / Be realized.
- U2 - MLK
You've probably seen many videos of this, but I thought I'd add another taken at a higher speed and played back slowly. Perhaps next time I'll have acquired a good high speed flash for the SLR.
A longer clip at a bit faster speed is also available.
