You may have noticed that my liking for Steampunk often manifests itself in a facination for things made from brass – well, the above gyroscope, inspired by the sorts of gyroscopes used in 19th Century university lectures, is made from solid brass, and is quite handsome. From the very well named, Gyroscope.Com it’s one of several different kinds of gyroscopes, spinning tops, Stirling engines, combustion engines, governors and ornithopters. So terribly lovely to look at, and they seem to ship to all manner of places. Alas though – I doubt I can justify the above gyroscope to myself quite yet, but maybe one of the smaller specimens might not be so hard to allow myself!

I’ll mention too, that I stumbled apon the site after reading the advert in this month’s New Scientist magazine – not my usual method of attribution, but I felt I should mention something.