More About Tools and Inventions

Tricked Out Workshop: Cool Tools and Technology

Unlike the tools collecting cobwebs in the corner of your garage, these high-tech tools are pushing the bounds of human innovation to create amazing new potential products. The team on Discovery Channel’s “Prototype This!” have used them to do everything from create a circular waterslide to robots that box. In short, they are working to create some pretty wild futuristic prototypes that will change the way we do everyday things.

Here are just a few examples of the cool tools and technology featured on the series:

• A 3-D printer: Ignore the $45,000-$73,000 price tag and ponder the possibilities. You could use this machine to print relief maps of the ocean floor, prototype products for pitch meetings, model human hearts for research or create architectural models to give construction workers a better visual picture of the design plans. And the best part — it's all in color.

• A cold saw is a special kind of circular saw that uses a coolant system during the cutting process. Cold saws are particularly suitable for cutting narrow tubes and small bars, for producing exact miters and use special heat-resistant saw blades that cut at faster speeds. The Kalamazoo C370A-NC vertical column cold saw seen on "Prototype This!" is one serious machine.

• The Metal Inert Gas (MIG) welders shown on “Prototype This!” are probably a bit different than the welding equipment you have at home. The $10,000 machine has its advantages, of course. It saves time, there's not a lot of clean-up, there's less waste and, probably most importantly, you get a darn good weld.

Explore more cool tools featured in "Prototype This!" at HowStuffWorks.

10 Wacky Inventions For Your Home

We've all dreamed of having some pretty cool stuff in our homes. Sometimes these things are to make life easier. Others are just techie-cool. Others are to show up the Joneses newest home gadgetry.

We'll take a stab in the dark that most of us haven't had the pleasure of getting any of these wacky inventions in our homes yet. Here is a just a taste of the first few on our list.

• At No. 10, we have a glowing fruit bowl. Of course it looks cool, but it’s real "ah ha!" purpose? The use of UV blue light, which inactivates certain types of bacteria, like E. Coli and salmonella, in addition to ethylene gas, a gas that speeds up the rotting process. By clearing off the bacteria, the BLUE bowl keeps your produce safe and fresh for longer.

• No. 9 on our list is the Pet Plant. For those of us lacking green thumbs, designer Junyi Heo made it east: Optical sensors in the planter measure the soil temperature, moisture levels and light levels, and then the device displays a digital facial expression based on the plant's needs. Sad plant = "water me!" Happy plant: "All set, thanks".

• Our No. 8 wacky invention — the Bloomframe fold-out balcony — probably would have pleased the inventor of the Murphy Bed. A similar concept but made for a different reason, the Bloomframe transforms what appears to be an ordinary window into a modern and customized outdoor space for tall building dwellers. 

Want to find out how you might be able to surf the Web while floating around your pool? Or what exactly a Swiss Army bathroom might entail? Go to HowStuffWorks to get the latest scoop on all the wackiest home inventions.