Ghost Gunner ~ Tiny Anarchic Rifle Factory...

WIRED's Andy Greenberg makes an untraceable AR-15 Ghost Gun...

Inventing Honeyflow ~ Inspired Bee-friendly Hive!

Cedar Anderson and his Dad Stuart have invented the beekeeper's dream hive -- the Flow -- which splits the honeycombs apart in a way harmless to the bees but releasing the honey easily! Didn't happen overnight, though, and here's Cedar telling their story... And here you get close-up view of what's going on when the beekeeper turnkeys the Flow...

Amino ~ Desktop DIY Bioengineering Kits!

Very cool to see Media Lab alumna Julie Legault launch Indiegogo campaign for her Amino desktop DIY bioengineering kits bringing synthetic biology techniques to laypeople! This is part of the burgeoning "Grower" movement that's adding to the already thriving "Coder" and "Maker" movements...

"Amino is our first product, a counter-top sized biolab that enables anyone to grow living cells to create new and interesting things - like fragrances, flavours, materials, medicine, and more."

Teaching Teachers ~ PEN Hands-On in Ghana!

Our MIT alumna Dr Heather Beem and team ran a big handful of workshops this past Summer 2015 for over 300 science teachers in Ghana, introducing them to the Practical Education Network (PEN) method of providing inexpensive, DIY physical experimental examples of the concepts taught in the standard core primary and secondary school curriculum!

Sci Fab ~ Science Fiction-Inspired Prototyping!

Together with MIT Media Lab colleagues Dan (NovySan) Novy and Joe Paradiso, I'm helping run the next incarnation of the SF-inspired prototyping class Sci Fab this Fall 2015 every Tuesday night 7-9p! We want people to build functional prototypes provoked or inspired by classic and modern science fiction texts and films! Just like Verne inspired Sikorsky's choppers, Wells inspired Goddard's rockets, and Star Trek inspired smartphones and tricorders, we want to see what's next!

This isn't a class for "just listening" since we require regular readings and/or viewings, active discussion, in-class design and other exploratory exercises, two iterations of project prototypes during the first and second month, and a final project. Plus, we don't teach you "how to" build anything -- students should have at least basic experience with fab techniques and/or code ability. Anyone taking How To Make (Almost) Anything and other skillbuilding fabrication, electronics, coding, and similar classes should consider taking Sci Fab concurrently since we help you hone in on the most interesting and compelling things to prototype!

Development Ventures ~ Exponential Prosperity!

My MIT colleague Alex (Sandy) Pentland and I are offering our Development Ventures action lab class this Fall 2015 at the Media Lab starting Thursday September 10th from 10a-12noon, with special focus on frugal, DIY, and ultraffordable technologies as well as exponential innovations including mobiles, big data, and analytics. This will be our 15th year!

Every year, we look forward to the latest new venture concepts our students propose -- in domains ranging from Health & Wellness, Energy & Sustainability, Education & Creativity, Commerce & Financial Services, Civic Engagement and beyond -- and we try to help the most motivated teams and promising ideas actually start and thrive! Alumcos since 2001 include FirstMileSolutions/United Villages, blueEnergy, WAY Systems, Dimagi, Howtoons, CellBazaar, Global Cycle Solutions/GCS, Assured Labor/EmpleoListo, ClickDiagnostics/mPower/ClickMedix, Dinube, Sanergy, WoundPump/WiiCare, ESSMART, Wecyclers, Ghonsla, Logistimo, Apportunidades, CrowdSOS/WiseSystems, MoringaConnect, TrueAfrica, MDaaS, MAX, and more. What will blossom this year?

Tool Rack ~ Lessons from Mythb's Savage...

Popular Mechanics spotlights Adam Savage's rolling tool rack...

King of Random ~ Mini Arc Furnace Smeltorama!

Lisa Marcus at Neatorama spots King of Random awesomeness, specifically latest Mini Arc Furnace!

MIT Engineering Health ~ Thur 7-9p Spring 2015

Our MIT Engineering Health class is about Designing and Deploying Affordable Health Diagnostics and Therapeutics. Design and build novel health diagnostics and sensors while learning the fundamentals of rapid prototyping, applied optics, signals processing, imaging and other advanced sensing modalities. Students work in teams with a physician and technical mentor to design and construct a cutting edge health diagnostic or device. The best projects will be continued in the summer through a clinical trials and ventures program with the best projects reaching early trials by the end of the school year. Example projects include spectroscopic sensing of ear infection, an automated stethoscope, non-contact blood pressure sensors, ultra wide angle endoscopy, and wound perfusion monitoring. Structured labs will build engineering and design skills, lectures will introduce considerations for medical design and new prototyping techniques.

First class is Thursday night 7-9p on February 5th, 2015 in Media Lab E15-341.

Mr Hoverboard ~ Four Blower Hack Job!

Nice four blower Mr Hoverboard proto!

Carrot Clarinet ~ Pollak's DIY Musical Instrument!

DIY Carrot Clarinet demo'd by Linsey Pollak at TEDxSydney!

Thinking About Making ~ Leah Buechley @ Eyeo

Leah Buechley shares her Thinking About Making at Eyeo 2014...

Development Ventures ~ Solving Global Problems

My MIT colleague Alex (Sandy) Pentland and I are again hosting our Development Ventures action lab class this Fall 2014 at the Media Lab starting this Thursday September 4th from 10a-12noon, with special focus on frugal, DIY, and ultraffordable technologies as well as exponential innovations including mobiles, big data, and analytics. As always, we look forward to the latest new venture concepts our students propose -- in domains ranging from Health & Wellness, Energy & Sustainability, Education & Creativity, Commerce & Financial Services, Civic Engagement and beyond -- and we try to help the most motivated teams and promising ideas actually start and thrive!

Howtoons ~ Tools of Mass Construction 2014!

The ultimate Tools of Mass Construction are shipping!

"The Howtoons book is out in comic books stores! This 360 page book celebrates our 10th anniversary with over 70 projects!"

Printeer ~ 3DP Tools for Kids & Schools Kickin'

Our MIT Imaging & Fabrication Ventures class alumco Mission Street Manufacturing led by Brian Jaffe and team are now Kickstarting their Printeer!

"Unlike other 3D printers, using Printeer doesn't require advanced technical or engineering skills. For starters, you don't need to learn CAD (computer aided design) software, a professional-grade tool that is required to generate the 3D designs used by other 3D printers. Printeer design software is different in the following ways: (1) It runs on iPad, a platform most kids are more comfortable with than a PC. (2) It can be learned in about 30 seconds. (3) It doesn't require any intermediate steps between design and 3D printing. No PC, no complex software, no fancy configuration settings. Just touch the "print" button and watch it go."

Roominate ~ Building Toys for Creative Girls!

I just heard MIT Professor Emeritus Rod Brooks of iRobot and now Rethink Robotics fame speaking this morning about his venture experiences. He was particularly proud of his MIT alumna daughter's company which is making Roominate -- building toys encouraging all girls to be creative artists, architects, engineers, and visionaries! Alice Brooks is clearly a chip off the old block;-)

"The Roominate line is designed by Alice and Bettina -- two engineers out of Caltech, MIT, and Stanford on a mission to get more girls interested in engineering. They believe that early exposure through toys will inspire the next generation of female technology innovators. They designed Roominate to get young girls to have fun with STEM, while building hands-on skills and confidence."

Exponential Technologies ~ Towards Abundance...

UD spots Exponential Technologies leading to Abundance 360...

"Armed with exponential technologies like artificial intelligence, 3D printing and cloud computing, today's entrepreneurs are poised to create abundance. This Draw Shop video, originally created for entrepreneurs in Peter Diamandis' Abundance 360 coaching program, illustrates the powerful implications of six key technologies: 3D printing, robotics, artificial intelligence, the "Internet of Things," infinite computing and synthetic biology."

Prosthetic Solutions ~ MIT's David Sengeh @ TED

MIT's David Sengeh on Prosthetic Solutions at TED 2014...

Edible Planets ~ Spherical Concentric Layer Cake!

LOL, Spherical Concentric Layer Cakes...

"This tutorial will show you the most basic and least equipment-heavy way of baking the concentric layer cake as seen in both the Earth cake and Jupiter cake. You can stop at half way and just make a hemisphere cake, or make two hemispheres and join them into one as in this video."

P.S. Neatorama's John Farrier spots Beth Klosterboer's Earth Cake with Rock Candy Core...

Future of Play ~ Sand Garden Born in Boston!

Ruth Graham writes in the Globe about the future of play, How the American playground was born in Boston...

"As children’s play spaces evolve, the spirit behind the original 19th-century “sand garden” is on the rise again. [...] in 1885, one charitable group decided to offer something of an experiment to the local children: a pile of sand, deposited for the summer in the yard of a chapel on Parmenter Street. Little did any of them know how much it would change the experience of childhood in America. [...] The spot -- across the street from what is now the North End public library branch -- was an immediate hit with children, who spent long afternoons digging with small shovels and making sand pies. [...] Today, playgrounds look nothing like that simple sandpile. Over the next century, playgrounds were filled in with dangerous but thrilling monkey bars, swings, see-saws, and metal carousels, all on beds of dirt or asphalt. Then, starting in the 1980s, a new trend began, in which these sometimes rusty and risky structures were replaced by standardized plastic structures, the asphalt giving way to rubber matting. Modern playgrounds have become so predictable, cushioned, and programmed that they are now coming under attack as a symptom of everything that’s wrong with contemporary childhood. [...] The most ambitious play thinkers argue that the ultimate goal should be returning the places we live -- or at least neighborhoods -- to kids. [...] Not all opportunities for play, in other words, need to be look like playgrounds. They don’t necessarily need to be permanent, expensive, or complicated. As Johnson puts it, “We ought to have play that comes and goes. We ought to dump some sand piles in the summer.” What people thought children wanted in the 1880s, it turns out, might be the same thing they want today."

Here's just a couple of the Globe's archival playground pictures!