Make: Technology on Your Time Volume 27

Lin Yi, courtesy Cai Studio

Du Wenda’s Flying Saucer D, fashioned from aluminum, propeller blades, and LEDs, on the rooftop of the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai.

PEASANT DA VINCIS

Incredible inventions from Chinese villagers.

By Tom Vanderbilt

In 2004, the Chinese artist and collector Cai Guo-Qiang began to hear stories about fantastic “peasant inventions” trickling out of the Chinese countryside: submarines, airplanes, robots, and even “UFOs,” fashioned in tiny backyard workshops by people without easy access to technical information, tools, ...