Throwing Knives at Target Is Novel Sport

KNIFE throwing is an inexpensive, exciting game of skill in which all ages and both sexes can participate. It has something of the novelty and thrill of the circus and never gets monotonous. The equipment can be set up in the cellar in an evening. It consists of an old chopping block, three knives (ours cost 19 cents each), a small roll of tire tape, rag bags, two boards, nails, and a little paint. The total cost is less than a dollar.
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I’m not sure it would be possible to design a worse set of earphones…

EAR TUBES FOR PHONE MAKE WORDS DISTINCT
Persons hard of hearing, who have difficulty in carrying on a telephone conversation, are said to be aided by the new set illustrated above. When answering a call, the user places a receiver of conventional design (at right of photo) upon the base of an instrument resembling a physicians’s stethoscope. Tubes lead to a pair of earpieces that help to make every word audible. In speaking, the special transmitter, seen in background, is used.

Specially Designed Trucks Speed Door-to-Door Deliveries

Automobiles are about to threaten the last stand of the horse and wagon. New trucks designed especially for door-to-door deliveries have been introduced almost simultaneously by several makers, to speed the milkman, the baker, and others on their daily rounds. Their controls are ingeniously simplified so that the driver may step aboard and drive standing up. One model has a removable power plant that may be quickly replaced with a spare.

PHONOGRAPH RECORD IS MADE ON PAPER

Phonograph records on paper, costing a cent or two apiece and playing twice as long as standard records, are promised by an entirely new process developed by two young Argentinian engineers. In principle the scheme resembles the method used for sound motion pictures. Apparatus in the recording studio transforms a singer’s voice into a flickering beam of light, leaving a sound track of black and white lines upon a sheet of photographic paper moving beneath it upon a revolving drum. The reproducer employs a photo-electric cell to translate the lines back into sound. The paper record is shown above.

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CRAFTSMEN ON WHEELS

Scooter Has Three Speeds. Before becoming a cadet-midshipman at the US Merchant Marine Academy, William R. Kern welded some 3/4″ pipe, added a few gears, chains, and a 1/2-hp. motor, and came up with the two wheeler shown above. It carries him 80 miles on a gallon of gas at an average speed of 30 m.p.h. A V-belt, the tension of which may be varied by an idler pulley acts as a clutch to engage the three-speed transmission. The latter transmits power to the rear wheel through a chain. Gears were cut on a milling machine and hardened.
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Making Money with Your Pictures

WOULD you take $9,000 for that prize snapshot of yours? Well, would $13,000 interest you?

It’s not ridiculous. Good shots by amateurs with ordinary cameras have turned into “best sellers” earning money in four and five figures. In fact, some are worth more—and are recognized familiarly by more people—than a painting by an old master.

Who doesn’t remember, for example, that famous picture of the sinking of the “Vestris”? It was one of the best sellers of all time; earned more than a thousand dollars for the young pantry man who was the only person cool enough in the face of death to cock a camera and click the shutter; and undoubtedly earned thousands for the picture services distributing it to newspapers and magazines. It is still earning money ten years later—witness the fact that this magazine paid sixty-five dollars for the privilege of printing it here.
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Update: Stannous points out in the comments that the kids on page 4 appear to be members of the Hitler Youth.

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Toys for Men Only

WORK is mere play for the research engineers. At least, that’s how any small boy would look at it if he saw these grown men tinkering with toy trains and planes, boats and automobiles, electric motors and compression engines.

But if you could examine all the playthings of all these engineers, you would enjoy a glimpse into the world of the future, for the toys of today are working models of the mechanical marvels of tomorrow—reflections of engineering visions.

Toys have had a profound effect on human progress. The gyroscope, for example, was merely a toy until its properties were applied. Then it grew up to fly airplanes and steer ocean liners. Boys sent electric trains dashing around toy tracks long before railroads used electric locomotives, and operated toy machines with miniature electric motors while the wheels of industry still were being turned by steam.
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Metal Barrel Revolving on Pipe Adds to Playground Thrills

Hung lengthwise through the center on a horizontal pipe, a revolving metal barrel has proved a popular addition to the
playground equipment of a park in Pasadena, Calif. Attempting to stand erect on the barrel requires almost acrobatic skill.

Work Capacity of Athlete Measured in Bike Test
How much work can an athlete turn out, and what does it cost him in oxygen consumption and heart effort? A group of Stanford University athletes has set out to measure their work-output capacity and “fuel” consumption while pedaling a test bicycle. The driving sprocket of the “bike” is connected to a dynamometer which translates leg effort into horsepower. Over the subject’s head is placed a copper helmet into which measured air is pumped, then exhausted air from the lungs is piped away to be measured for oxygen depletion and production of carbon dioxide. Read the rest of this entry »

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Amazing Turbine-Rocket to Explore Outer Space

By Lew Holt

Prof. R. H. Goddard, famous rocket experimenter, has just patented a remarkable turbine-rocket which makes the age-old dream of traveling in space mechanically possible. Details of this astonishing invention and of other experiments which pave the way for regular lines of ships traveling through the earth’s stratosphere at 1000 miles an hour are presented in this absorbing article.

DOWN in a secluded section of New Mexico a scientist who has for years been experimenting with rockets has succeeded in devising a mechanism combining the principles of the rocket and the turbine, giving the world an entirely new vehicle of transportation capable of traveling hundreds of miles above the earth’s surface— and perhaps, some day, of making a trip to the moon or nearby planets. Read the rest of this entry »

How does one rob a radio wave of it’s “vital properties”?

Scientist Finds Stratosphere Hot
A STRATOSPHERE of 1,000 degrees Centigrade 150 miles from the earth is reported by Prof. E. V. Appleton, British radio authority, who bases his theory on the reactions of radio waves sent 150 miles straight up. The waves were undoubtedly affected by an intense heat which robbed them of their vital properties, he reported.