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Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

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541–550 of 694 posts

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#541

I made a baseball bat that uses explosives to add a bunch of energy to your swing and hit a baseball really far. It uses the explosive blanks normally used to shoot nails into concrete (e.g. ramset). It worked way better than I expected, didn't have a kick, and turned out to be just a really neat thing to look at while sipping a frosty beverage. I also made a video about it if you're interested: https://youtu.be/Puo6…

I love your videos! Not just because of your incredible command of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and programming.

The thing I think you do so well is you take a statement like a little kid would make- I want to only hit home runs or, I want to sink a basket every time. And then you break down the problem and solve it. It's incredibly inspirational!

My girlfriend's son was struggling in school with math and science and he just didn't see how they could be cool or why they were important or something. I showed in the videos from your channel and it was so incredible where I was like hey look. Here's something that seems like total fantasy or like something like a six-year-old would say, but look with science and engineering you can make it happen.

Anyway, thank you very much Shane for what you do and how are you inspire people

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#543

I built a tomato dehydrator (partially dried freezer packs from our garden, estrattu from Santa Cruz dry farmed Early Girls). We haven't opened a can of tomatoes in decades. Using four stacks of consumer dehydrator trays was a nightmare so: A full sheet pan cart, like used in bakeries. Eight full sheet pans, lined with silpat nonstick sheets. A 1500 watt wall heater, a home brewing temperature controller, and a crawl…

That's sweet! How many tomato plants do you have to grow each year and how many are you feeding?

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#544

After doing the vanlife thing for a few years and rewiring the auxiliary battery system in my rig a couple of times I decided to scratch an itch and created a PCB with Wago connectors to greatly simplify the process and eliminate as many crimped ring connections as possible. Nearly everything for a small 12V auxiliary system plugs directly in on the PCB: DC-DC charger, start battery, aux battery and all accessories.…

This is very cool. As someone interested in overlanding, is there somewhere you could point to where I could learn more? Specifically on the tech side of it. Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#547
post #532

I sewed a pair of KKK hoods and placed them atop the bronze heads of a local Confederate monument. Less than a year later that statue and a few more like it were removed due to the “safety concern” created by myself and a ton of other activists. I like to the “the coolest physical thing I’ve made” is helping make those goddamned statues disappear.

"Destruction is a form of creation" - Donnie Darko

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#549

My telescope(s). It's a very rewarding hobby, from making the mirror (manual labor + measurements with interferometry), silvering it (a bit of chemistry), designing in CAD and building the actual usable telescope, there are a lot of moving parts to design, and steps that you can either do or delegate. I think anyone who likes manual work can find a piece of a telescope that's enjoyable to work on. The feeling you get…

So amazing. Do you have an astrobin.com? Mine is here: https://www.astrobin.com/users/bhouston/

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#550
post #91

I made a person seven years ago. They started out pretty useless, just eating and pooping and crying a lot. But now they can walk, talk, think, read, write, act, sing, and love.

My wife also says this, but I’m fond of pointing out that she didn’t create our children, they created themselves!
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