Engineering

A gorgeous solution to a common problem... This mesmerizing mechanical vise adjusts its shape to hold oddly shaped items still without damaging them, using a design first patented more than a century ago. It can also turn inside-out.

Back in 2016, we featured a stunning wooden machine that employed falling steel marbles to play a merry tune. As plans are drawn up for a new version, its builder has looked back to the designs of Leonardo da Vinci for inspiration.

He's an eccentric motorcycle and engine building genius who regularly creates mind-bending engineering alchemy and has millions of fans... So why is his extraordinary work so badly undervalued at auction? Someone's getting a bargain today.

Nissin and Showa's novel design results in higher rigidity, better heat dissipation, and lighter overall weight of the brake caliper system. There are big question marks on its maintenance feasibility and affordability though.

You can trust Russian mechanics to come up with some crazy stuff. This time, they've put a Fiat 124-derived Lada under the knife, and installed 16 chainsaw engines arranged in a V formation – because why not?

Whether you're Lego-curious or a devotee of the church of the colored brick, this world-first app lets you capture your surroundings in unique model form like never before. And it does all the hard work, leaving you with the fun part – the build.

For the first time, engineers have digitally recreated the complex muscular architecture of the octopus arm and its unique movements involving around 200 muscles, which opens the door to developing soft robotics with unprecedented dexterity.

The Harmonic Drive is a key part of countless robotic applications. Incredibly simple yet quite odd to watch, this gear system is extremely precise with an impressive torque-to-weight ratio, even if it does wobble. So how does it work?

We've seen some mad Hayabusa custom bikes over the years, but this one's right out of the box. It ditches the original engine for a massive two-stroke V6, but Meggatech Projects plans to make it look close to a standard Suzuki once it's finished.

Slicing huge cruise ships in half, then welding in an extra segment to lengthen them, is more or less a license to print money for cruise operators – so this 'jumboization' surgery is becoming very common. Let's take a look at how it's done.

You may have seen this video doing the rounds; it peers through the lens of a microscope at a smartphone chip and starts zooming in, giving you a visceral sense of just how insanely tiny today's transistors have become.

The ingenuity of ancient Egyptian engineers may have been more advanced than we thought. A currently unexplained ancient structure may have been part of a water purification system feeding a hydraulic lift to raise huge stone blocks to build a pyramid.