Collaborate Disseminate
Foam is certainly an indispensable raw material for various craft and construction projects. Any serious sculptor however, inevitably grows tired of grinding through a foam block using a simple preheated utensil. The next step up, is to assemble a simple but thoroughly effective hot wire cutting contraption, formed out of …read more
Continue reading Interactive CNC Foam Cutter Churns Out Abstract Art
“Every block of expanded polystyrene foam has a statue inside it and it is the task of the dual-arm hot wire-wielding robot to discover it.” — [Michelangelo], probably.
Be prepared to have your mind blown by this dual-wielding hot-wire 3D foam cutter (PDF). We’ve all seen simple hot-wire cutters before, …read more
Continue reading Dual-Wielding Robot Carves 3D Shapes From Foam With Warped Wire
In our vernacular, bricking something is almost never good. It implies that something has gone very wrong indeed, and that your once-useful and likely expensive widget is now about as useful as a brick. Given their importance to civilization, that seems somewhat unfair to bricks, but it gets the point …read more
Most of us have a junk drawer, full of spare parts yanked from various places, but also likely stocked with materials we bought for a project but didn’t use completely. Half a gallon of wood glue, a pile of random, scattered resistors, or in [Ken]’s case, closed-cell silicone foam. Wanting …read more
If you’ve exhausted your list of electronics projects over the past several weeks of trying to stay at home, it might be time to take a break from all of that and do something off the wall. [PeterSripol] shows us one option by building a few walkalong gliders and trying …read more
Rapid prototyping tools are sometimes the difference between a project getting off the ground and one that stays strictly on paper. A lightweight, easy-to-form material is often all that’s needed to visualize a design and make a quick judgment on how to proceed. Polymeric foams excel in such applications, and …read more
With the ever-increasing capabilities of smart phones, action cameras, and hand-held gimbals, the battle for the best shots is intensifying daily on platforms like YouTube and Instagram. Hyperlapse sequences are one of the popular weapons in the armoury, and [Daniel Riley] aka [rctestflight] realised that his autonomous boat could be …read more
Continue reading Autonomous Boat For Awesome Video Hyperlapses
Imagine a tub overflowing with bubble bath, except it’s a club dancefloor and music is pumping all night. This is what is known as a “foam party” — a wild and exciting concept that nonetheless many are yet to experience. The concept exploded in popularity in Ibiza in the 1990s, …read more
Continue reading Building a Foam Machine from a Leaf Blower and a Water Pump
Despite the incredible advancements in special effects technology since the film’s release, the dinosaurs in 1993’s Jurassic Park still look just as terrifying today as they did nearly 30 years ago. This has largely been attributed to the fact that the filmmakers wisely decided to use physical models in many …read more
Continue reading Lifelike Dinosaur Emerges From The Plumbing Aisle
Many radio control aircraft modelers will be familiar with the process of cutting wings out of foam with the hot wire method. The tools are simple enough to build at home, and it’s an easy way of producing a lightweight set of wings without too much hassle. [IkyAlvin] walks a …read more