Olympic skier Jeret “Speedy” Peterson says tinkering is the spice of life. Photo by NBC Sports / USOC

It’s pretty easy to see how knitting might be relaxing and a good way to spend idle time for a person who’s on the road a lot. Someone like an Olympic athlete. But taking apart a weed whacker to relieve stress? That’s something only a maker can understand, and that’s exactly why Olympian Jeret “Speedy” Peterson takes things apart.

The 28-year-old has been taking things apart since he was a wee tot, and has been on the U.S. National Ski Team since he was 16. He’s used his building skills to do construction work, and dreams about designing, or at least witnessing, the first magnetic motor. And he’s the only person to have completed an intricate 3.2-second jump called the Hurricane.

So this February, while you’re watching freestyle skier Speedy perform his signature Hurricane jump, remember that he’s likely to be taking apart a lawn mower or dirt bike when he gets home. Just like you or me.

After qualifying for his third Olympics this past December, Speedy was nice enough to answer a few questions for us relating to his tinkering urges. Here’s what he had to say…

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Here’s a great story in the Telegraph about an amateur stargazer who tricked out his garden shed in the U.K. and surprised professional astronomers around the world with his top-notch images.

Peter Shah, 38, cut a hole in the roof of his wooden shed and set up his modest eight-inch telescope inside. After months of patiently waiting for the right moment he emerged with a series of striking images of the Milky Way.

His photographs of a vivid variety of star clusters light years from Earth have been compared to the images taken from the £2.5 billion Hubble space telescope.

But it cost Mr Shah just £20,000 to equip his garden shed with a telescope linked to his home computer. He said: “Most men like to potter about in their garden shed – but mine is a bit more high tech than most.”

You can read the full story here.

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The terrific blog Inhabitat has an intriguing article about the winning entries in the Rising Tides competition, wherein entrants came up with ways to deal with what could be a 55″ rise in the San Francisco Bay waters in the next century.

From Inhabitat’s recap:

Another mind-boggling solution to the high-water mark is Folding Water, by Kuth Ranieri Architects. The proposal is an alternative to the traditional barrier dike: this one placed in the middle of the bay, maintaining current water levels with a series of pump walls and artificial estuaries. It looks invisible: reminiscent of what we hope our future impact to be: undetectable.

The competition ended up with 6 winners sharing a $25,000 prize, and there were a handful of Honorable Mentions highlighted as well. The whole thing — the competition, the plethora of entries, the thoughtfulness and cleverness of the entries — was a great reminder to me that makers hold the key to surviving the next 100 years and beyond.

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