A Crazy Cambridge Contraption

lhdentra writes "A few friends and I got bored one weekend and decided to build a contraption. Remember the Honda advert? We think ours is better." This took dedication.

Comments

for the clueless

[Anonymous Coward]

honda commercial

Slashdot is getting scooped by memepool now.

Re:for the clueless

[amembleton]

The wheels' centre of gravity is offset, so it is above the centre of the wheel. This means that as the wheel slowly rotates, its centre of gravity starts to fall whilst the tyre itself appears to climbs uphill.

Isn't it nice when things just... work?

[Lisandro]

Oh, wait, site's Slashdotted. Never mind!

Re:You should have built...

[VC]

Mirrordot.org mirror of the video

jolly good show

[Stalyn]

Oh dear
What is it?
I've spontaneously combusted
Well, I am sorry
Oh it's quite all right, I've grown tired of living
Ah, very good then
For the best
Yes indeed

Pure Genius (And Coral Link)

[g_bowskill]

Wow, this looked really awesome! Much more realistic than the Honda one (Which was still pretty cool) in my opinion.

I managed to get to it via coral:

http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk.nyud.net:8090/lwh21/ma chine/machine.avi

Enjoy!

Got the torrents up :)

[xbmodder]

The contraption.AVI http://thebrokenwargames.gotdns.com/con.torrent and the machine.avi http://thebrokenwargames.gotdns.com/machine.avi.to rrent the honda video will be up in a few minutes. stop downloading it if you can. I need the video to make meta.

But this IS the contraption!

[AtariAmarok]

The slashdotting was all part of the plan. This story is not about a contraption. Rather, this story is just part of a contraption:

1. Slashdotter creates site that requires each person to do a 12 meg download to find out what is on it, and submits it to Slashdot.
2. Timothy looks at it, decides it is cool. In the process of looking at it for review, he slashdots the site.
3. "Contraption" story is added to Slashdot. Thousands hit it within seconds, further banging away at some fragile server in the UK.
4. UK server-farms transformers start to smoke. One explodes.
5. Power spike would seem rather small, but it does make its away through an Atlantic cable where it hits an electric relay system near Cleveland, Ohio.
6. Cleveland's vintage "Enron meets East German War Surplus" relay blows out. Cleveland once again has a big blackout. Free TV's for all: loot early and loot often!
7. Ensuing crises causes calls for demands for the resignation of United States energy secretary.
8. Energy sec is good friend of President, so he can't fire him. But he has to do something, so he sacks the Surgeon General.
9. Without a surgeon general, health standards go down, including dental standards.
10. I get a nasty tooth-ache.

Thanks a lot, lhdentra!

Their next contraption should be:

[TheGuano]

...a DIY steadicam:

http://slashdot.org/articles/04/04/09/1929235.shtm l?tid=188&tid=97

Never mind the Honda ad...

[b00le]

this is the true original.

The way things go (Der Lauf der Dinge) by Peter Fischli and David Weiss, 1987
Inside a warehouse, a precarious 70-100 feet long structure has been constructed using various items. When this is set in motion, a chain reaction ensues. Fire, water, law of gravity as well as chemistry determine the life-cycle of objects - of things. It brings about a story concerning cause and effect, mechanism and art, improbability and precision

- and it lasts 30 minutes. Hypnotic, beautiful