If you like working with 3D animation or scenes, you should stop by the NASA 3D Resources site. They have a number of 3D models there free for public downloading and use, including the Shuttle, the ISS, and the Hubble Space Telescope. Another good resource is SciFi Meshes, where a community of model builders upload and share their work. 3D Total has a number of free models and textures, as well as a series of tutorials for creating your own.
Fox is usually the last network on the planet I would recommend to people as a place to get their product distributed, but there are signs recently that it might be improving. With its renewal of Dollhouse, it has finally proved it understands there are gains to be made beyond the current weeks ratings. Part of that new understanding has to have been caused by another Joss Whedan property, Firefly, which sold 440,000 copies in its first week of release as a DVD, even though Fox had canceled the show. Now they are running a competition to add to their animation lineup, and YOU could be that animator! The contest entry point is at Aniboom, and they are looking for a 2 to 4 minute animation segment showcasing why your concept should be picked up by the network and produced into a weekly series. If you ever wanted to build your own sci-fi, this is a perfect opportunity to get started.
Everyone should try their hand at building their own SciFi, using whatever tools work for them. One of the more expressive and accessible formats is animation; pretty much everyone can enjoy and follow a good video. And using animation avoids all those real-world constraints like special effects budgets and the laws of physics. 2D animation puts you in the realm of traditional cartoons, a format made popular over the last hundred years or so, and there are a number of free tools and a host of training resources available online. For instance, one of the commercial software packages, ToonBoom, has a few free online tools at Animachines. One takes your WebCam output, blends a simple animation, and gives you an animated gif you can use on your pages. The other lets you do frame-by-frame animations using 4 simple shapes for your building blocks. Much more powerful are the Open Source programs you can download and install, like Pencil, which runs on MACs, Windows, or Linux, and gives you a traditional hand-drawn animation environment that works with both bitmap and vector graphic images. Another is Animata from eastern Europe, designed to let you build backgrounds and animations for live theater/concert environments. K-Toon from Brazil was primarily for Nix systems (Unix, Linux, etc.) but now can be used everywhere; development seems to be stalled a year or so back, but it is still worth a look. Another great open-source program is SynFig, still under current development but mostly for Nix systems. It has tweening automated, which reduces the workflow steps necessary to create quality animation and puts feature-film level animation into everyone’s hands. Then there are programs like Creatoon, no longer supported but still a tool that can help you build your animations.
There aren’t any instructions as such, but the parts are listed and the configuration described for this Flaming Oscilloscope. As simple as the device is you shouldn’t have any problem building your own, and this one is silly fun and educational basic physics in a single home made object.
Instructables has a good how-to for building a Tardis model from cerial boxes and other found objects. For the less physically inclined, the Second Life metaverse has all the Alliance Sims (like Info Island) setting up a Sci-Fi theme for March. If you want to help create it, contact any Alliance Sims group, like Sci Fi & Fantasy Portal, and volunteer your virtual time and skills.
Not just any gas mask, but cold war era soviet masks were used to create these Gas Mask Kazoos. And that’s just one of many projects you can find at Make.com; another is the Discreet Companion Ladies’ Raygun. Then there is Instructables with DIY info for things like Body Casting and Chocolate Molding… you have to love the internet.