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!"

Beaufort Scale ~ Howtoons Visualizes Windforce!

Superstorm Sandy's blowing hard even here in Cambridge, MA several hundred klicks north of the Eye. Check out this handy Howtoons guide to the Beaufort windforce scale...

Golden Chemistry ~ Great Book from my Youth!

Thanks to Gregg Favalora for spotting the Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments, one of the key influences on me as a kid! This is partial inspiration for Howtoons and at least a couple Moments of Science at the IgNobels! The book is full of fantastically hazardous stuff you could probably never get away with publishing today, including no gloves or eye-protection for starters, but more importantly DIY lessons on "chemical warfare" like this page on Chlorine gas!

Dean of Invention ~ Planet Green's STEM TV...

Betty Klinck in the USAToday writes that Planet Green show aims to inspire kids with science...

"Dean Kamen, the [Dean of Invention] show's host and inventor of various medical technologies as well as the two-wheeled self-balancing personal transporter, the Segway, says he wants the show to get kids excited about STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), although the series is not aimed just at children. [...] In each show, Kamen takes his audience on "field trips" to labs and other research sites to investigate breakthrough inventions, including a trip to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to study robotic prosthetic limbs, a feature on the first episode. "We want the opportunity to present this information in a way that is broadly interesting and accessible from kids to adults. We want kids to say, 'I wanna get involved,' or 'I wanna build that reality.' We want to build the army of kids who are going to be the next generation of saviors," he says."

Cool! We need far more STEM superheroes!

Über Sodabottle Rocket ~ Up To A Quarter Klick!

Thanks to UniqueDaily for spotting a 2-stage cluster water rocket flying up to 810' (246m) -- a "quarter klick"... And check out the DIY Howtoons Sodabottle Rocket too!

Sphagnum Airzooka ~ Nature's Little Atom Bomb

Kenneth Chang writes in the NYTimes Observatory about High-Speed Video Shows How Sphagnum Moss Spreads! Lurid and hyperbolic subtitles -- e.g. "Exploding Moss", "Launching Spores", and "bit like an atomic bomb" -- are indeed delivered upon!

"In the current issue of the journal Science, [Dwight L. Whitaker, a physicist at Pomona College in California and Joan Edwards, a biologist at Williams College in Massachusetts] report how sphagnum moss shoots its spores like an atomic bomb. "It’s nature’s weapon of mass reproduction," Dr. Whitaker said."

Hilarious! See the video! It's like our Howtoons Air Cannon!

Natural Born Engineers ~ Kids Solving Problems!

Thanks to Winnie Hu for writing in the NYTimes on Studying Engineering Before They Can Spell It about engaging young children in learning-by-doing and building things...

"Spurred by growing concerns that American students lack the skills to compete in a global economy, school districts nationwide are packing engineering lessons into already crowded schedules for even the youngest students, giving priority to a subject that was once left to after-school robotics clubs and summer camps, or else waited until college. Supporters say that engineering reinforces math and science skills, promotes critical thinking and creativity, and teaches students not to be afraid of taking intellectual risks. "We still hear all the time that little kids can’t engineer," said Christine Cunningham, director of Engineering is Elementary, a program developed at the Museum of Science in Boston that offers ready-made lessons, for about $350 each, on 20 topics, and is now used in all 50 states, in more than 3,000 schools. “We say they’re born engineers -- they naturally want to solve problems -- and we tend to educate it out of them.” The Obama administration’s Race to the Top competition, which will distribute $4.35 billion in education stimulus money to states, favors so-called STEM programs, which stands for science, technology, engineering and math."

Excellent initiatives! We need more such STEM programs and other Tools of Mass Construction! And on that note, please be sure to check out this week's EurekaFest at MIT starting Wed 16 June 2010 which is all about celebrating the human inventive spirit, especially involving and inspiring our youth!

Sled On A Thread ~ Howtoons Flies a Kool Kite!

Howtoons-ters Saul, Ingrid, and Nick fly a Sled on a Thread!

D-Recipes! ~ MIT's DIY Instructions & Curriculum

With NCIIA support, MIT's D-Lab releases DIY build instructions and curricular materials for shared use! Anyone can pick from a growing set of open recipes for making useful artifacts, for starters, both agri-waste charcoal processing and hand-held corn shellers. The materials include...

• Backgrounders ~ Context, history, status
• Build-Its ~ Basics plus teaching notes
• Do-Its ~ Simple drawings for field-use

Very useful Tools for Mass Construction!

Howtoons Workshop ~ A Place of One's Own!

Every kid needs a place of their own to play, to craft, to create, and to, let's just say "deconstruct" things;-) Hence the Howtoons Workshop!

Shujaaz ~ Elmendorp on Kenya's Young Heroes

Thanks to Videojournalist Ruud Elmendorp for his latest story about Shujaaz, a new illustrated comic in Kenya about youth as Heroes... Throughout the comic are real-world situations and realities which appeal to the reader's interest. And woven throughout are "how to" illustrations, such as coloring your chicks pink so prey-birds don't grab them, and this sequence with character Maria Kim where she's walking towards a market and sees a verdant garden... The wise lady owner-gardener shows how to do it herself... Leading to growing results a few months later...

Feeding Green ~ Howtoons Bottles-for-Birds!

Howtoons shows how to turn sodabottle into bird-feeder!

Grassroots Mapping ~ DIY Digital Cartography!

I'm delighted by the emergence of DIY photo-cartographics like the Grassroots Mapping project...

"Grassroots Mapping is a series of participatory mapping projects involving communities in cartographic dispute, started by Jeffrey Warren of the MIT Media Lab’s Design Ecology group and the Center for Future Civic Media. [...] Seeking to invert the traditional power structure of cartography, the grassroots mappers used helium balloons and kites to loft their own "community satellites" made with inexpensive digital cameras. The resulting images, which are owned by the residents, are georeferenced and stitched into maps which are 100x higher resolution that those offered by Google, at extremely low cost. In some cases these maps may be used to support residents’ claims to land title. By creating open-source tools to include everyday people in exploring and defining their own geography, we hopes to enable a diverse set of alternative agendas and practices, and to emphasize the fundamentally narrative and subjective aspects of mapping over its use as a medium of control."

Great initiative! Plus, check out their illustrated "how-to" guide!

Seeing The Future ~ Howtoons Communication!

Seeing The Future: A Guide to Visual Communications is the latest production from Nick, Ingrid, Saul and the Howtoons crew in collab with Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams, the invention & entrepreneurship programs for kids of all ages -- but especially high schoolers!

Underwater Scope ~ Howtoons in the Pool!

Tide pools and pond life and more are yours to see with this Howtoons upcycled sodabottle Underwater Scope!

Penny Shooter ~ Another Cardnetics Tool!

Thanks to UniqueDaily for spotting this Penny Shooter, one more in the growing family of card tools by Bryce Bell at Cardnetics!

Bit by Bit ~ How To Count Like A Computer!

Howtoons helps you count like a computer, Bit by Bit...

Perfect Spiral ~ QB Brees Smokes Archers!

Wow, thanks to Paul Hsieh from GeekPress for spotting this FSN Sport Science piece on tossing the perfect spiral. Pro quarterback Drew Brees nails more bullseyes than Olympic archers! See here the explanation (plus what a great way to learn physics)... I have newly enhanced appreciation for American Football and especially superstar QB's!

OLED Pickle?! ~ MIT's Bulovic New Display Demo

Been thinking about cameras, displays, and visual computing -- indeed, these are the subjects of the Imaging Ventures class my MIT Media Lab colleague Ramesh Raskar and I run in the Spring. In that spirit, take a look as MIT RLE's Vladimir Bulovic demos new OLED displays -- yes, including the famous OLED Pickle!

Happy Howtoons! ~ Holidyas, Newtonmas, plus!!

Yes -- Happy Holidyas -- mispeling and lovely sentiments alike both courtesy of our Superhero Storyteller -- Nick Dragotta -- plus our DIY crew of Ingrid, Saul, Arwen & team!-)