A Silicon Valley company is assembling a sprawling network of electrical contraptions across California that its investors hope will prove many seismologists wrong and become a valuable public-safety tool that reliably predicts earthquakes.
Other weird contraptions flitted across the screen.
The iFlyPad ($30, available in late July) is a small contraption, about three inches across, in white or black, with powerful suction cups on both sides.
It crashes, it bangs, it sets up a banshee scream of wind noise, and it has an ooh-aah factor which stops old ladies walking their dogs on the Portsmouth shore to watch a weird and wonderful man-made contraption skimming at high speed across the water.
It crashes, it bangs, it sets up a banshee scream of wind noise, and it has an ooh-aah factor which stops old ladies walking their dogs on the shore to watch a weird and wonderful, man-made contraption skimming at high speed across the water.
The contraption typically stops moving halfway across the river, and two people, often children, have to climb on top of the wire and push the cart to the opposite side, she said.
Today, in honor of his ridiculously complicated contraptions, engineering students across the country compete every year in Rube Goldberg machine-building competitions.
Sarah Busby: We were driving across the vast, barren salt flats in Bolivia (the Salar de Uyuni) in a huge 4x4 like most visitors do and met this couple who were cycling across in this self-made contraption and camping in sub zero temperatures.
It also contained a contraption with pulleys that came to symbolize communication across distance.
In reading about Victorian seaside resorts, I've come across several passing mentions of a contraption called a bathing machine.
