An affordable trebuchet

I do love Kickstarter. If you haven't come across it yet, it's basically a way for people who have a cool idea to ask for people to invest in it. They make a video explaining what they're proposing to do, and give a list of options for investing, ranging from cheap to expensive. (The expensive one very often includes a meal out "if you're in the Bay area".) Usually your pledge equates to preordering a various amount of their proposed product. There's a funding target and a deadline. If there have been enough pledges by the deadline to meet the funding target then the project goes into production, and the people pay their money and get their reward. If the target isn't met then no one pays any money and that's that. I think the new version of Hucklebury Finn where they replace every instance of the n-word with "robot" was a Kickstarter thing, and the Robocop statue for Detroit. People also raise funding for short films and such, especially documentaries.

I've never actually invested in any of their projects yet but I'm very tempted by this desk-top trebuchet. It needs no glue or nails to put together. They're also going to subsidise ones for schools -- they're thinking of science classes but I think history classes might like them too. If my nephew were only a few years older I would definitely get one for him.

Another good project is this one for things which keep your coffee hot for longer. And this one for 360 degree video for the iphone 4 is pretty cool.