Solar Handbag October 5, 2009

Courtesy of MakeZine, which came to them via ReadyMade (the Internet is a giant circle):

You can convert any bag into a solar charger for your gadgets.
(Please note, this design is a bit underpowered compared to the usual Voltaic bags which have three 1.3 Watt panels so charge times will be proportionately slower).

All you need is the following:

Step 1: Parts and Tools
1-3 1.3 Watt Panels ($30-$90)
1 Circuit Box Set ($3)
1 JetPack Battery Set ($75)
1 used/salvaged handbag, preferably with a flat front
Sharp knife
Super glue
Needles & thread

Visit their site for pictures and details

Free Museum Day tomorrow September 25, 2009

September 26th is Annual Museum Day, and lots of museums and parks are offering free admission in celebration. Read on for more:

On Sept. 26, as part of the fifth annual Museum Day program, Smithsonian magazine has convinced more than 1,200 other museums, zoos, and arts and cultural attractions across the country to also welcome visitors for free.

In California, you’ll can use your Museum Day admission card to visit the classic cars displayed at the California Automobile Museum in Sacramento (regular adult admission: $8), in New York City you can use your pass at the South Street Seaport Museum (regular adult admission: $10), and in Dallas, your pass will get you into the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza (regular admission: $13.50), which explores the assassination and legacy of President John F. Kennedy. 

To see the full list of all the participating museums so you can plan your day, visit the Smithsonian’s Museum Day 2009 Web site and poke around. Be ready to be a bit overwhelmed.

PhD Comics July 21, 2009

Just stumbled upon Jorge Cham’s PhD Comics looking for something else, and had forgotten just how amusing it is.

The target audience is really anybody who has spent a long time in academia, either going for a graduate degree or just working in an academe setting. But it definitely tickles the funny bone of scientists everywhere, and I think for the Generation X/Y crowd of scientists it can hit a funny nerve. 

I have met also Jorge Cham, and he is a very cool guy, so I want to promote his stuff.

A recent favorite of mine:

Great Tweets of Science

Top 10 (Science) Music Videos July 16, 2009

As compiled by Wired Science:

Music can make the driest scientific concepts entertaining, or even hilarious. Catchy tunes about DNA blend genetics with jokes. Ballads about the heart and pi bring dull facts to life. Here are some of our favorite videos that show how hard science rocks.

Click here for their list.

My personal favorite? The Nano Song. Why? Because it’s got puppets! Puppets are so much better at explaining the values of a healthy diet, the ABCs, and making political turmoil laughable!

Calling out green artists in Santa Monica June 25, 2009

Not green as in new, green as in sustainable.

 (For some reason I can’t get their cool poster to show up in this post, so I’ll just put the boring and not very explanatory press release. Take that sunny Santa Monica!).

The City of Santa Monica’s Cultural Affairs Division and Office of Sustainability and the Environment’s have created a unique partnership with Arts:Earth Partnership (AEP), a non-profit organization dedicated to helping the cultural and creative sector become sustainable. AEP is a voluntary coalition of cultural facilities, theaters, museums, dance studios, art galleries, performing arts companies and individual artists collectively committed to achieving environmental sustainability.

On Friday, June 26th from 6:30 p.m. until 8:00 p.m., artists of any discipline and Santa Monica arts organizations of every type are invited to attend this launch event in order to learn more about AEP at a free event hosted at the Santa Monica Museum of Art at Bergamot Station (2525 Michigan Ave, Santa Monica, 90404).

Information will be available for both individual artists and arts organizations to sign up and join the partnership. In addition, initiative sponsors City of Santa Monica Sustainable Works, LADWP and other partners will have information on sustainable practices for attendees. There will be wine and mingling before a brief presentation of the program and a Q & A session by the founders.

Membership in AEP is open to any artist or arts agency who wish to engage in sustainable practices. Members will be recognized as being “green” and be eligible for a free materials exchange program, energy audits, creative convergences, exclusive vendor deals and vetted resources.  Organizers hope that arts agencies will play a leading role in the greening of America, inspiring audience members and supporters to follow suit.

Arts:Earth Partnership founding partners include Santa Monica Cultural Affairs Division, Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Santa Monica Sustainable Works and the LA Stage Alliance.  The Partnership is endorsed by the City of Los Angeles, City of Santa Monica, Santa Monica OSE, Arts for LA, Los Angeles Arts Commission, Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, Green LA, Green Theater Initiative and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.  This is the first launch party for this National Program. There are 8 regional open houses planned this summer all across Los Angeles at City of Los Angeles owned Cultural Facilities.

http://www.artsearthpartnership.org/

Dancing solar-powered flowers June 16, 2009

On a somewhat sillier art/science note…

Solar Solidarity International “aims at raising awareness of the potential of renewable sources of energy (and in particular the potential of the sun) for mankind and for the environment through the organisation of artistic events. Those events target a large audience, raise awareness about renewable energies and trigger debate. These projects are possible thanks to the artist Dang (www.dang.be) who offers his copyrights to the association.”

They’re kind of cool, and yet scary looking too.

World Science Festival June 9, 2009

Starting tomorrow, June 10th, and continuing through Sunday, June 14th. In New York.

The event is chaired by Brian Greene, a physicist at Columbia University and recognized for a number of groundbreaking discoveries in his field of superstring theory, is also well-known for his efforts to make science accessible. He’s written a children’s book about the theory of relativity and appeared on the radio program RadioLab several times.

One director on the board is Alan Alda, who played Hawkeye Pierce on the classic television series, M*A*S*H, and, more recently, appeared in continuing roles on ER and The West Wing.

The festival plans to

“cultivate and sustain a general public informed by the content of science, inspired by its wonder, convinced of its value, and prepared to engage with its implications for the future. The World Science Festival, an unprecedented annual tribute to imagination, ingenuity and inventiveness, takes science out of the laboratory and into the streets, theaters, museums, and public halls of New York City, making the esoteric understandable and the familiar fascinating.”

Maybe I’m just totally out of the loop, but this is the first time I’ve seen ads for this. Whoever did their publicity did not get much past New York City. Which maybe was their point. They’ve included venues all over New York, from parks to art museums to universities.

One event that looks really fun is their Bio Blitz planned in Manhatten and Brooklyn.

“Professional naturalists and research scientists will guide urban explorers of all ages and backgrounds in a scientific inventory of the flora, fauna, fungi — and all things crawly. In honor of E.O. Wilson, pioneer of the Bio Blitz method, this event will inspire Wilson-like wonder and appreciation for the natural diversity found right in our own neighborhood.

The Bio Blitzes will be a scientific survey to catalog all of the species found at the sites. The Blitzes will be part contest (to identify as many species as possible), part educational event, and part scientific endeavor. All programs will be free with the idea of engaging families and lay-people at the community level. Other educational activities could include field explorations and interpretative walks and talks to increase the public’s awareness of the diversity of their own “backyard”.”

There is a talk on Sunday featuring E.O. Wilson and Mark Moffett talking about what they’ve found on Bio Blitzes.

The festival also plans to have concerts, speakers, and all sorts of events over the weekend. It also looks like many of the events are free. If you are anywhere in the area, I highly recommend it.

Feedback from Maker Faire June 3, 2009

All the news that’s fit to print about this past weekend’s adventures at Maker Faire, San Francisco 2009:

A video from GeekDad:

From SF Weekly:

Burning Man regulars were there, of course, from Acme Muffineering with their giant bicycle-powered cupcakes, to the visionary techies responsible for daring to imagine the Electric Giraffe, a 1700-pound, 17-foot-tall, skeletal replica of everyone’s favorite zoo attraction. Also on the local freak front, pyromaniac Charles Gadeken (of Flaming Lotus Girls fame) torched the hell out of an outsized rusty blossom, while the mad scientists of Steampunk and Kinetic Steamworks brought their trademark machine sculptures to life via the power of very hot air.

On the geek side, countless robot fetishists dazzled the event’s 70,000 attendees with a range of inspired creations, from life-like facsimiles of R2-D2 and that “Danger, Will Robinson!” character from the ’60s TV classic “Lost in Space,” to an absurd parrot named Ethel that danced around like a Christmas-gift reject to bad music blaring from blown speakers. Bay Area Tankers, out-of-shape old guys who like to maneuver their remote-controlled Sherman tanks through homemade minefields, could not compete with the Western Warship Combat Club, a group of boyish men who used to bomb model ships with firecrackers in their youth. At Maker Faire, they staged fun-loving war games between the Allied and Axis naval fleets for a capacity crowd packed onto bleachers around a sizeable pool. The excited emcee gave us an NHL-style play-by-play as the ships gunned for each other with mini canons that shot ball-bearings. Whenever a vessel went down, we’d get an earful: “Oh, my goodness! Oh, the carnage! Oh, the humanity! Holy mole!” We left before a victor was declared.

Good times!

The cupcake and muffin cars definitely seemed to be a hit; they’re listed in a lot of write-ups (from Design News):

The cupcake and muffin cars are the brainchildren of Lisa Pongrace and Greg Solberg, who originally developed the concept for the Burning Man event in 2004. The electric vehicles employ 24V motors and deep-cycle marine batteries. They can go as fast as 15 mph. Each car is just large enough to hold one person, with the person’s head sticking up through the cupcake or muffin top. The wheels are not apparent on the low-slung vehicles so they look more like air-cushion or anti-gravity vehicles. The cars’ cupcake-tin body is formed from accordion-folded 26-gauge galvanized sheet steel and the cupcake or muffin top is made from chicken wire, batting and fabric. The cars cost $500 to $1500 to make and there are currently about 16 of them. Many are stored at a “secret” facility in Berkeley, CA. Pongrace’s car is styled as a blueberry muffin and she scoots around in it wearing a large fabric blueberry for a hat.

Keep on making!

This weekend: Maker Faire! May 29, 2009

That’s right, boils and ghouls. San Francisco is hosting Maker Faire (sponsored by MAKE Magazine), a place where tinkerers and crafters converge to show of their wares.

Everyone and their GeekDad is excited about Maker Faire. There will be Legos, mechanical fairy wings, epic battles between robotic warships, and even Wall-e.

Their theme this year is how to create a sustainable future, and promoting the idea is that we ourselves have the power!

Unfortunately I can’t get the official site to stay up on my computer, but maybe you’ll have better luck: http://www.makerfaire.com/

Just don’t go over the top with your enthusiasm.

Best Nests May 27, 2009

The American Institute of Architects recently picked their favorite building projects that combine form and fucntion for both human and environmental needs.

The AIA has been giving out these awards for 12 years, but only recently have people really started to get interested.

Building green can be difficult. And, as Scientific American wrote about last week, they haven’t often been considerate to the humans inside them. “Surveys of occupants generally find that buildings meeting the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards, the benchmarks for greenness, score higher on all measures except one: acoustics.”

Fortunately, AIA’s award also takes noisiness into account, and ”created a list of green buildings that also meet the aesthetic and functional needs of the people and communities that encounter and inhabit them. From a low-income apartment building situated by a light rail line to a new town center that reused materials from its old municipal buildings for construction, these projects are putting Earth and its residents on equal footing.” AND, they’re not all in the U.S.

Enjoy the natural man-made wonders.