Just got back from a buddy's house. His 19 year old son was having a party/bonfire for 40 of his closest friends. The 5 of us old guys stood to one side and bullshitted while the kids did their thing. What impressed the hell out of me was that almost every single kid came up and introduced themselves and shook hands with us old fucks. You know the kids are going to be cool if they're all wearing cowboy hats and listening to country music. It was almost like being back in Mississippi.
I'm a little worried that you know a whole heap of retarded kids. I was definitely playing with circuits and other shit at that age and younger. The kid is bright for sure, but playing with circuits is really not indicative of anything special.
Not sure "sticking a knife in a power outlet" constitutes "playing with circuits" there Autius. And I will also go so far as to say that this kid's behaviour is very abnormal. And awesome. There is no way that you could ever say it was expected behaviour today. When I was growing up, the "go have fun" options were a bit more limited; no video games, no real TV like there is today, no internet, etc. Hell, we didn't have personal computers until grade 6 or so, and even then it was the Timex Sinclair, Ti-99, TRS-80, etc. What we DID have was the outdoors (no need for sun screen, either), the local Radio Shack, chemistry sets, and wood burning kits. And BB guns. And "150 in one electronic projects" kits from Radio Shack, where you could build your own radio with a bunch of springy things and wire segments and a 9-volt battery. Spoiler Yes, we were given "toys" that let us electrocute each other, burn each other, and set each other on fire. I challenge you to show me ONE kid today that is playing with circuits before the age of 10. If he is, it's because his parents are scientists or in some way associated with that shit. I can't imagine a 10 year old kid playing with circuits rather than watch TV, play video games, or fuck around on the internet. The closest they'd come might be fucking around with pre-made modules like Lego Mindstorm, but raw circuits? Fuck no.
Oh man... and water rockets. The shit we used to send skyward taped to or shoved inside water rockets was insane. Animal testing was performed even. And lawn darts. I remember so many nights when we'd be in the back yard with friends, and there'd be a "Hey Mom! Watch this!" and we'd throw a fucking lawn dart straight up as hard as we could, and laugh our asses off while we tried not to get hit when it came back down. The worst we got was "leave the dog alone", or "well, what did you THINK was going to happen?".
Obviously I'm no longer 10, but I used to have a box with a bunch of bare wires, switches, light bulbs, batteries and other basic circuit elements. Lots of fun times. Edit: Oh we did water rockets too. When we got to high school we upgraded to a potato cannon that we built with an old grill lighter.
My latest "toy" is one of these: Just placed the order for it a few days ago, and can't wait until it shows up. For those of you who have no idea what it is, it's a 3D printer. You can design 3D pieces in your computer, and then it'll slowly print it out layer by layer in rather strong plastic (and other materials), until you have a finished piece. It used to be the sole domain of prototyping companies, but now it's $500 and you can run it at home. The main reason I bought it was because of an old Jeep I just picked up. There are tons of pieces parts that are missing or broken, and a PITA to find, and expensive to replace. (The inside door handles/mechanism just snapped last week... you do NOT want to know how much it is to find a replacement). Between that, and my race car, there are tons of custom pieces-parts that I can build/print out of plastic rather than fab up out of aluminum or other metals. I've already got a bunch of fellow racers drooling at the thought and throwing me ideas. If you're interested, you should check out Thingverse for some open-source, shared examples of what people are printing with them. Some are pretty inane and boring and shitty, but others are "holy shit that is impressive". Some examples: Spoiler EarBud holder: Bike light adapter.
This sounds more like your dad was a vicious alcoholic, threw you a box of old, jagged shit and yelled "BEHOLD the power of your imagination... *smoker's cough*" Christ what the fuck am I doing up at 830. My eyes burn. Everything tastes like sorrow. I opened up Chrome. The last page loaded last night was porn. Pat on the back for being ambitious at least. The other window was CNN.
I don't know if anyone saw the Colbert Report this week, but they featured as similar product. Except it was much lamer because it couldn't make anything nearly as big as that and cost (I think) over twice as much. I wonder what Scootah would make with it.
What program does it work with to create the designs? I could spend countless hours dicking around with that thing and AutoCAD 3D.
3-d printers are sweet. I get to mess around with one everyday this coming semester as I work on my senior design project. I just spent 20 minutes on the thingverse getting some ideas that I can swear are part of my project, but actually just going into my house at home. The plastic for these is quite expensive though. At least the one at school is like 200 dollars per square inch of material. That's if I remember correctly. Chapel Hill may buy very expensive materials though.
I'm watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The pinnacle in adventure movies. And Kraken and coke. Wee!
A buddy of mine is developing a synthetic rifle stock and the first prototype was done with a 3D printer. I was amazed. It was surprisingly strong too... I was expecting it to be flimsier but nope, pretty solid. I spent a few summers perfecting the art of making blowgun darts and at my prime had a few razor blade tipped broadhead darts that were pretty lethal. Now I just make guns in the basement. Me and my brother were in Boy Scouts for years so we did have a good knowledge of first aid but also years of being taught how to start fires made us pretty good at igniting things. Building model rockets was a lot of fun but taking apart the engines and doing other things was even better. Making massive bonfires was fun too at parties in high school.
Phew, I remember why I don't generally drink during the day. Friend in town, to the pool at another friend's club, got peer pressured when I ordered an iced tea. Now 4 some sort of vodka drinks deep and am just now getting ready to go for cocktails and then dinner. And it is Sunday, something tells me that this is going to make for a nice Monday at work.
Go take a look at the RepRap site: <a class="postlink" href="http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page</a> It uses industry standard CAD files to build the items. There are a ton of listed software packages that will work with it, some of them Open Source. You can even use Google Sketchup. The one I ordered also has the ability to print from a memory card, so you don't have to have it run from a computer. The plastics come in various colours and hardness, and are about $5/lb, with discounts for larger orders. After customs/delivery, I think it's working out to $8/lb for me. Samples I've seen from the early versions of the printers had a plastic that was almost wax-like when it was done; it wasn't that hard and was somewhat easily deformed after it was printed. The newer plastics can be damn strong, in part thanks to the new nozzle technology that allows for much higher temperatures and more granular placement of material. There is also an option to use some pretty high-quality material that costs quite a bit more, but could be considered a final product quality. You can even use ABS: <a class="postlink" href="http://reprap.org/wiki/ABS" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://reprap.org/wiki/ABS</a>
Can't wait to print me out one of these: Spoiler If shower BEERS are good, shower BOOBS have to be better, right?
OK, Justin Bieber sucks and all that, but that bitch made $53M in the past 12 months according to Yahoo. $53M. Jeezus. Hey computer gods (Nett in particular), how hard would it be to build a computer for a car with an in-dash touch screen that could control something like a Megasquirt or other EMS as well as do radio, GPS, etc? Would it be ridiculous? Who else is watching Das Finals mit Dirk Nowitzki?