Hasta La Gadget!

I guess that balloons and airships are in, because they are popping up everywhere. I remember one year, there was even a personal balloon with a rotor available for $10,000 in the American Express rewards catalog. This project takes personal ballooning a step further because it’s solar-powered and you can make it yourself.

This balloon is the brainchild of Argentinian artist Tomàs Saraceno. It’s called 59 Steps to Be on Air by Sun Power and is an exploration of architecture, art, and physics. The project is presented as a set of instructions that are supposed to be used as a sequence for creating a hot-air balloon-style flying device, which uses solar power.

The materials used to build your own are garbage bags, transparent tape, rope, bicycle wheels, and various bits of “flotsam and jetsam” to make the structure. You can download the steps here [PDF]. It takes about 24 hours to complete the project, if two people are working on it. You’ll probably want to have a friend around anyhow to make sure that you don’t float away.

[via designboom]

After numerous false starts due to weather and other technical challenges, daredevil Felix Baumgartner successfully launched on his expedition to 120,000 feet this morning. The capsule took off at approximately 9:30am Mountain Daylight Time, and is currently on its way up to its peak altitude of about 23 miles.

As of this writing, Baumgartner is at about 46,000 feet, and rising rapidly towards his goal. The capsule is heading up at about 900 feet-per-minute, and is expected to reach “float” – where he will level off in about 80 minutes or so – around 11:30am MDT. Once he reaches that level, Felix will carefully exit the capsule, and begin his rapid plunge back to Earth below, breaking the speed of sound on the way down before he opens his chute.

Watch the amazing HD live footage of the launch in progress below:

Or head over to the Red Bull Stratos website for live updates on the mission’s progress.

Good luck on the dive, Felix! We’re rooting for you!

If you didn’t already pick up that giant fist for carrying around your beer, you might want to hold off and buy these instead. These giant, inflatable fists turn your mitts into massive mech-like robo-fists.

The Giant Robot Battle Fists are perfect for taking down all who dare to stand in your way – without actually leaving them with a concussion. Actually, ThinkGeek says that if you punch things with them, you might pop ‘em, so boo, hiss. Still they’re pretty awesome for your Halloween costume. Just think – you can go as crazy-robot-hand-guy again, but this time people will know who you are.

A pair of this oversize blow-up fists will set you back $35(USD) over at ThinkGeek. Air and pursed lips not included.

Halloween is still a month away, but I think it’s never too early to begin stocking up on ideas for awesome and unique costumes. At least this way, you can avoid dressing up as a slutty whatever if you don’t find anything good at the costume rental shop anymore.

But did you ever think of making up an entire costume by using balloons? Yeah, I figured you didn’t too. But the guys from Balloon Distractions did, and they ended up looking pretty awesome.

They came up with Buzz Lightyear and Ninja Turtle costumes that were put together using twisted-up balloons and the results are nothing short of amazing.

Check out Buzz Lightyear, who can really go to infinity and beyond (until someone comes along to pop his balloons):

And here’s a balloony Michaelangelo who likes to yell, just because he can:

[via Geekologie]