For an upcoming episode of its popular show Curiosity, the channel arranged for a Boeing 727 to be crashed into Mexico’s Sonoran desert. The plane was crashed last Friday by a professional pilot, who ejected from the cockpit shortly before the plane hit the ground.

The plane was filled with crash test dummies and tons of cameras to capture as much information on the crash as possible. It’s expected that the footage will reveal information on the chances of survivability of a crash, as well as potentially provide ideas for safety improvements. Discovery Channel hasn’t yet said when the show will air, but you can be pretty certain that millions will tune in to see it.

[via LA Times]

Cubelets snap together to form robots that can move, turn, detect or emit light or sound, as well as motion or temperature, they can also perform simple logic to determine what adjacent blocks should do. The blocks hold together magnetically, and automatically know what to do without any programming or wiring needed. At this point, there are 15 different Cubelet components you can work with, with more on the way.

The Cubelets kit is available from ModRobotics and you can pre-order it for $160 (USD). For that price, you get six Cubelets, two sensors, two “action” blocks, and two “brains” with a battery pack. The large kit costs $520 and includes 20 pieces. They’re designed for kids eight and up and run on rechargeable batteries. (Charger sold separately for $15.)

Sure they’re expensive, but how else are you going to build your robot cube by cube? The possibilities are pretty endless. Once the price comes down and more blocks become available, I’d love to see what can be accomplished.

[via TechCrunch]

I wish it had more information on the future of robotics, but overall it’s still a fun and enlightening read. Check out the full infographic at Online Schools.

[via BotJunkie]

Even the set-up is a bit DS-like. Users write on a whiteboard, using ordinary markers; a webcam then takes an image of the written word or phrase. The real magic is done by the software, which “analyzes the image and interprets the handwritten words into different output modalities.” In other words, what you write is what you get.

Unfortunately, the demo video doesn’t go into detail about the capabilities and the limitations of the software, like the number or kinds of languages it can interpret, the types of words (adjectives, proper nouns, adverbs, verbs) it can interpret, the number of words it can recognize, or if the virtual objects can be made to interact like in Scribblenauts.

Nevertheless, this is an awesome project, and preschool and elementary teachers will no doubt fall on their knees and cry buckets of joyous tears if and when WYWIWYG comes out, because it’s a clever way of capturing the attention of kids and motivating them to learn. After all, you can’t make green poop appear if you don’t know how to spell “green” and “poop”. You can watch the demo video at the Interactive Multimedia Lab’s website; be sure to check out their other projects as well.

This simplistic 4-bit microcomputer kit from Gakken is really designed as a retro educational plaything, and not any sort of computer you’d ever want to be stuck using. Ever. The GMC-4 computer features a 20-key keyboard with hexadecimal characters, a single red 7-segment LED display, and 7 additional LEDs. That’s it. No big-screen, no Blu-ray drive (same as that iMac), and it doesn’t run any operating system.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Still, it somehow manages to play simplistic games like “whac-a-mole” and tennis, and also offers a basic sound generator for playing monotonous music. Keep in mind that this kit does require assembly, and the instructions are entirely in Japanese – and they show pictures of components that don’t come with the GMC-4, So that should increase the challenge a little bit.

You can get your hands on the GMC-4 microcomputer kit over at the MakerSHED for $39.95 (USD).

[photo via HobbyMedia]

Then I realized that this clever LED-lookalike clock isn’t a clock at all. It’s an educational puzzle for teaching your kids how to read digital clocks. After all, analog clocks aren’t the norm these days, so why would you need to teach your children to read time on a more modern display?

I guess the only problem I have with the whole concept is that Digits‘ Jumbo LED clock trainer comes with a bunch of tiny little pieces that are easy to lose (and possibly swallow). And it’s not cheap either. At $100 bucks, I could probably buy myself a whole roomful of cheap digital alarm clocks and set them all to different times. The Digits Jumbo LED clock trainer is available over at Ponoko.

The Wikireader’s interface, as you can see, was made to be as simple as possible. There’s a search button, which I assume brings up the on-screen keyboard when pressed; there’s also a history button which gives you a list of entries you’ve browsed, and a random button, for nerds who can’t think of anything better to do with their time. I’m sure my right index finger and the random button will be friends in no time at all.

The simple interface,  predictive text input plus the fact that it doesn’t need an Internet connection makes this a must-have gadget for me. I think the device could use a bigger screen, but yeah I’m sold. WANT. Openmoko also claims that the device can last a year on just 2 AAA batteries. Actually that’s not hard to believe, considering it’ll only display text in black & white.

You can get a Wikireader for $100 (USD) at the product’s website; a memory card containing with “over 3 million” English Wikipedia entries is included with each purchase. There are two planned update schemes: you can either download updates for free, or for an annual fee of $29, have the updates delivered to you in the form of microSD cards. While the Wikireader does have a Wikipedia entry, you’ll learn more if you check out it’s website instead.

[via gadgetizer]

As you can see in the picture, Concert Hands has wrist sleeves as well as finger sleeves. The first step in using the system is to feed an audio file into the included software. The software breaks down the file into notes and tells a “controller box” where to move your arms and which finger sleeves to activate. The wrist sleeves are mounted on a bar, allowing them to slide your hands into position. The finger sleeves then send a pulse to the fingers which are supposed to press the piano keys, and voila, you’re playing the song on the piano! Repeat this enough times and you’re golden. In theory anyway.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

I think people should know why they’re pressing the keys – i.e. learn about notes and scales first – but it doesn’t really matter what I think does it? Visit the Concert Hands website for more details, or e-mail them to inquire about the price. The Concert Hands software only works in Windows XP or Vista. I don’t think any Mac user would be caught dead wearing the Concert Hands anyway.

[via The Raw Feed]

Now here is what separates geniuses from the rest of us: 50 IQ points. What? No. Here is what really separates geniuses from the rest of us: Theodore Gray misunderstood Sacks and thought that Sacks was referring to a table table, as in furniture. When his genius neurons kicked in seconds later and he realized his mistake, Gray also realized that a periodic table table was actually a great idea. See? Even at their dumbest moments they’re intelligent. So with the help of his friends, Theodore Gray – clearly a man possessed by his love for knowledge – built what is undoubtedly one of the geekiest and most useful pieces of furniture in the universe.

How geeky? Well aside from the fact that it’s a periodic table table dammit, each of the element groups – e.g. alkali metals, noble gases, etc – is represented by a different wood type, “with suitably clever analogies made between wood grain and chemical properties.” I know your nose is bleeding by now but this is just a glimpse of Theodore Gray’s nosebleed inducing awesomeness. Here’s a closer look at the periodic table table:

Have a look at another close -up while I stick cotton balls up my nose:

As you might have guessed, each of those tiles are removable. Beneath those tiles are compartments containing actual samples of the corresponding element, although I don’t think he has samples for all the elements yet. “By the way, if you have any depleted Uranium from Afghanistan, I could use it,” says Theodore “Nose Bleedingly Awesome” Gray.

Gray soon found himself building a website to catalog his element samples. Then his awesomeness emanated waves of awesome that simply could not be ignored: In 2002 The Annals of Improbable Research awarded his table the “Ig Nobel Prize”, an accolade given to “scientific work that cannot and should not be reproduced.”

His awesomeness doesn’t end there: Gray realized that he could use his new found popularity to share his knowledge and his love for knowledge, so he kept on improving his website. Now his website “contains the largest, most complete library of stock photographs of the elements and their applications available anywhere, as well as a large and growing collection of 3D images documenting hundreds of samples rotated through 360 degrees.”

Trust me, the amount of knowledge in the website – as well as the approachable and enjoyable manner in which that knowledge is shared – makes periodictable.com the best online reference for budding and even amateur chemists.

That’s the website’s frontpage. As you can see samples of the elements are shown as well. Clicking an element takes you to a more detailed page for that element:

I cannot stress enough the synergy between Gray’s philosophy behind his website and the tone and approach of his entries about the elements. Gray wants to encourage people – the youth in particular – to be curious about their surroundings, to go out and explore nature and to realize that even in our immediate surroundings we can find examples of elements, compounds and other things that we usually think are only present in labs, to be handled only by experts. In short, Gray wants kids to learn by handling stuff and doing all sorts of things with them, instead of being limited to passive and indirect means of acquiring information.

With that in mind, the information on his website is delivered in an approachable and totally non-textbook language. He uses interesting samples and applications as well. Take a look at one of his entries on the applications of Tungsten:

Wouldn’t it be nice if all learning materials reached out to people in this way? Anyway, I’ve said too much; if you love science or literature or art visit his website. Gray is also selling several fun and geeky chemistry kits, such as periodic table posters, place mats, and even a customizable banner, where you type in something and the website generates a banner that spells out what you typed using the symbols for the elements.

You can then order a printed copy of the banner; the price varies according to the size you want to order.

Theodore Gray should receive a Nobel Prize for Making Science (& Furniture) Fun. Him and Professor Beakman.

[via The Presurfer]

At just 12 bucks, you can’t expect much. The TechnoRobot kit is a do-it-yourself robot that’s made mostly out of cardboard and held together by scotch tape. A cheapie motor, some plastic gears and some rubber bands help the ‘bot to mosey along.

TechnoRobot certainly isn’t going to win any awards for looks, but it’s really meant as a way for kids to learn a little bit about the basics of robotics.