This reminds me of the Tinker Toy computer built by Danny Hillis, though not quite as cool.
Calculating Machine is built of Toy Parts
CONSTRUCTED entirely from the wheels, gears and structural members of a popular construction toy set, an amazing calculating machine at Manchester University, England can do in a few minutes problems which ordinarily would require many days of tedious work by mathematicians. The only other machine of its kind is at Boston, Mass. When experiments on this machine have been completed, Mr. A. Porter and Professor Hartree, its builders, propose to make a larger model, 27 feet long and 12 feet wide.
When a man-size spider walks a giant web, when scissors draw the villain’s blood or a lobster spits in the waiter’s eye, put it down to
TV TRICKERY
SEATED AT A SIDEWALK TABLE in a Paris cafe, a customer watched in fascination a huge, freshly cooked lobster placed in front of him by the waiter. Each time he reached for the lobster the huge shellfish swiftly moved its large claws protectingly over its head. Reaching for a hammer, the would-be diner attempted to hit the lobster but each time the claws parried the blow. The man finally called the waiter to see what he could do with the reluctant lobster. As the waiter bent over to inspect the lobster and its strange actions more closely a stream of water hit him in the eye.
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How THREE COLOR MOVIES ARE MADE
WOULD you like to know how the color in a Walt Disney Silly Symphony or in “La Cucaracha” is obtained? Have you ever wondered how a motion picture film, in which each picture is about the size of a postage stamp, is colored so it can be magnified 35,000 or more times and still retain the beautiful coloring of a Silly Symphony?
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How Comic CARTOONS Make Fortunes
The “funnies” you read every day bring $8,000,000 a year to a small group of 200 cartoonists. How they rose to the top and how you can enter their select circle is told here by leading comic artists.
THAT laugh you had today over your favorite funny strip is worth money— $200 to $1,000 a day to the cartoonist that made you chuckle.
His pen and ink characters are part of a great $8,000,000 industry that is far from overcrowded and that is practically depression proof.
Of the 200 successful cartoonists today the majority were not “born artists.” In many cases they were not artists at all, but just fellows with a knack for sketching who thought of a good idea or a funny character that “made a hit” with an editor and eventually with newspaper readers.
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CREATING A NEW WORLD WITH ELECTRONICS
How far away is the pocket-size TV camera?
Samples were used at the last political conventions.
Production models—built around subminiaturized circuits requiring semiconductors—can be expected any day. The proved reliability of Hughes diodes, even under severe shock or weather conditions, makes these tiny, compact semiconductors a logical choice for such circuits.
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This is the coolest boat model I’ve ever seen. You can ride around in it!
German Boys Build Scale Model Liners for Sea Cruises
EXPERT marine constructionists, between the ages of 9 and 16 are being developed in one of the most novel trade schools of the world at Potsdam, Germany. Under the tutelage of experienced marine engineers, the youths receive a thorough technical training in building exact replicas of real steamships on a scale of one to twenty.
Grades are given according to the aptitude and intelligence shown in building the model vessels. The plans from which the youth work are the same plans, scaled down, of such ships
as the Normandie and the Queen Mary. At the end of the school year, advanced students build models that can actually go to sea.
Power It with a PULSE JET
THIS model plane project uses what may be the smallest successful pulse-jet engine ever built. It was developed after scores of experiments and the building of a dozen test models by Hiram Sibley, Jr., a California guided-missile engineer.
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