The Tech Library is a U.S. Patent and Trademark depository. One of the things I do to pass time is look up some of the ridiculous things people are coming up with…you would be surprised what gets patented. I found this gem on a list of off the wall ideas.
A Rubber Band man? The pages take a while to load..but worth the wait for the excruciating detail on the concept. Explore the site while you are there.
Its started a whole industry apparently. Rubb-Origami.
I take it everyone had a good Thanksgiving.
To give new meaning to the definition of Vegetarian: its a paper Turkey, designed in 3d open source software, Blender.
Check it out in MAKE.
One of our favorite past times here at the library is digging for new useful, free software…and giving it a test run. Blender is one of those such discoveries. To accompany your test run of Blender: the documentation: check out this site for other free tech related documents.
Considering Blender is completely free, open source, software its worth the download: Its small in size and runs on many platforms. Compared to other 3d modeling software such as Maya (used in animated features such as Shrek )..it does quite well, but having read various comparisons it sounds there is more room for “experimentation as you go” with Maya. When using Blender its best to already have a well thought out design /plan. Maya allows for more flexibility.
For more on Blender…check out the artists forum.