Happy Mutants Videos

Master haunt modeller Ray Keim sez, "After a little bit of experimentation and a lot of patience, I figured out how to carve Putka Pods [ed: small, pumpkin-like dried seeds] into extremely tiny jack-o-lanterns!" Putka Pod Possibilities! (Thanks, Ray!) Previously:World record for grape-o-lantern carving - Boing Boing Boing Boing: Jack O Lantern photoshopping contest Multi-colored-LED Jack O Lantern - Boing Boing Wil Wheaton s kid carves emoticon jack-o-lantern - Boing Boing Boing Boing: HOWTO make mechanized Dalek-o-lantern Boing Boing: Multi-colored-LED Jack O Lantern

(Download MP4 video or Watch on YouTube, or view with subtitles on Dotsub). Institute for the Future teamed up with Sun Microsystems and Boing Boing Video to co-host the Digital Open, an online tech expo for teens 17 and under around the world. In today's episode, you'll meet young Ms. Alexis McAdams, whose winning project was a concept for a kind of "living diorama," called "Dioractive." The idea: re-enact current events (say, the floods in the Phillippines, or the internally displaced refugees in Darfur) with human actors, to help people understand and empathize, and feel motivated to change the world. Alexis told us she found out about the Digital Open by reading Boing Boing, and she's been a fan of our blog for some time (thanks, cool!). She says the idea for "Dioractive" came from varied sources of inspiration: LARPers (folks who do live-action roleplaying games), Civil War re-enactments (the real-life kind), history-based videogames (her brother's into these), and a diorama project she did in third grade. She digs theater, and learning foreign languages. All of this combined into an idea of how to place ourselves into the lives of the "other," and understand in a more personal way just how interconnected we all are. Read more about the youth competition in IFTF's press release announcing Digital Open winners. Previously: Digital Open Winner: teen creates a robot shop Digital Open Winners: "Hybrid Airship," by teen robotic blimp builders. BB Video: IFTF, Sun, and Boing Boing Launch Digital Open Youth ... Digital Open: online tech expo for young people - Boing Boing Digital Open tech innovation expo for global youth: 10 more days ...

Digital Open teen winner Alexis McAdams describes her vision of "Dioractive," a living diorama project in which human beings enact current events, to create empathy and understanding.

Digital Open teen winner Alexis McAdams describes her vision of "Dioractive," a living diorama project in which human beings enact current events, to create empathy and understanding.

Brennon Williams, whose Digital Open project offers robotics kits to beginners, talks about his creations. Institute for the Future teamed up with Sun Microsystems and Boing Boing to create the Digital Open, an online tech expo for global teens.

(Download MP4 video or Watch on YouTube, or view with subtitles on Dotsub). Institute for the Future teamed up with Sun Microsystems and Boing Boing Video to co-host the Digital Open, an online tech expo for teens 17 and under around the world. In today's episode, you'll meet Brennon Williams, a teen from Hillsborough, CA, who created an online robotics store for beginners: The BW Science Labs Store is an idea I've had for a while now, but it has taken a lot of work to get it up and running. There is currently 1 kit available, the Vivus the Robot kit. I"ve seen a lot of those really low-quality $20 robots where you clap your hands and they twitch, and I've seen $400 robots with a great deal of functionality. I wanted to make something in between, and that's exactly what Vivus is. During prototyping I wanted to make a "real robot", one that was autonomous and could truly act on its own, while trying to keep the cost down as well.  Brennon cited Maker Faire and Make Magazine as inspirations for his work, and you can see why! Read more about the youth competition in IFTF's press release announcing Digital Open winners. Previously: Digital Open Winners: "Hybrid Airship," by teen robotic blimp builders. BB Video: IFTF, Sun, and Boing Boing Launch Digital Open Youth ... Digital Open: online tech expo for young people - Boing Boing Digital Open tech innovation expo for global youth: 10 more days ...

Brennon Williams, whose Digital Open project offers robotics kits to beginners, talks about his creations. Institute for the Future teamed up with Sun Microsystems and Boing Boing to create the Digital Open, an online tech expo for global teens.

(Download MP4 video or Watch on YouTube). Institute for the Future teamed up with Sun Microsystems and Boing Boing Video to co-host the Digital Open, an online tech expo for teens 17 and under around the world. Today, we're publishing the first of 8 videos profiling each of the winning teen teams -- and we begin with "Centralized Student Website," by Raymond Zhong and Aatash Parikh, two cool kids from Fremont who dig Drupal. More from today's press release announcing the Digital Open winners: The Digital Open (DigitalOpen.org) ran from April 15 until August 15, 2009. Youth from around the world submitted text, photos, and videos documenting projects all created from a list of free and open software licenses. The projects focused on the transformative power of open technology. Resources from figures like respected open source advocate Richard Stallman to organizations like Creative Commons were made available to contestants to help them learn more about free and open technology movements. Marina Gorbis, Executive Director of the IFTF has been deeply moved by the passion she has seen in the project's participants. "The drive and sense of possibility that these young people brought to this competition has been overwhelming," she says. "The spirit of these contestants not only inspires me, but gives me hope for the future." Previously:BB Video: IFTF, Sun, and Boing Boing Launch Digital Open Youth ... Digital Open: online tech expo for young people - Boing Boing Digital Open tech innovation expo for global youth: 10 more days ...

Meet a winning team from the Digital Open teen tech expo: "Centralized Student Website," by Raymond Zhong and Aatash Parikh.

Meet a winning team from the Digital Open teen tech expo: "Centralized Student Website," by Raymond Zhong and Aatash Parikh.

They Might Be Giants did a wonderful appearance on NPR's Science Friday to promote their album Here Comes Science, and finished off with two possible future albums, both of which have my vote: * There Goes Your Liberties (a history of civil liberties and the War on Terror) * Here Comes the Syndicalists (a history of the labor movement in America) I have a feeling they were kidding, but guys, if you're listening, those are great ideas! They Might Be Giants: Here Comes Science (broadcast Friday, September 25th, 2009) MP3 Link Here Comes Science CD/DVD