How To: Make an Abstract Mobile

A hat tip to Ohdeedoh reader Chris for pointing us toward this great mini-tutorial on one of our favorite blogs, Dinosaurs and Robots. Dug up from an old issue of Popular Science Monthly, these instructions contain detailed measurements that will allow us to achieve the Holy Grail of mobile design: a mobile that actually balances. (If you've ever tried to engineer a mobile, you'll know exactly what we're talking about.)

All these plans call for is cardboard (or light-gauge sheet metal, if you have it) and soft 16-gauge wire. Check out the original post on Dinosaurs and Robots, if only to see the cool photo of "legendary Disney Imagineer Rolly Crump with a few of his kinetic mobiles and sculptures, c.1963."