Print your own toy!

Maybe I'm a geek (OK, that's probably a given, not a possibility), but this is kind of cool: Disney's Software Could Let You 3-D Print Your Own Mechanical Toys. I think this may be where "new tech" meets "old school" and we finally start to see some "reality" out of the "virtual"... and maybe we'll get some kids interested in engineering again. (You know, real engineering, not the soft kind, even though that's the kind that's leading to this.) And where imagination comes back around (instead of it being lost in video games and videos). Designing your own mechanically operated toy, then have it 3D printed and play with it? That's just cool.

Check out the video (note: there's no sound in the vid, so maybe hit your Pink station in the background on Pandora while this is playing; I laughed when Bernie fell over):



It's, in some ways, another step similar to Scratch, the MIT program that teaches kids (or adults) programming by way of "blocks" (similar to Lego bricks) that are assembled to create programs. My 3rd child has a library of works in Scratch, although he hasn't done much recently, and I even used it for animating a video to go over my boring sax music once (warning: that link is probably one of the worst places on the internet; no, really, I mean it - you should probably stay away from it - don't click! don't click!).

In other news, apparently terrorists prefer GMail, and so do I. Does that make me a terrorist? If a=b and b=c, then a=c, right? (I know, it's not really an equality thing in the "if terrorists prefer GMail, and I prefer GMail, then I must be a terrorist" logic train.) Fortunately, based on the definition of terrorism, my subjecting you to bad sax music in and of itself isn't such, as I've not attempted to coerce you into something. So I think I'm not a terrorist (despite possibly causing terror through my music videos). Hopefully the use of the terms terrorism, videos, and GMail all in the same post (along with software, 3D printing, and engineering) won't have the CIA or homeland security knocking at my door in the morning.

And with that, it's time to get some sleep, just in case.