Up here in Seattle there’s a band called A Gun That Shoots Knives. That’s a good idea, but until we get the technology for that ultimate weapon worked out, we’re going to have to use A Crossbow That Shoots Machetes. → Read More
I love that there are tons of tinkerers out there just putting together robots for no other reason than “hey, this might work.” Home hacker Lars Kristian Roland made this one, a simple rover bot with a gripping claw (it runs on modular hardware and an Arduino, naturally) — but the twist in this case is that it’s controlled by a Chronos watch that has a built-in accelerometer and antenna. → Read More
Matt over at Gizmodo points out a nice bit of DIY work done by Andrew Scrivani, a left-handed photographer for the NY Times. His right arm is out of commission for a while, and left-handed SLR bodies are expensive as hell, so he went to his gear closet and put together this little hack. Basically it’s just a rigid bracket for him to hold while he fires the remote with his incapacitated hand; he can’t do everything, but he can at least hand-hold the camera and get the shot. More details at Scrivani’s blog. → Read More
This is some full-bore M.C. Escher stuff here, people. This cartridge contains a full NES and can play other NES cartridges. The cart uses a Famicom clone, sometimes called a Nintendo-On-A-Chip, and a few ports drilled into the plastic case. → Read More
Skrikitty skrikitty scratch! This odd little turntable lets you rock the wheels of steel from the comfort of your own wrist, in turn becoming the most popular of your peer group excepting the kids with real talent and/or good looks.
You can read the full Instuctable here or just watch the video a few times. Your call. → Read More
Although a post that begins with “over the past six months I have set up fairly complete printed circuit board fabrication lab in my apartment, cheaply and safely” can be somewhat disconcerting, I believe that a man with the chops to make a PCB fab in is apartment is a man worthy of knowing. Luckily, that man, one Jared Foster, has made these fancy persistence-of-vision business cards to share his info with you. → Read More
Every few weeks I pop up out of the New York subway and forget where I am. I’ll start heading east when I wanted to west and north when I wanted to go south. East and west are the worst because it’s a long block before I usually realize I’m going the wrong way and, regardless of all of the potentially cues around me (street numbers, landmarks) I will invariably have to turn around a few times. Well this bag, really a DIY project, aims to assist us in our travels. The device is sewn into a messenger bag and uses an Arduino board, a GPS chipset, and eight tiny motors. You set a direction or a waypoint and start moving. As you traverse the streetscape, the motors vibrate to tell you where you’re headed, like a sensory compass. After a few days, the creator, Josh, found it became second nature to depend on the vibrations to sense his position in the city. → Read More
Pinhole cameras look like a lot of fun to mess around with, but unless you’re willing to really dedicate some time and materials to them, you’re kind of out of luck. And film is expensive! So this little DIY project is a fun way to experiment with the format, even if it’s not quite the same thing. → Read More
This 8x8x8 LED cube with 512 LEDs takes the old 3x3x3 light cube made up of 27 LEDs to the nth degree. This, certainly more time consuming project, actually involves a simpler design. By using a STP16CP LED sink driver, Nick (the creator), was able to reduce the component count. The LED sink driver can control 16 LEDs at once, as opposed to single LED control from the 3x3x3.
Programming came by way of MATLAB, which explains many of the shapes I learned in Calc 3 and diffy-q. I suggest taking a few minutes to check out the video of this amazing project…after the break. → Read More
This is really cool. I’m sure those of us with stationary kitchen islands wish we could scoot it out of the way now and then, but even then, where would we put it? This guy, using an iPhone app I don’t recognize, is controlling a lift in a utility room downstairs that lifts that kitchen island right up. → Read More
I’m a vintage camera lover, but I’ll be the first to admit that there are a lot of pieces out there that are going to take hundreds or thousands of dollars in parts and reconstruction to get back to picture-takin’ shape. Yet you can pick them up at camera stores and estate sales for a song.
They can be plain decoration, sure, but you could also do what this guy has done, and make lamps out of them. → Read More
The folks at 3DP at the University of Washington have rendered 3D bones in bone meal, 12x Powdered Sugar, and malodextrin. The resulting project – an effort to “print bones of animals that never existed” – is fairly creepy but if scientists could create actual bone in the same way, imagine the possible uses: hip replacements, skull fragment fixes, and the addition of three inch tusks to my otherwise normal, mid-western visage. William Gibson, we are with you in the Sprawl. → Read More
We’ve been dreaming of the Quirky Switch for months now, ever since it was first announced back in April, 2010 and now that dream is a reality. The Quirky Switch is basically a modular pocket knife that lets you create three sizes of knife using various pieces. I got a unit and discovered that this thing is truly DIY with a full complement of add-ons including a pen, a bottle opener, and various screwdrivers, that you actually have to screw together using your bare wit and weak little pinchers.
I got a huge kick out building this thing and while the price, at $79, is a little steep, you essentially get three pocket knives for the price of one if you’re careful how you place the pieces. → Read More
You would expect someone with blue hair to wear a purple glove phone. This DIY Bluetooth glove, sourced from a purple fingerless glove and a Bluetooth headset, was made with just a few extra wires and shrink wrapping. → Read More
Not too quick on the draw when it comes to fabricating excuses as to why you missed that meeting? Install this little guy next to your phone and you’ll be fooling The Man with solid gold automatically generated content in no time. Wait a second, “My bike ran out of coolant”? That won’t do.
Ah, here’s a good one. “The CEO tried to drown me.” Much more likely in a fast-paced startup environment. → Read More
I just love the stuff from Makezine — tinkering and programming bring back such good memories. If you like tinkering with little electronic devices and programming patterns, it’s definitely worth checking out the site. And, they just released their new LED Cube kit, inspired by the 3D Borg cube from Das-Labor, so it’s a good time to buy. → Read More
Dan Piponi made this wild, Bluetooth-controlled Hexapod just for kicks and it looks like a lot of fun. The best part? He gave us all the instructions so we can build one ourselves. → Read More
Arduino seems like a great way to create interactive devices but historically it hasn’t been too hot for creating the ultimate in interactivity, computer gaming. That changed with the release of the Gameduino, a version of the open-source Arduino board pre-loaded with games, sprites, and inputs for various game controllers.
The Gameduino is an open source project and the creator has build a Kickstarter page to fund the actual production of the device. → Read More
It’s amazing what some people can cook up in their spare time. For some, it’s the great American novel. For others, it’s meth. For yet others it’s a full-size sit-in force feedback machine that’s designed around playing your trippy indie racing/shooter/puzzle game. → Read More
So you want to make fancy food like all them chefs in them fancy Franch restaurants up in the city there? Do you, fancy boy? Well then you’d best get out into the garridge and start building because me and muther aren’t buying you any Sux Vid cooker for $450 so’s you can cook eggs like some fancy Franch cook. When I was in the army we din’t have food processors, just a jackknife and a pail and you cooked a thousand potatoes in half an hour or the other guys’d come in an beat you in the head. So you go make yourself a Sux Vid cooker if you want but I ain’t eatin’ any blanched beans, let me tell it to you that way. → Read More
San Francisco, CA
