Sometimes, the best way to work those creative muscles is to… Be curious. What would happen if you… Changed the angle of how you threw a stone on a lake? If you… Wired a AA battery into the slot of a AAA battery? And… Would potatoes fire from a tank?

Obviously, it does, and looks like it survives the experience enough for it to be a real projectile at the end. Did you think that it would just immediately split up into harmless pieces?

It’s a simple video altogether, though the logistics of arranging the whole thing would’ve been difficult. It was great to see that bonus footage after the potato, to see what one of those tanks could do in a Mythbusters sort of way. It does seem that videos that have a short proposition (to show you what happens to ____ when ____ occurs) can tend to reach far enough for us to watch and satisfy our curiousities.

It’s always nice to find interesting examples of creative stuff that we can all do. Typically, these tend to be paper crafts or food: this one’s a bit more “visually cool”.

Have you ever tried doing something like that? It’s beautiful to watch the effects of the lasers, even better that this is something accessible and doable. It’d be interesting to see if this could be used in a house party instead of what you might’ve seen at clubs.

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How do you capture the essence of a holiday? The default answer, for many of us, is to take photographs to be able to look back at the specific instances we can relive and share. Did that video change your mind about how much better it could be done?

That was just a breathtaking, beautiful piece: the way the video was captured and compiled – over soothing music, in slow 2-3 second spots – allows the viewer to get “glimpses” and see the “moments” of a trip. This way of doing the video not only seems to highlight the memorable parts of the trip, but not being still images, makes the experience feel more real.

Something to remember too: this experience wasn’t the result of showing amazing situations (skydiving, killer whale closeups, etc). There were some great video shots (the one about the owl, ziplining, underwater moments), but not ones we’ve seen that focus on a stunt. It seemed like a relatable attempt at capturing a holiday experience – similar to how you and I have probably tried to do the same – and Patrick has done an amazing job with it.

This is pretty powerful in that this isn’t our holiday, but makes us feel the joy, happiness, and wonder they had in their Costa Rica trip. Some of the best shots seemed to be the simplest ones as well – the smiles and joy of Patrick and his friends.

This could remind you of the One Second Project (link) previously covered here at Vitamin Cr, but it does have 2 key differences: as great as that project was, this showed that it could help to have the extra half a second to a full one to let us get into the moment, and that, when applying this technique, focusing on one subject (like a trip) makes it feel even more personable to one experience.

John’s done it again with this amazing stop motion video with his toy characters. If you didn’t know, Pacquiao VS Mayweather was the premiere boxing matchup that happened a month or two ago, with Pacquiao (also a Filipino congressman) being the favourite.

First off, it was fun to see the different gaming/movie references tie into the video, even if it could be a bit jarring initially. It was certainly fun to see the creativity at work here.

Compared to John’s previous video (link), this one seemed to require more emotional responses from the faces of the figurines, and it seemed like a bit of Photoshopping was done to achieve that.

Did you recognize some of the references? Obviously, there was the Star Wars lightsaber and force duelling. There was the Ghost Rider bike, the Assassin’s Creed cloak worn by Bradley, and the hadouken fireball one above (arguably, it could belong to the next reference), plus…

… the Mortal Kombat gaming franchise, where the winner of a fight match is given the choice to “finish off” an opponent with a special move/skill. It was great to see John use Pacquiao’s nickname “Pacman” in the final move, letting the figurine throw a “Pacman fireball” that ate up his opponent.

Pretty fun stuff, will keep you posted for further videos of his.

You might’ve seen the classic balloon-to-face slow motion video before, but have you seen ones for a slow motion video of a bee’s flapping wings? The variety through the compilation is one reason why the video has gone viral (8+ million hits).

We understand that often, perspective means everything, even visually. What’s intriguing about these slow motion videos is that we get to see life through a perspective that we cannot ourselves achieve – viewing things at such a speed that we can grasp, for instance, the lines on a bee’s wings while flapping or the ripples of a balloon. Do you think that bees see things in this way (in slow motion)?

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It’s hard to get tired looking at a labour of love, particularly when it 1) shows the detailed craftsmanship of a master working on his craft (in a way that factory reproductions can’t) and it’s 2) compressed beautifully into 3 minutes.

Also, have you ever witnessed a guitar built by hand, with such precision and care?

The video itself was masterfully produced as well. When visual overlays get put onto videos, they tend to be very much in-your-face, striking in contrast and colour. In this case, when they do appear they are in a lighter shade, not obscuring but highlighting the subtle details of the work at hand.

You’ve probably seen electric (or a hybrid) vehicle before… But have you seen an *compressed air* powered car? How about one that Tata Motors, the colossal Indian motor company, has completed its first phase of testing with on their own vehicles using an air engine technology (link)?

Oh, and it runs on a joystick.

Certainly, it’s a pretty impressive demo with even more incredible statistics. According to Cyril, one of the founders of MDI, their fastest AIRPod has a range of 150 km – 200 km and a max speed of 80km/hr, or 90 miles – 120 miles with a max speed of 50 mph. At 3 minutes to recharge at a cost of 1.5 EU (or 1.8 USD), it’s cheap to recharge too.

It’s unfortunately not all roses, though. According to Phys.org, IEEE Spectrum had concerns that some of MDI’s specs were not realistic, estimating that the range performance could be less than 1/3rd of the claims (link). Additionally, it seems like MDI has had at least one incident of concerns over business dealings, and one that they’ve decided to put up publicly (and none too elegantly) on their own website (link). If it doesn’t seem like that should matter at all, that’s probably true, but impressions and history often matters in business dealings, and they often get in the way of commercializing technologies.

Still, it’s promising technology that could come to be. You’ve likely seen other impressive technology demos for vehicles, but few have seen the light of day beyond a demo, and fewer still have managed to build a partnership with an industry player like Tata Motors. Hopefully, it’s something we will get to see in vehicles in our lifetimes, since the benefits of such a vehicle (especially in a city context) outweight even high tech hybrids or fully electric vehicles seen today (an air tank is needed, instead of an expensive, resource-heavy battery assembly).

How can you design a runway to let someone who falls from a helicopter (at the height of two plus Eiffel towers) land without a parachute – and live – and do so (relatively) cheaply?

Probably more of an odd video for the purposes of igniting creativity, but when you sit down to think about some of craziest things we see other people pursue, you realise there’s a lot of thought behind it, and some of the solutions are certainly ingenious and novel.

In this case, paper boxes likely wouldn’t have crossed our minds as a solution to that goal of having someone land (and live), but it worked. It often seems that the most ridiculous and ambitious goals tend to result in the most innovative of solutions.

It should be said, though, that 2,400 feet is a calculated, safer height to fall from in order to have Gary be able to land approximately in the right area. Typical skydiving occurs at over 10,000 feet, which would also mean that he would’ve had to fly at a much faster speed by the time he lands, making flight alterations more significant and the landing zone to need to be much larger in size.

Do you know how to make ice cream… the traditional, manual way? We eat it all the time, but have you had a chance to make your own? It’s really easy, something worth trying once in a lifetime, and just tastes quite delicious.

The tutorial works really well – all the ingredients are readily available, and all that’s required is a fridge, zip lock bags, and milk-ice-sugar. It’s often important to do a little small-project creating once in a while to “exercise” the creative muscles, and this is a great one to try out – with delicious rewards!