The world’s largest telescope is one step closer to completion

The world's largest telescope is one step closer to completion. This month, the team working on the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) completed the second of seven primary mirror segments, a process that began in January 2012.

World’s Largest Super Soaker Breaks Record and Breaks Glass

It figures that it would be a former NASA engineer who had a hand in building the world’s largest Super Soaker water gun. It is so giant that this Super Soaker managed to break a Guinness World Record for being the largest on Earth. At 7 feet long, you can’t even hold the thing.

Engineer Mark Rober and his pal Bob Clagett over at I Like to Make Stuff collaborated on this huge water gun, that shoots at 2,400 psi and 243 mph. Watch it destroy a bunch of stuff in slow motion, which is always fun. Its stream shatters glass like it is nothing.

You’ll shoot your eye out kid! No really, you won’t have an eye anymore at all, so don’t point this thing at anyone’s face. Also, you’ll be soaked.

[via Laughing Squid]

World’s Largest Gingerbread Village Looks Delicious

Forget the world’s largest gingerbread house. We have all heard the phrase “It takes a village” and a gingerbread village is exactly what we have here. It is on display at Texas A&M University. Let’s all crash the party. Gingerbread houses for everyone.

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The world’s largest gingerbread village was created by New York Chef Jon Lovitch. This village consists of 152 houses and 65 trees and weighs over 1.5 tons. It is made up of 500 pounds of gingerbread, 400 pounds of candy and 2,240 pounds of icing. That’s enough to give everyone who even looks at it a stomach ache.

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It cost a few thousand dollars to complete, but it is now in the Guinness Book of World Records, so it was well worth it. It is too neat to eat, and anyway where would you start?

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[via FOX News via Foodbeast via Neatorama]

You Could Live Inside the World’s Largest Cuckoo Clock

Cuckoo clocks are pretty amazing. I’m always fascinated by the engineering inside of them. They keep pretty good time too. Plus, all authentic cuckoo clocks are made by hand, so each one is unique. It is a fine tradition of craftsmen that are super talented. And now we have the world’s largest cuckoo clock, which is as big as a house.

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According to Guinness World Records, this is the biggest cuckoo clock in the world and it is in Triberg, Germany. Of course. It’s a traditional Black Forest cuckoo clock design scaled up 60 times the size of the original. This clock weighs six tons.

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The cuckoo bird itself is 4.5 meters long and weighs 150 kilograms. Like the real thing, this clock is made of wood and was carved entirely hand. The cuckoo calls once every quarter hour and then chimes every hour.

Unless you really like Cuckoo clocks, the sound would probably drive you nuts if you heard it all day.

[via The Automata Blog via Neatorama]

Regio Design XXL Chopper Is the World’s Largest Motorcycle

Motorcycle riders all like to think that their bike is the biggest and baddest. Sorry folks, but that title belongs to the Regio Design XXL Chopper by Fabio Reggiani. It was shown-off at the Motor Bike Expo 2012 has now officially been declared the biggest motorcycle in the world by Guinness World Records.

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This gigantic chopper completed the required ride distance of 100 meters so that it could be certified as the world’s largest functioning motorcycle. It measures about 32 feet long and 16 feet high. Its engine is a 5.7 ​​V8 Chevrolet 280 horsepower, coupled to a three-speed transmission.

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The Regio Design XXL Chopper was made in about seven months and beat the previous record held by Monster Cycle built by Gregory Dunham from California. Unfortunately, this motorcycle is impossible to balance on two wheels, so they had to add training wheels.

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[via Damn Geeky]

51-Foot-Long Dragon Is the World’s Largest Walking Robot

The world’s largest walking robot is crazy. It’s a 51-foot-long fire-breathing dragon named Tradinno. Surprisingly, this is not a Japanese creation, but a German one. It was made for a play called Der Drachenstich by industrial robotics company Zollner Elektronik AG.
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This beast weighs in at 11 tons, and despite that massive weight it can still move and flap its 40-foot-wide wings. The size is impressive of course, but also impressive is the detail. The movement is a bit unrealistic, but who cares? This thing is badass! It breaths fire and squirts buckets of stage blood! And while it can walk short distances on its own, they need to move it on the back of a trailer for anything longer than a jaunt around the stage.

Check it out in action right here in the video. It looks like it was quite an undertaking to create this epic monster.

And if there’s any doubt that it’s the world’s largest walking robot, check the Guinness World Records.

[via C|Net]

World’s Largest Headphones: Sound of the Colossus

When you have the world’s largest headphones, you don’t put them on your head. You sit between the earcups and let the sound assault you. These monstrous headphones were created by Dallyn Rule for the recent Mini Maker Faire in Vancouver, B.C.

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They measure almost a full human body length and they are completely functional and made from 100% recycled material. Making this huge pair of headphones has been a dream of Dallyn’s since childhood.

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They may be the only headphones designed to never ever touch your ears or head. Yet it still produces music designed for individual listening – like a surround that affects your entire body. And it doesn’t affect those around you very much at all. So it is a very personal way to experience music.

Great work Dallyn, though is it just me, or are you wearing actual headphones in that second image above?

[via Damn Geeky]

Plans for European Extremely Large Telescope approved, is indeed extremely large

Plans for European Extremely Large Telescope approved, is extremely large

We see a lot of "world's largest" claims around here. And this isn't even the first one for a telescope. But this one is actually for the world's biggest optical telescope, and that somehow makes it easier to grasp the magnitude of. At a cost of 1.1 billion Euros, it doesn't come cheap, but the European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) has just been given the go ahead -- and truly lives up to its name. The mirror it uses will measure 39 meters across (four times that of typical mirrors,) comprising nearly 800 hexagonal pieces, and will swallow 12 times more light than the current biggest in existence. This, of course, means that it will be able to peep galaxies much farther away, and those in the process of formation in much more clarity. The project was approved by the European Southern Observatory council, which got the nod from ten countries in the continent, with others provisionally giving the thumbs up pending government backing. The telescope itself, however, will be located atop Chile's Cerro Armazones mountain in the Atacama Desert once completed.

Plans for European Extremely Large Telescope approved, is indeed extremely large originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Jun 2012 21:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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