Awesome Etc

While we have gotten some enjoyment from robots playing music, they’ll never replace human artistry. Engineer Michael Kuzma created his self-playing guitar to see how far he could push electromechanical music-making. Samurai Guitarist sat down with Kuzma to hear about its development and to listen to what the robot is capable of.

Ridge is known for its lightweight, minimalist metal wallets. They typically come with an aluminum, titanium, or carbon fiber exterior. This model is covered with full-grain tobacco brown leather. The result: a modern wallet with a classic style. Like other Ridge wallets, it holds up to 12 cards, blocks RFID scanning, and has a lifetime warranty.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket can land back on Earth after lifting payloads into space. Project Horizon has now replicated this impressive engineering feat on a much smaller scale. It’s hard enough to keep a model rocket balanced as it launches, let alone being capable of a controlled descent like this. It took 32 test flights to get it right. Onboard footage here.

Engineers have come up with all kinds of pencil sharpeners. Shane from Stuff Made Here used his engineering expertise to see if he could come up with some new ways to achieve the sharpest point for his pencils. His six ridiculous pencil sharpeners include a 5-axis waterjet, a robot with a spinning X-acto blade, and a tiny chainsaw.

Aerospace engineer Tom Stanton has built a few R/C airplanes powered by compressed air. He’s continued to work on refining the design by reducing weight and increasing thrust. Tom’s latest pneumatic aircraft is the best yet, offering the best flight time of the bunch thanks to improved aerodynamics, a larger air chamber, and an efficient new engine,

Timothée Chalamet stars as a young Willy Wonka in this origin story of Roald Dahl’s enigmatic and inventive chocolatier. With Paddington’s writer/director Paul King at the helm of this star-studded spectacle, it’ll be the family-friendly film to see this holiday season. In theaters 12.15.23.

We always enjoy watching factory videos showing how everyday items are manufactured. This video from Process X doesn’t disappoint, offering a look inside Japan’s IPS Pliers Co. The factory mass-produces pliers by heating, stamping, and punching steel rods, plating them, bolting together their parts, and then dipping their handles in a PVC coating.

Sitting inside a tire and then rolling it down a hill seems like a really bad idea. That didn’t stop Mikey Leach from doing it anyhow. So he and the guys from Travis Pastrana’s Channel 199 created a three-story high dirt ramp and outfitted a tractor tire with a racing seat and a five-point harness for some degree of safety. Kids, don’t try anything like this at home.

Artist Cole Newman uses the power of physics to make large-format paintings. He starts by swinging a can of paint over a moving canvas. Different geometric patterns emerge depending on the velocity and angle of both the can and the canvas. The process does make quite a mess on the floor, but the result is worth it.

Many of us have seen the levitating man trick. Magician Xavier Mortimer took that idea and turned it on its side with an illusion that makes it appear that a man is floating while pushing a shopping cart. We’re guessing it was done with a rig like this to hold the guy’s body up, but we can’t figure out how they got the cart to move without visible motors.

We’ve seen how rebar is made; now watch how these metal reinforcing rods get a second chance at life after they’ve been bent. Created by JP Botelho, this machine can take even severely mangled lengths of rebar and literally set them straight. It’s an oddly satisfying process to watch.

(PG-13: Language) 80s and 90s kids might recall McDonald’s weirdly entrancing Mac Tonight ad campaign. Portrayed by award-winning actor Doug Jones, the moon-headed crooner made several comebacks over the years before becoming an internet meme and an odd symbol of hate. Doplex and ManyKudos teamed up to recap Mac Tonight’s strange history.

Matthew Van Ness has impressed us with his multi-track vocalizations of the Star Wars and Jurassic Park themes. Now he’s back to sing of all the instruments from another John Williams classic – the theme music from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Close your eyes and imagine Indiana Jones taking flight after escaping a rolling boulder and a shower of arrows.

The energy sword from Halo is the game franchise’s ultimate melee weapon. We’ve seen a number of real-life replicas of the sword over the years, now here’s another take on the weapon. Random Hands started out with a rusty old leaf spring from a truck, which he cut, forged, hammered, and split down the middle to form the two halves of the blade.

Organist Anna Lapwood provides an in-depth yet easy-to-understand explanation of how pipe organs work using the massive 3574-pipe organ at St John’s Smith Square in London. Along the way, you’ll learn about its pipes, wind chests, stops, pedals, and manuals, as well as hear some very different kinds of sounds it can produce.

This fascinating factory machine sits along a conveyor belt as it waits for individual items to arrive on the scene. It then lowers a series of suction-powered grippers to grab each one, and then shuffles them along to the next stage in the packing process. It uses VMECA’s Magic Gripper technology to work its magic.

Arnav Daga set his sights on breaking the record for the largest playing card structure ever, and he’s now achieved his goal. This 143,000 card construction took Arnav 41 days to build and includes four iconic landmarks from Kolkata, India, including the Shaheed Minar, St Paul’s Cathedral, Salt Lake Stadium, and Writer’s Building. We’re just glad nobody sneezed.

Wheeling Heritage Media takes us inside The Ziegenfelder Company for a look at their TwinPop popsicle factory. You’ll see a ballet of machines moving colorful liquids through tubes and into molds which slowly freeze their contents before popsicle sticks are placed at just the right time to form the perfect frozen treat.

These minimal handmade wood trays from Design Craft Workshop are made from solid walnut. We like the 8″ and 12″ versions for keeping track of your watch, wallet, eyeglasses, keys, and other everyday items. Larger models are available in sizes up to 23″ in diameter and make beautiful serving trays.

With films like Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas to his credit, Martin Scorsese is arguably our greatest living director. While promoting his movie Killers of the Flower Moon, the master of the cinema sat down with GQ to explain his inspirations and the decisions he made for some of his most iconic movies.

This awe-inspiring video footage shot on Lake Louise in Banff National Park shows a literally cool natural phenomenon. This stuff is called “candle ice,” and it forms when the sun warms ice enough that it starts to break down due to air or liquid water trapped between ice crystals. As the ice begins to melt, it breaks easily into candle-shaped columns.

Using lasers to clean metal can be very satisfying to watch. But with a powerful enough laser and a dirty enough surface, it can also be a feast for the ears. This short video shows how a fiber laser not only removes dirt from a rusty hunk of metal, but it sounds awesome doing it. Be sure to turn your volume up for maximum enjoyment.

When it comes to the weapons in video games, movies, and TV shows, bigger isn’t always better. But when it comes to MetaBall Studios’ latest comparison video, size is all that matters. Along the way, you’ll see just how much bigger the Starkiller Base super laser is than the Noisy Cricket from Men in Black and dozens of deadly weapons in between.