Awesome Etc

We would say, “Don’t try this at home,” but most of us don’t have a cauldron of molten lava or a vat of acid lying around. Mark Rober’s video includes a series of experiments in which he and his pals tested the destructive abilities of lava, acid, and some wildcards. The video culminates in a challenge to see which could kill a car engine quicker.

Today’s most satisfying video comes in the form of this clip from the Brick Experiment Channel. Their goal? Create the longest possible chain of 1×1 LEGO Technic gears while retaining the same gear ratio from start to finish. We’re impressed that a single motor can drive that many gears.

Halloween may be over, but we would have loved to have this cast iron skeleton coin bank on display. TysyTube Restoration did a fantastic job cleaning up its rusty old bones. We love the creepy action as it tosses coins from its bony hand into its eyeball. If you like the idea, Design Toscano still sells a similar bank.

Inspired by how hummingbirds hover in flight, Works by Design wanted to see if he could build a flying machine that lifts off vertically and stays aloft by flapping its wings. It uses compressed gas for propulsion and a custom-built air motor to move its wings. It’s not an efficient method of flight, but it was cool to observe the engineering process.

Gav and Dan of The Slow Mo Guys met up with Brett and Scott from How Ridiculous to see what kind of damage a bowling ball cannon can do. Their subject: ballistic gel heads filled with fake skulls. For something a little less gruesome, enjoy some bowling balls vs. trampolines.

Super73 teamed up with Macguffin Makers to create this epic Halo-themed electric bike kitted out with futuristic body cladding and UNSC graphics. They built it for a giveaway sponsored by Doritos, Mountain Dew, and Rockstar Energy. Be sure to check out Super73’s gallery for more great custom builds.

We still don’t know if there’s extraterrestrial life out there, but if there is, there’s a chance that they won’t like us Earthlings and will want to get rid of us. Kurzgesagt takes the aliens’ side in this theoretical conflict and offers strategies to help them wipe out humanity forever. Though they assume our enemies are more technologically advanced than us.

Slip into REEF’s Swellsole Scallywag, a lightweight, waterproof boot to protect the crew in all kinds of wet conditions. It sports a molded TPU upper with a neoprene lining and a soft EVA insole with arch support. The no-slip rubber outsole maintains traction whether you’re sailing, SUP’ing, fishing, or walking a slippery plank.

Bradley Mountain craftsman and designer Andrew Nguyen illustrated this unique deck of playing cards featuring 52 brief survival tips. Each deck is printed in the U.S. with a gold foil letterpress box. Pre-orders start shipping on 11.22.2023, in time for holiday gift-giving. It’s also available in a charcoal version.

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are found everywhere these days, so they must be produced in mass quantities. Scotty Allen from Strange Parts scored a tour of China’s World Semi factory for a fascinating look at how they crank out millions of RGB LEDs that can be programmed to change colors. The automation used in the process is truly incredible.

Jonny Builds set out to make a tabletop using a similar style to Micarta knife handles. After testing with large sheets of paper, he started over with thousands of small sheets of colored paper and laminated them with epoxy in a vacuum bag. After flattening its surface with a CNC machine, he carved a water ripple pattern and coated it with clear epoxy.

We don’t recommend playing with the electricity from a car’s ignition coil, but Styro Pyro is an expert at these sorts of things. In this video, he shows what happens when the power from these high-voltage transformers is applied to the bare metal traces of a blank circuit board. We’re guessing stuff would start smoking if the board had parts on it.

We can’t think of any practical reason you’d need a car jack that fits in the palm of your hand. But where there’s a will, there’s a way. Maker B took the time to craft a 1/5th-scale hydraulic jack from steel, brass, and copper. It not only looks amazing, but the tiny jack is fully functional. Maybe he can use it to change tires on an R/C car.

What happens when you ask an artificial intelligence to write a script for a short film about AI’s impact on society? You get this dystopian nightmare. Nobody & The Computer posted this AI-generated movie, which imagines what the future might look like once we all have AI-powered augmentations and robots have taken all of our jobs. (Thanks, Rob.)

If you’ve ever handled gold leaf, you know how fragile the thin metal sheets are. The Slow Mo Guys used this to their advantage by placing gold leaf inside a jar, removing all the air, and then letting air back in to make it shatter into tiny particles. Naturally, they captured the explosive decompression with a high-speed camera at 80,000 fps.

Japan’s Sigma Corporation makes all kinds of camera lenses. Process X takes us on a factory tour for a look at how their interchangeable lenses come together, from polishing glass to assembling tiny components and even hand-painting the dial markings. Production requires precision and cleanliness from start to finish. No wonder lenses are so expensive.

Indian Motorcycles teamed up with sports eyewear maker 100% to create a special edition of its FTR bike. In addition to a 120 hp V-twin engine, it rocks a Blue Candy carbon fiber tank, headlight nacelle, seat cowl, and front fender and a white powder coat frame. It also packs Öhlins front forks, black-finished titanium Akrapovič exhaust, and lots of special details.

Journey to the Microcosmos explores whether it is possible for microorganisms to spontaneously generate out of thin air. With the help of a powerful microscope and modern scientific knowledge, host Hank Green explains what’s really going on when microscopic organisms seem to show up where there was no life before.

Maker Ivan Miranda wanted to build a mechanical clock that uses marbles to show the time. He created an elevator that lifts marbles and drops them into a track. He used light sensors to detect white marbles and solenoids to release the right ones to display dot-matrix digits. It’s a work in progress, but it’s already impressive. Watch part one of the build here.

Ridesharing apps like Uber and Lyft can be very convenient. However, since they started more than a decade ago, they’ve also been mired in problems because of unskilled drivers, legal issues, and rising costs. Honest Ads offers their predictably cynical take on these services and the issues they’ve created for nearly everyone except their shareholders.

This sequel to Ghostbusters: Afterlife sees the Spenglers traveling to NYC, where they team up with the remaining Ghostbusters to save the world from supernatural doom when an evil force starts freezing people and threatening to plunge us into a new Ice Age. The original cast returns, along with Finn Wolfhard, Paul Rudd, Kumail Nanjiani, and Patton Oswalt.

While our default for online shopping is Amazon, there are lots of other places you can buy knives and pocket tools. Our friends at Everyday Carry offer up several other places where you can find great blades, whether you like the convenience of online shopping or the hands-on experience of buying in person. They also list some of the best knife brands.

Medical professionals use a special power saw to cut through casts when it’s time to remove them. While the high-speed saw blade slices effortlessly through a hardened cast, it does nothing to your body if it makes contact with your skin. Steve Mould investigates the physics that allows this ingenious device to work without causing bodily harm.