An amusement park won’t be complete without some form of slide. Usually meant for kids (as fun slides are commonly found on children’s playgrounds or parks), slides have evolved over the years, although their main purpose is still to bring fun and enjoyment to anyone who rides them.
Aside from amusement parks, waterparks also offer slides as one of their main attractions. Called water chutes, hydroslides or flumes, these water slides are amazingly built by professionals to make sure those who ride it not only enjoy sliding down but are also kept safe. Take a look at 4 of the most amazing water slides found around the world:
Our idea of a bike is pretty basic: wheels, frame, gears, and a seat. But what happens if five mechanical engineering students are given a hefty budget by the University of Pennsylvania and some sponsors? Well, you get the Alpha, one of the most technologically advanced bikes in the world, that’s what happens.
What makes the Alpha different from all of the other bikes? Its drive train is housed inside the frame; the gearbox is inside a hub at the rear wheel as well. Changing gears is done via an electronically controlled clutch. Mounted on the handlebars is a display that shows distance, cadence, speed, and gear – you can even download your stats onto an SD card. The display, lights at the back of the bike, and all other on board electronics is powered by a dynamo installed in the front wheel. It’s almost all carbon fiber, with a few aluminum and titanium parts.
In case you’re drooling for one, we’re sorry to say that the Alpha is not for sale – yet. It’s something nice and shiny to hope for in the future though.
Every year, we get different types of entertainment from the Super Bowl: lead in shows, lead out shows, and halftime shows. We also get to watch commercials worth millions of dollars. If it’s going to cost you $2 million to show a 30-second advertisement that will be viewed by millions of people, then you’d better make your commercial good, right?
This year’s Super Bowl had a lot of notable adverts, including like the guy with an unhealthy obsession to Doritos, the Darth Vader-clad kid learning to wield the force, and the Groupon commercial that raised quite a lot of eyebrows. Also, we saw the new trailer for Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon. Check them out:
So yeah. The third Transformers movie promises more booms, and more giant robots displaying awesomeness in ways giant robots have never displayed before. The Groupon commercial is suffice to say, a little ill-conceived. On the other hand the Volkswagen commercial blends some serious cuteness to some serious force usage. Let’s just hope the kid doesn’t try mimicking a force choke.
We’re pretty sure that few balls have received as much criticism as the Adidas’s Jabulani. The official ball for this year’s FIFA World Cup has taken flak for pretty much everything, from being too fast, too light, too unpredictable, and too round. Well, depending on who you ask, there are a thousand little ways in which this ball can ruin goalies, strikers, and everybody else on the football field.
Jabulani was named after the Zulu word for ‘rejoice’ and is a technologically advanced – made of eight thermally bonded panels. Anyway, the video below shows the balls trip through the factory, and which processes it undergoes.
We’ve all seen the FIFA World Cup shocker in the match between the USA and England (a draw, 1:1), and Robert Green may be nicknamed Sir Butterfingers for the rest of eternity. Too bad for the unfortunate goalie, the football world is not done with rubbing it in yet. The unbelievable fumble now has a brick version, courtesy of Lego Fussball.
Lego Fussball takes the best moments in the matches and makes stop-motion Lego animation out of all of them. So if you’re up for some football highlights in bricks, head on over to Lego Fussball’s website.
There should be a good number of people who would do a double take at the sight of the words “robots” and “martial arts” in the same sentence (mostly geeks like me, I assume). It’s true, folk. According to South Korean officials, the country will be staging a robot martial arts contest.
The said competition is planned for October and will feature Korea’s popular martial art, Taekwondo, and the newest robotics technology. It is also planned to be an international thing, to be handled both by South Korea’s Knowledge Economy Ministry and Gyeonggi province. And yes, the robots will be abiding by the standard rules of Taekwondo, with 3 3-minute rounds and officiated by 3 judges.
Of course, the robots won’t be as adept with the martial art as say, a human who had been trained to kick before s/he can walk, but Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology researcher Roh Sung-Su assured the Korea Times that they will improve over time.
Hmm. Machine gun wielding terminators were scary enough. Now imagine a terminator that knows Taekwondo, kung fu, and all other martial arts skills – truly terrifying.
The biggest sports event on the Earth, the World Cup, is about to begin its month long qualification phase and a beer brewer from one of its host nations, South Africa, has assured football fans that beer will be in ample supply. South African Brewers (local branch of international brewer SABMiller), the biggest brewer in the country, said that there is more than enough beer to go around during the FIFA World Cup.
The company predicts a 5 percent increase during the month-long tourney that starts on June 11. An extra 30 million bottles can be made available since the World Cup coincides with a slow sales period for the brewer. Managing director of South Africa Brewers, Norman Adami says that sales will depend mainly on the factors like “the weather, the number of foreign visitors who actually do arrive and even the performance of our team.”
FIFA organizers foresee around 373,000 fans visiting the host South Africa. The forecast on South Africa’s football team isn’t so sunny though.
Plus, football enthusiasts need not worry as Budweiser, an official FIFA partner, will also be supplying copious amounts of beer to stadiums.
Long before strippers started twirling on them like waxed spider monkeys. Long before Miley Cyrus displayed her disturbing familiarity with the apparatus at the 2009 Teens Choice Awards. (The year the Stripper Pole Manufacturers’ Association named Billy Ray as Father of the Year). The men in India have already been doing breathtaking things on the pole.
Although they do it almost bare-assed they’re not performing a Chippendale shtick but a traditional sport called mallakhamb. Mallakhamb involves performing WTF poses and feats while hanging from a vertical wooden pole or rope. According to researchers from Cologne University in Germany, mallakhamb is the only sport that provides optimum exercise to the entire body in the least possible time.
If Sir Isaac Newton had seen one of these guys in action, we may have a slightly different version of the law of gravity. Click on the link below for more astounding photos of men and the things they do with their poles.
