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New Cartoon Camera Combines Drawings And Photographs

A REAL car with a flesh-and-blood driver rolls sedately along a busy city street.
Careening behind it, a caricature of an Indian in a speeding jallopy performs antics that would whiten the hair of a traffic cop. Trick photography produces animated movie cartoons of this novel sort, combining hand-drawn characters with natural backgrounds, in the studio of Paul Terry at New Rochelle, N. Y.

In making the 6,000 separate cartoons that go into a typical 500-foot animated film, the artist uses a special procedure. Each figure or object is drawn on top of an opaque silhouette, of black or white pigment, applied to a transparent sheet of celluloid. Hold it up against the, light, and you will see only the black outline of a figure; by reflected light, its details appear. So each cartoon receives the illumination of a pair of spotlights, from above, while a stop-motion camera photographs it. Meanwhile the opaque cartoon effectively blocks out the unwanted part of a real movie scene, which is projected from below through the transparent part of the celluloid. The rest of the background automatically is photographed with the cartoon, giving a composite picture. For each succeeding frame, the same procedure is used, after cartoons and background scenes have been shifted.
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Lady Robot Used to Write Window Display Advertising
IN THIS mechanical age machinery is being substituted for human beings in every possible and conceivable situation. One of the latest and most unique pieces of machinery to be put to use to supplant human agency is the almost human advertising contrivance, the window sign writing robot. A practical application of the device is shown in the photo of the mechanical lady at the right, which writes on the display blackboard before her perfectly intelligible advertisements, to the amazement of passers-by. Though the mechanical lady is somewhat devoid of personality, her ability as an unthinking machine makes up for the lack.

The secret of the device lies in the remote controls of the arms. The operator sitting behind the screen writes on a piece of paper before him what he desires the mechanical lady to write, and the system of levers and cogwheels transfers the same motion to the robot’s arms. A diagram of the mechanism of the contrivance is shown beneath the photo. Versatility is the chief feature of the mechan-, ical lady. After she recommends some product or other, the blackboard is shifted for the next advertisement.

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Look Out for SWINDLERS Who Turn “SCIENTIFIC”

New scientific discoveries — splitting the atom, cosmic rays, etc.—give the scientific swindler new tools to work with in luring dollars from the unwary. Some of the most famous mechanical swindles of today and of a generation ago are described in this article.

by ORVILLE H. KNEEN

PADLOCK your purses and hoard your gold — the “scientific” swindlers are coining! A flood of such schemes is in the making, ready to be released when the next boom gets under way- Even now we can “get in on the ground floor” of such recent scientific advances as television and radio, or rise to the heights of independence in weird aircraft. Promoters’ promises were never more glowing.
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Robots in Ragtime
THE Japanese have come up with something new in toys. It’s a mechanical orchestra and its tinny music has captured the hearts of the youngsters.

Jiro Aizawa, an ex-Kamikaze plane designer, is the creator. Loath to discard his mechanical training after the war, he turned to experimentation with robots, a subject in which he had long been interested. His results are quite amazing.

The orchestra’s actual music is produced by a phonograph record synchronized with the movements of the players. In its repertoire are: Buttons and Bows, Beer Barrel Polka and Rumba Tamba.

This is one of the gadgets that has allowed generations of infomercial hucksters to proclaim “It’s Just That Easy!”. I’m guessing they don’t tell the marks er, audience, that it first came out 70 years ago.

Onion Slicer Spares Housewife’s Tears
EQUIPPED with an airtight cover and a close-fitting plunger, the kitchen device shown at left enables a housewife to chop or slice onions without bringing the usual tears to her eyes. The plunger has four sharp cutting blades and can be used as vigorously as necessary, a wooden disc in the bottom serving as a chopping block.

I find this rather hard to believe. It doesn’t seem practical, nor does it seem that 40 people would be neccessary to man 3 torpedo tubes.

Sunken Pillboxes Guarded Jap Coast
Japan’s anti-invasion line went out under water at Tokyo Bay. Pillboxes were built into the hulls of sunken ships and equipped with three torpedo tubes and a sound detector. Each pillbox held 40 to 50
men who were relieved every 10 days. Food was canned; oxygen, bottled.

Boy! It’s Keen
A REAL METAL RAPID FIRING “G-BOY” REPEATING CAP PISTOL

$1.95 (Gun Only)
Box of 5 rolls caps 7 Boxes . . . $1.00

RAPID FIRING!
LOOKS LIKE A REAL “45″
ACTUALLY SMOKES ON FIRING HAS LOUD EXPLOSIVE REPORT

It’s a real thriller. Yes! Looks and feels like the Automatic “45’s” carried by our Army Officer . . . It’s made of strong lightweight aluminum . . . with a plastic “Pearl” handle. It’s easy to reload. Any boy would gladly give his entire allowance for one of these. Read the rest of this entry »

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Table-Top Oil Refinery FOR THE HOME CHEMIST

By RAYMOND B. WAILES

Mechanized Armies Make Oil Supply Vital,” “Shortage of Fats Imperils Nation at War”—headlines like these spotlight what used to be routine items in a country’s shopping list, and give them new interest for home-laboratory experimenters.

Envious eyes the world over turn toward our vast forests of oil derricks, and the rivers of crude oil that refineries turn into gasoline for vehicles of war and peace. What makes their enormous production possible is the modern “cracking” process for extracting gasoline. Once the crude oil was simply distilled to separate, in turn, the gasoline and other substances it contained. Today, in addition, by-products of the distillation are “cracked” or broken down into gasoline, doubling the total yield.
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Automobile With Aerial Cable Tracks Is Latest in Ferries
ALL records for novelty in the field of ferry boating have been smashed by a couple of Virginia youths. What they did to achieve this distinction was to stretch a couple of strong steel cables across a creek to form a pair of aerial tracks an which an automobile actually crosses back and forth. The tires have been removed, however, and the rims especially revamped to fit the cableway. Just in case the car jumps the track, there is an overhead trolley ready to take the load, so that passengers on the unique ferry need have no fear of an unannounced ducking. No turntable is necessary at the terminus of the tracks, for the car just backs up on the return trip

Blow Torch from Vacuum Sweeper
AN INGENIOUS Los Angeles mechanic has made a handy blow torch from parts of a discarded vacuum-sweeper. He has assembled the motor and turbine with a simple mixing chamber upon an adjustable standard. A large nozzle has been fitted, made from a section of steel tubing. The drawing at the right gives details of its construction.

The sleeve on the mixing chamber regulates the amount of air required through a diamond-shaped opening. The correct length of the nozzle determines the efficiency of the flame, and this is worked out by experiment. Note the electric cable and convenient switch; also gas control and adjustable standard. City gas is used.

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Atomic-Pile Heat Warms Buildings
From an atomic “furnace” that will need “stoking” only once in 30 years, British engineers are taking heat to warm the radiators of 80 offices. The experimental atomic pile is located at Harwell, Britain’s atomic-research station. About 180,-000 cubic feet of air per minute are used in cooling the pile, and the engineers decided this hot air could be put to work heating near-by buildings. Now the high-temperature air is passed through heat exchangers which transmit the heat to water. The heat is transferred to a secondary circuit which passes through conventional radiators in the buildings.

We must remain vigilant in the war against hail. Support your leaders or the hail wins.

War Against Hail
Vineyard keepers in France and Italy are now engaging in rocket warfare against hailstorms, which cause serious damage to their crops each year. The rockets are fired into the clouds to disperse them before the storm begins. If effective, the rocket technique will save as much as several million dollars for grape growers annually. Networks of antihail rocket zones have been set up in each country with commanders in each zone to direct the “battle” against the damaging storms.