This cute Sesame Street style video won both the Critics’ Choice and People’s Choice awards in the ACS Nanotation NanoTube ‘What is Nano?’ competition for a video tutorial about nanotechnology. It was a ‘collaborative effort by a group of researchers from University of California, Berkeley including Patrick Bennett, David Carlton, Molly Felz, Nola Klemfuss, Glory Liu (singer), Ryan Miyakawa, Stacey Wallace, and Angelica Zen’.

I always meant to do a post on the Institute of Figuring when I first came across it a few years ago, but now you can just watch Margaret Wertheim herself  explaining the beautiful maths of coral, crochet and hyperbolic geometry in this great talk at TED.

This is the big dead manta ray prop that I made for the Street Theatre’s production of Jacques Brel is alive and well and living in Paris.  Sadly Desirée – my name for her  – was cut from the final production, but I loved making her.  Manta rays are such awesome creatures!

Because she had a wingspan of over 2 metres, I decided chalk on the floor was a good way to start drawing up a pattern. I also bought myself a little plastic model of a manta to refer to, which turned out to be useful.

From this I traced a pattern onto butcher’s paper and from there onto sheets of polystyrene which were then built up and glued into a block.

I also decided to insert a strip of thin plywood into the underside right across the width of the wingspan, so that the wings would be protected from breaking, especially at the tips. I also did that with the fins that I added.

Then much shaping with a really sharp knife, a narrow power belt  sander, and sandpaper. I decided to keep the surface a bit rough, which often makes it easier for an audience to read.

When I use polystyrene that will just have a painted finish I skin it with muslin first. Here you can just see some of the muslin draped over the spray adhesive can on the right.

I usually add a little bit of latex to the first coat of paint to help make everything stick to the styrene.

Then it’s on to colouring; for the final shading I used spray paint so that the colours merged softly. It was tricky to seat in the eyes (painted and glossed wooden door knobs) and get the shape of the upper eyelid right.

There are a few more in-between photos in my photoset at Flickr.

For those of us with a love of pareidolia, a cool short film called The Lost Tribes of New York City by London Squared Productions.

(via Laughing Squid)

The design for Bidja the bunyip, the mascot that I made for the Pacific School Games, was transfered into this soft toy as part of the merchandising for the event.

One of the colourful boats on a canal on the island of Murano.

I get a lot of interest in my photos of Mr. Squiggle and friends, so I thought people might like to see the squiggle that Mr. Squiggle (aka Norman Hetherington) drew for me personally at the Puppet Summit in Melbourne in 2002. I guess over the years he has drawn them for many people!

I’ve been fascinated by the huge puppets instigated by Royal de Luxe for several years now, so while we were in France we went to Nantes to ride their huge sister elephant at Les Machines de I’ile, and to see all the other wonderful semi-fantasy creatures in their emerging menagerie. It was wonderful – if you get a chance, go!

Revitalizing the old shipyards on I’ile de Nantes, Les Machines de I’ile really is a glorious and grand folly in the best sense of the word, flights of fancy made real. We rounded the corner of the building and there was the elephant, absolutely enormous – it’s 12 metres high! – gently swinging its trunk and wafting its ears, and blinking, as it waited to take it’s next walk around the docklands.  From upstairs above the workshops, at the same level as the elephant’s head, we could see the construction and carving close up, and get some idea of the massive mechanics that make it able to move.

Our ride boarded via airplane steps further along the route, and we climbed up to the balcony built into the elephants’ side. The doors into its tummy are decorated with curly turrets and carved animal heads. Inside there is a spiral staircase up to the platform on top, where passengers can look out in all directions, try to work out the mechs in the neck and ears, adopt Titanic-like poses at the front, and waggle the elephant’s tail at the back via a lever that pulls a cable connecting all the segments of the tail! Every now and then the elephant trumpets, and if you are lucky you can operate that from inside it’s belly. I rather suspect they like to keep how it is done a secret, but it’s hands-on and not hi-tech! More often the trunk whooshes steam and water.

The promenade is satisfyingly long – 45 minutes, and it didn’t matter at all to me that perambulating along at 1/4 km per hour you don’t actually cover much distance.

After our ride, we walked out along the steel pole and wood paneling branches that are a prototype for the enormous heron tree that is planned. Hanging along each branch are boxes of plants, the idea being that in time they will provide the greenery of the tree. Extensive research has gone into finding the right kinds of plants, since they have to survive on little water, and in quite an exposed position.

The various models of the whole tree are amazing masses of wire and wood!

I’ve previously posted about the various ride-on creatures that are being built for the emerging Marine Worlds Gallery, and there are lots of photos of them now at Flickr. Since then the Giant Crab, the Bus of the Abyss, and the Storm Boat have been added, and there are some photos of those in my Flickr set.

Outside the workshops is a small carousel roundabout, also with wonderfully unusual creatures to ride – my favourite was a rearing stag beetle. I have lots of photos of these, too, but I think they can wait till another day.

Some of the things you can do on the iPhone just seem like magic to me. This image is drawn on the iPhone screen with my finger, using the Brushes app. It’s taking me a while to get some finesse, but the Brushes Gallery pool at Flickr is ample proof that it is possible.

(btw, Ocarina has been the most jaw-droppingly magic app for me so far.)

Constable Kenny Koala has been working out over summer and is looking like a new koala! Do you like his spiffy new jacket and cap? Kenny is a much loved community liason officer with the Australian Federal Police, and has been educating children in Canberra on a range of crime prevention and child safety messages for the last 25 years or more.