Although Lumenlab has greatly simplified the LCD projector project with its ready-made parts, it’s still not a job for the DIY newbie. You’ll need carpentry skills to create an enclosure and wiring skills to connect all the parts without electrocuting yourself or burning down your projector. And then there’s the LCD panel stripping—even PopSci photographer John Carnett, a lifetime DIY guy, killed the first LCD TV we sent him.

A baseball zooms through clouds, straight through a wall and into the waiting hand of actor Adam Smith, who is tricked out like a magician, complete with wand, tuxedo and top hat. “How do you do it?” Smith asks conspiratorially. “You just need a small enough ball, of course.” But Smith isn’t really explaining a magic trick. He’s talking nanotech, in the new short film When Things Get Small.

Last night’s festivities featured the usual rambling acceptance speeches, Harry Winston jewels, outrageously toned celebrity bodies and soaring orchestral background music, but it left us wondering the same thing we wonder every year: Where was the science?