This is a video simulating the burn-up of a Solar Array Drive Mechanism during atmospheric reentry using a plasma wind tunnel.

This Solar Array Drive Mechanism (SADM) has the essential task of keeping a satellite’s solar wings trained on the Sun, maintaining mission operations. But its bulky nature presents a problem in terms of space debris guidelines. When a spacecraft reenters on an uncontrolled basis, the spacecraft operator has to prove that the on-ground casualty risk posed by its satellite is lower than 1 in 10 000.

So last year SADM manufacturer Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace (KDA) started an investigation supported by ESA, Hyperschall Technologie Göttingen GmbH (HTG) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) to demonstrate the ‘demisability’ of one of its satellite products.

They began by modelling such a reentry using ESA’s dedicated SCARAB (Spacecraft Atmospheric Reentry and Aerothermal Break-up) software and comparable resources, tweaking the SADM by switching one screw to lower-melting-point alumimium to promote an earlier, higher-altitude breakup.

Then their software model was compared to observed reality, by melting an actual SADM model inside DLR’s LK3 plasma wind tunnel in Cologne. Arc-heated gas in the test chamber reaching speeds of several kilometres per second, reproducing reentry conditions.
Following assessment of the results, HTG went on to build a model of the SADM using ESA’s DRAMA (Debris Risk Assessment and Mitigation Analysis) software tool, which will be available to other DRAMA users in the future.

As part of a larger effort called Managing the end of life of satellites, ESA is developing technologies and techniques to ensure future low-orbiting satellites are designed according to the concept of ‘D4D’ – Design for Demise.

There are a lot of words up there, but the gist is they melted a satellite part using a plasma wind tunnel and things melting look cool. Now they just need to stick other things in that plasma wind tunnel starting with a block of cheese and ending with a car.

Source: Geekologie – Simulating burn-up on reentry using a plasma wind tunnel

Clinton “Pwnisher” Jones challenged 2,400 CG artists to render a base animation and this is a montage of the top 100.

Over the last month, I challenged 3D artists with the Alternate Realities CG challange. I provided an animation for everyone to work from, and the results were stunning. 2,400 artists delivered, the top 100 were chosen for this montage, and 5 of them walked away with insane prizes from Rokoko, Wacom, Quixel, PNY and Aftershokz (I personally reached out to my favorite companies in order to give away the tools I use every day.)

TOP 5 WINNERS
1st – Stephen Grimm 1:32
2nd – Klay Abele 0:22
3rd – Julienne Aldric 8:37
4th – Stefan Frank 2:12
5th – Pierson Edwards 6:22

This is 10 minutes of the same animation over and over and I still watched the entire thing. Each render looks like a video game that I would happily play. I could watch this thing forever and I have no idea how a winner was picked because all of them are amazing. Every time it skipped to a new one I declared it to be the best one yet.

Keep going for the full video.

Source: Geekologie – 2,400 CG artists were challenged to render a base animation and these are the top 100

This is rare 16mm footage from the original Star Wars prop department showing Kenny Baker (R2-D2) and Anthony Daniels (C-3P0) testing out the droid costumes.

It’s March 1976 at Elstree Studios, UK and the props department are demonstrating the practicalities of the droid designs to George Lucas as actors Kenny Baker (R2D2) and Anthony Daniels (C3P0) familiarise themselves with the costumes and get used to walking in them…

Man, Kenny Baker is a trooper for being in that R2-D2 suit and actually moving around in it. I don’t think they could’ve come up with a more uncomfortable design if they tried. The only way it could be less comfortable is if they also decided to fill that thing up with spiders.

Keep going for the full video.

Source: Geekologie – Rare 16mm screen test footage of the ‘Star Wars’ droids

These guys hooked up a tandem bicycle to a Honda Civic to make a bike-powered car. The main points are it works, they’re having fun, and they really like to say, “Know what I mean?” I like the idea, I just wish they didn’t actually take it on the road because it’d be pretty annoying to be stuck behind a car traveling at, oh, zero miles per hour? It’s also amusing that the guy in the car puts their seatbelt on when the ones on the bike aren’t even wearing helmets.

Keep going for the full video. They take it for a “drive”, go through some fast-food drive thrus, and ultimately even get the approval of a police officer after being pulled over.

Source: Geekologie – These guys made a bike-powered car

Guinness World Records recently awarded Isaac Johnson the title of largest male mouth in the world, although according to my girlfriend this record belongs to me. Oh, wait, this is talking about the literal largest mouth, not just constant jabbering.

Isaac Johnson from Bloomington, Minnesota has won back the title for the largest male mouth gape. He first won the title back in 2019 but lost it shortly after. However, two years later, his mouth has grown and can now stretch over 10 centimeters wide!

It says he won the record, lost the record, and then won the record back after his mouth grew, which I think is another way of saying he spent the last two years stretching his mouth out with weird contraptions. I’m pretty sure if he lost the record again he’d end up Jokering his mouth to get it back.

Keep going for the full video showing him put random things in his mouth. It’s intriguing yet also kind of gross.

Source: Geekologie – This guy has the biggest mouth in the world

Look, I know the title of this post kind of makes sense and when you read it you’re thinking, “This is probably a Japanese guy who made a way to pull his iPhone out really quickly.” And that’s a fair assumption. But what this video actually is is pure internet majesty. This is the internet we were promised. Somebody give this guy a $200 million check and see what he makes because I bet it’ll be better than anything The Rock pumps out in the next decade. I honestly can’t even describe it because how would you describe what how a rainbow tastes?

Keep going for the full video.

Source: Geekologie – Japanese guy’s iPhone quick-draw system

Filmmaker Ben Ouaniche of Macro Room put together this video of himself interacting with his own slow motion footage and the end result is extremely satisfying to watch. It’s like if Christopher Nolan decided to make a series of 15 second Zack Snyder films.

Keep going for the full video.

Source: Geekologie – Filmmaker plays with time in this trippy video

Using a Raspberry Pi 4 and some machine learning, Pat Larson created this automatic charger for his Tesla. In 2015 Tesla released a video of a snake charger prototype that would also automatically charge your car, but that one looked like it would murder or rape you when you fell asleep. This one seems a bit less functional but is able to do the job and looks like you’d be able to fight it off if it started getting murdery or rapey.

Keep going for the full video as well as a video of Tesla’s original snake charger prototype.

Source: Geekologie – This guy made an automatic charger for his Tesla

Joseph Herscher of Joseph’s Machines built this pizza maker powered entirely by a toy train.

This machine uses a toy train to make a pizza automatically. No need to lift a finger!

Keep going for the video. If you stay until the end he also built a pizza feeder which doubles as a torture device?

Source: Geekologie – This guy made a Rube Goldberg pizza maker

This is a wonderfully relaxing and satisfying video of Bucky Barnes shaping a Japanese Larch bonsai tree over the course of a year.

Bucky Barnes returns to document the designing, pruning, carving and shaping of a Japanese Larch bonsai tree.

I had no idea so much planning went into shaping a Bonsai tree. Everything I know I know from The Karate Kid and I thought they basically just cut it until it looked pretty. Which is kind of what’s happening, but with 100x more forethought than I realized. This guy put more planning into shaping that little tree than I did when remodeling my house. And by “remodeling my house” I mean swapping out the cardboard box I live in.

Source: Geekologie – Transformation of a Japanese Larch Bonsai Tree

This is a video of a guy performing trick shots with a dart attached to a rope like Scorpion from Mortal Kombat. And if you’re wondering, the official name for this weapon is, um, the rope dart. After watching the video I thought about attempting to do some trick shots of my own but decided I didn’t feel like getting accidentally stabbed by a rope dart today.

Keep going for the full video. My only recommendation is next time the guy actually dress like Scorpion from Mortal Kombat and maybe replace the targets with people dressed like Sub-Zero. What’s a little murder for the sake of YouTube?

Source: Geekologie – Trick shots with a rope dart thing like out of Mortal Kombat

This is Bo Burnham’s White Woman Instagram song from his Netflix special Inside. I already posted Bo Burnham’s Welcome to the Internet video, but he’s a one man content machine and I can’t help but support the man. I feel like eventually I’ll just be posting the entire Netflix special in pieces as it’s uploaded to YouTube and I 100% have no problem with that. Again, Bo did everything you see in this video by himself, alone, while in lockdown during the pandemic. That means writing the music, performing the music, filming himself, editing the video, and literally everything else besides lay down the infrastructure for the Internet that you’re using to watch it.

Keep going for the video and then watch his special on Netflix. Again, this isn’t a paid sponsorship, it’s just really, really, really good. Although if you’re not into the two videos I’ve posted it’s probably not for you.

Source: Geekologie – Bo Burnham’s ‘White Woman’s Instagram’ from his Netflix special ‘Inside’

This person’s security camera “captured” footage of their nanny and turns out they’re a Predator. No, not that kind of predator, a Predator like from the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Which I guess doesn’t preclude them from being the other kind of predator, but this is mostly about being invisible and not Chris Hansen entering the room.

Keep going for the security cam footage.

Source: Geekologie – Turns out this person’s nanny is a Predator

Clearly out to make every other dad on the planet feel like a complete loser, this guy built a functioning Star Tours ride in his garage for his daughter’s Disneyland themed birthday party.

This is a homemade Disneyland Star Tours attraction built for my daughter’s Disneyland themed birthday party at our house.

It’s the original 1987 version of Star Tours featuring the glorious Paul Reubens (Pee-wee Herman) as the rookie pilot Capt. Rex. It’s his first flight and he’s still getting used to his programming.

Back in the fall of 2019 my daughter Indy requested a Disneyland themed party at our house for her birthday in April. We built a couple of attractions for it but due to Covid when her birthday came around we had to shelve everything and postpone the party until 2021.

This past April, a full year and a half after she made the initial request we were finally able to do Disneyland at home for Indy’s birthday. This is the Star Tours portion of the party.

I’ve scrubbed through the video a few times and I’m still not entirely sure how the ride is functioning. I can’t tell if it’s actually on some sort of gimbal system or if they just have adults manually moving the whole thing. Either way it’s incredibly impressive and excessive and pretty much a middle finger to every other parent in that neighborhood. Can you imagine being this guy’s neighbor? Better start saving up for your kid’s therapy sessions because there’s no way you’re not a disappointment compared to this guy.

Keep going for the full video before the Disney lawyers issue the cease and desist and then sue this family into oblivion.

Source: Geekologie – Father of the year builds Disneyland’s Star Tours in his garage for daughter’s birthday

This is a Danish Road Safety Council commercial promoting bike helmet safety using Vikings. It plays like a Monty Python sketch which is the highest of compliments. I don’t know if it’s particularly effective at getting people to wear bike helmets, but it made me laugh and isn’t that really what public safety is all about?

Keep going for the full video.

Source: Geekologie – Danish Road Safety Council commercial on bike helmet safety

Waddles the duck was born with a mangled left foot. The owner decided to do something about that and had a Certified Pet Prostheticist from Bionic Pets fit him with this 3D printed prosthetic.

A Duck name Waddles has a mangled left leg and his owner wants to better his quality of life by giving him a prosthetic leg.

I’m a big tough guy but I have to admit it warmed my heart to see Waddles the duck finally waddling around with his prosthetic. I know it’s just a duck, but I swear you can actually see him smiling with joy when he finally starts walking. Kind of like when my grandpa got his walker, except the duck didn’t head straight to a strip club with his new found mobility.

Keep going for the adorable clip from NatGeo Wild.

Source: Geekologie – This duck got a 3D printed prosthetic leg

If you haven’t seen it yet, this is Welcome to the Internet from Bo Burnham’s Netflix special Inside. If that means nothing to you, Bo Burnham is a comedian, actor, entertainer person and he managed to write, film, edit, and score a Netflix comedy special entirely on his own during the pandemic. It was released on Friday and this is one of the songs from it. For anybody even thinking about entering the entertainment business you should be aware that this is what you’re up against.

Keep going for the video and definitely watch his special Inside on Netflix. This isn’t a paid sponsorship, I just believe it’s an incredible piece of art made during an incredible time and the fact he did it entirely on his own makes it doubly (quadropoly?) impressive.

Source: Geekologie – Bo Burnham’s ‘Welcome to the Internet’

Gabe White shared this video of their FedEx and USPS deliveries. Apparently the FedEx driver has lost the ability to bend and the USPS driver is an angel sent from heaven.

Shoutout to our USPS driver for moving all the packages out of the rain.

Keep going for the video. I get the feeling the FedEx driver might actually be a Terminator in disguise.

Source: Geekologie – The difference between FedEx and USPS deliveries

This is a video of a ball being bounced on one of the world’s bounciest surfaces. It makes it sound like some super secret scientific material, but *spoiler alert* it’s just a balloon stretched over a cup. Although they could’ve saved themselves the work of buying a balloon and cup and just used my rock hard butt cheeks instead.

Keep going for the video. It really is surprisingly bouncy.

Source: Geekologie – Balls bouncing on one of the world’s bounciest surfaces