Collaborate Disseminate
Vehicle-mounted awnings have become de rigueur for overlanding and other motor vehicle adventures, offering a fast, sure way of getting some shade, even in the middle of treeless tundra or desert. Such awnings can be difficult to mount and definitely a… Continue reading Quick-mounting Firefly car awning throws shade from on or off vehicle
You never know when you’ll be called upon to [MacGyver] your way out of an emergency. We can’t imagine what kind of situation would call for whipping up a satellite …read more Continue reading Umbrella Antenna Protects You from Rain, but Not the Way You Think
Many infamous Kickstarter projects have ultimately flopped or failed, leaving backers frustrated and angry. Often pitched with a splashy convincing video that happens to have critical components conveniently offscreen. [Allen …read more Continue reading Shady Air Umbrella Given New Lease On Life
About five years ago, a Kickstarter popped up for the air umbrella. It wasn’t long before the project fell apart and the company made at least some refunds. Old news, we know. But [The Action Lab] recently explored the physics behind the air umbrella and why it wouldn’t be very …read more
Most people can tell you the various uses of the umbrella — it keeps the rain off, pokes sleeping train passengers awake, and can be used as an improvised defensive weapon when tension in the hot dog line reaches boiling point. A true Englishman would never deign to employ their brolly so imprudently, of course, but they might just give it an upgrade by packing in a full weather station.
The build uses the Particle Photon as the brains of the operation, interfacing it with several sensors. There’s a DHT11 to handle temperature and humidity measurement, an Adafruit barometric pressure …read more
Yes! Someone made the Kingman umbrella and yes it can shoot and yes it has a display on the inside. [James Hobson] just put up a video on YouTube for this excellent project detailing the process that went into creating this live working prop and it is amazing.
The build starts with finding a rugged umbrella and was tested by standing on it as well as decimating a few household objects. Compress CO2 cartridges provide the fuel for propelling blow darts as well as other non-lethal forms of ammunition. The coolest part of the project is the screen inside the …read more
Mount an umbrella to a drone and there you go, you have a flying umbrella. When [Alan Kwan] tried to do just that he found it wasn’t quite so simple. The result, once he’d worked it out though, is haunting. You get an uneasy feeling like you’re underwater watching jellyfish floating around you.
A grad student in MIT’s ACT (Art, Culture and Technology) program, [Alan’s] idea was to produce a synesthesia-like result in the viewer by having an inanimate object, an umbrella, appear as an animate object, a floating jellyfish. He first tried simply attaching the umbrella to an off-the-shelf …read more
[Rulof] never ceases to impress us with what he comes up with and how he hacks it together. Seriously, how did he even know that the obscure umbrella part he used in this project existed, let alone thought of it when the time came to make a magnet mount? His hack this time is a real world, tabletop race track made for his little brother, and by his account, his brother is going crazy for it.
His race track is on a rotating table and consists of the following collection of parts: a motor, bicycle wheel, casters from a travel …read more
