Unique and Creative Playgrounds

Danish design firm Monstrum, founded by Ole B. Nielsen and Christian Jensen, has dedicated itself to creating safe, stimulating, and beautifully designed playgrounds for children. They say, "playground design should be a reflection of the world surrounding us. We see the world as a place full of colour...Why only play on a monky frame and a sandbox, when you can play in a moon crater or a submarine or a giant spider or an enormous snail or a Trojans horse or a rocket or an ant or a princess castle. The fantasy is infinite."

GoVinci Backpack

The GoVinci Backpack features a clear frame that lets kids display their artwork. To add drawings simply undo the two top corners of the frame and slide in your tot’s colorful creation. Love it. This is quite the conversation starter on the way to school!

Cummulus & Nimbus

An incredibly adorable video by we think things.

The Mobius Strip

One of the most famous surfaces in mathematics, The Mobius Strip can be constructed by cutting a long strip of paper, putting a half twist in it, and gluing the ends of the strip together. What makes this seemingly ordinary construct so fascinating is that, while the original strip of paper clearly had two sides, the Möbius strip seems to have only one. Try to draw a line on both “sides” without picking up your pencil. It’s actually quite simple.

Then you take some scissors to it… and it gets even more interesting!

Metropolis II Kinetic Sculpture

Metropolis II, a kinetic sculpture created by Chris Burden, is currently showing at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

Steel beams form an eclectic grid interwoven with an elaborate system of 18 roadways, including one 6 lane freeway, and HO scale train tracks… According to Burden, “The noise, the continuous flow of the trains, and the speeding toy cars, produces in the viewer the stress of living in a dynamic, active and bustling 21st Century city.”

LACMA’s blog gives some detail : 

- The cars are attached by a small magnet to the conveyor belt that brings 

   them to the crest. 

- The only motorization of the cars is the conveyor belt to the top. 

- Once the cars cross over the crest and head downward, their entire 

  movement is by gravity. 

- They travel at a scale speed of 240 mph, plus or minus. 

- The tracks they take are Teflon coated to reduce friction. 

- The trains are out of the box electric train sets that run on electricity.

Lego Millennium Falcon Assembly

Francisco Prieto animates the assembly of a Lego Millennium Falcon, Lego set 10179 from Star Wars Ultimate collector series. He writes: “Created using 3ds max and V-ray. A very long work over 3 years, modeling all the pieces by myself. and rendered frame by frame.”

Wow..what an effort~!!!

The Science Of Glow Sticks

The first 3/4 of the video are a chemistry experiment breakdown of what goes into a glow stick and what each of those ingredients is meant to do. But at the end, all of this coalesces into a fine explanation of the difference between light-absorbing dyes and fluorescent dyes. Come for the glow-stick “how to”, stay for the better understanding of how light works and how it influences what you see!

Coming Soon - Brave by Disney / Pixar

Disney/Pixar's next big animated film due to hit UK cinemas on 17 August. With a voice cast including Kelly Macdonald, Emma Thompson, Billy Connolly and Julie Walters, Brave is a grand adventure full of heart, memorable characters and signature Pixar humour. It uncovers a new tale in the mysterious Highlands of Scotland where the impetuous Merida defies an age-old custom and inadvertently unleashes chaos, forcing her to discover the meaning of true bravery before it's too late.

Hair Salon for Kids in New York

It is incredible how many interior design niches are out there, just waiting to be discovered and exploited. For today we would like to present this colorful hair salon for kids, envisioned by Andrea Mason/Architect. Located in New York, the project is particularly targeted at children under 10 and its design was developed accordingly. Here is more from the official description provided by the designer: “Working off the idea of bringing a playful sense of nature in the space, a custom wall graphic with botanical and animal illustrations and a tree were designed as part of the concept for the space. A colorful palette of laminates and linoleum flooring were chosen for durability and simplicity. Custom furniture including reception desk, display shelves, cabinets, and manicure tables were all designed specifically for the project as well“. How do you find this business idea and more important, how do you appreciate the design of this hair salon for children?

Interactive Puppet

Puppet Parade is an interactive installation that allows children to use their arms to puppeteer larger than life creatures projected on the wall in front of them. Children can also step in to the environment and interact with the puppets directly, petting them or making food for them to eat. This dual interactive setup allows children to perform alongside the puppets, blurring the line between the 'audience' and the puppeteers and creating an endlessly playful dialogue between the children in the space and the children puppeteering the creatures.