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This is my favorite paper plane design of all time. It is a completley flat glider that can soar and loop. enjoy!
I will show you how to tie a monkey's fist knot, and what you can make with them. I had aways wanted to know how to make these, and one day someone showed me how. They are really fun to make and whack people with.
Here's a little hack that'll save you needless minutes logging in.
This fish bowl was made using a plain terracotta clay pot and saucer. I washed the pot first and let it dry good, then coated it twice with acrylic gesso and let it dry over night. The next day I painted it with aqua color acrylic paint for the lower part of the pot and bottom of the saucer(two co...
James Burgett of ACCRC's skull of junked electronics (photo via Dale Dougherty)
The Alameda County Computer Resource Center could really use your help, as Dale writes on boingboing:
ACCRC is in desperate straits. The Bay Area electronics recycler is going through tough times with an emergency re-org and a lack of funds to pay taxes and healthcare for its employees. Its own internal problems are compounded by a sudden drop in the price of scrap metal. ACCRC has been a friend to Make and Maker Faire, and generally anyone in the Bay Area who uses computers and electronics and wants to make sure they are recycled properly.
The good news about falling metal prices is that scrapyards who couldn't be bothered to sell random bits of metal to Makers may now think otherwise. However, this is a scant silver lining when you consider the effect on recycling businesses that need sane metal prices to stay in business. We're not talking a tiny drop here, either: prices on some metals have dropped 80% in the last 3 months.
Please consider donating to ACCRC here. They're a charitable organization, so you might even be able to get your employer to match it!
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As if thesis paper writing is not overwhelming enough as it is, the process does not end when all the words have been encoded in the computer.
do you carry pens or pencils in you're pocket? as you may know they take up allot of space this Instructable will show you how to shorten a macanical pencil and make it easier to carry in you're pocket with more room leftover
Throughout life breasts are associated with warmth, joy, and happy memories.
90 BILLION Bottles and Cans used in USA last year*
This is a knife i made using Basta's How to Build a Knife I made it as a project for History, cause i knew everyone else was just gonna do pyramids or mummies and all that boring crap. it has a false edge of course because my teacher didn't want me to bring a sharp knife to school, so after i get gr...
After looking on BoingBoing, I noticed a Fetus Cookie Cutter"" and was instantly amazed. For a while, I've been enthralled with the fetus shape and pattern. Then I took a look at my jumpdrive; it was naked. It had no housing. They build things so cheap these days. So, I decided to mak...
do you get annoyed with the sound of the scroll wheel? well here is your chance to take that click out of that scroll! if you break your mouse, its not my fault. im doing this mod with a logitech mouse. im not sure that it will work on other mouse but give it a shot.
When batteries don't give enough juice to gadgets, you think that they are completely dead. But, all of them still have plenty of volts, and with a simple circuit you can unlock all of that power. This instructable makes an LED lamp which will suck all of the juice out of those batteries. If i...
Winter is upon us, and if you ride your bike to work you may want to think about making your own tire chains. This project doesn't look too hard to make, and I bet they would add a lot of safety to that cold morning commute.
More about DIY Bicycle tire chains [bikecommuters]
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I'm back again and now I'm going to teach you how to draw Pengu the penguin!!!!!
This dad makes his kid's lunch... and art on the lunch bags each day.
use a foam egg carton masking tape and paint to make cool display brass knuckles
After school today, Matt and Anthony came in with Anthony's busted Ipod Video. They asked me how good I was at fixing iPods. Never having been inside an iPod before, I replied, "well let's see what you've got." It appears that the back came off the ipod, and now it was bricked. Anthony was pretty upset, wondering if all his songs would be missing, and what he would do without his beloved tunebox. It would not power up at all. He showed how it could be opened by grabbing at it with his nails and separating the back. so much for specialized antimar tools.
We did a few searches on replacing ipod batteries. One page that looked promising turned out to be about the wrong generation. Not knowing which model it was, we looked up the various models to get the generation right. His turned out to be a 5th gen iPod.
Next we needed to know what to expect inside. I could see a couple of ribbon cables that appeared to have just pulled out of their fittings. If they could be placed properly back into their slots, that would be fine. They needed to go back into place in such a way that the back could actually be reattached.
Inside, there was a bunch of cool stuff. The 80gig hard drive was incredibly small. I couldn't believe how much capacity could be stuffed into such a small package. The screen was neat too. Real thin, backlight coming from the top. There was some foam and spacers in there to keep things from flopping around. Everything was held together with ribbon cables.
The ribbon cables would be fine as long as they did not get torn. I found the fitting for one of them on the side, and saw that there was a flip latch to hold it together. After securing that one, the next was the one at the bottom. We got it to go into the slot, clicked the case together and hit the power button. About this time, Anthony got about his 50th text message of our short session. The Ipod would not fire up. Anthony was upset. Then his father called. He explained that he was in the middle of fixing his iPod. There was some discussion of Best Buy and their warrantee policy. I was pretty sure that there was no chance of this relic being still covered.
While they were talking, I cracked the thing open again and took a look at the second fitting, down near the charger port. It was stiffer, with reinforcement of a piece of white plastic. I figured that it had to be that the fitting was not all the way in. I used my Warrantee Voider to get the ribbon into the fitting all the way. Once I got it running, I showed it to him, and he reported happily to Dear Old Dad that all was well.
On looking at the catches on the case, we could see that one of them was more worn than the rest. I figured that it would be good for a while, but it would eventually pull apart, so I suggested that we make a skin for his newly functioning Ipod. He said he had nothing planned, but I could tell that now that his iPod was running, his daily routine was about to resume. We didn't have a whole lot of time.
First we looked up the dimensions for the 5th generation iPod. The thing I was looking for was a good, full dimension drawing that I could use to make the image for the skin. I wanted to make it so that the sticker on the front would reach over to the back and hold the two together. The image and dimensions did not jump out of the browser at me, so we grabbed a ruler and went over to the computer to design up a skin.
We used CutStudio, which comes bundled with the Roland CAMM1. I don't like the software much, but it ports right to the cutter. Once you have the thing designed, you can only cut it, I have not been able to find a way to export it for editing in a more powerful program like Gimp or Inkscape.
Rather than having him do the design work, I chose to do it myself. His texts and calls were coming with increasing frequency, and I knew word had gotten out that he no longer had an excuse to be absent from his pressing duties. We had to work fast. A couple of quick measurements, some alignment of shapes, and the overall design was done. To add tabs to the sides so they would reach over the back, I had to trace over the outline and duplicate most of the shape. Anthony was impressed that it was possible to design something that was so close to the outline of his beloved.
When I sent the file to the cutter, it was done in a few seconds. He couldn't believe it when I showed it to him. Then we weeded it and put it on transfer tape. It took a few tries to get it onto the iPod squarely, but eventually it went on fine. In looking at it, I told him that it wasn't such a great fit, and looked kind of unprofessional, but would keep the back from falling off. I invited him to come back on Monday to make a better looking skin, maybe with a picture that he made on it as well.
He cruised out the door about 45 minutes after coming into my room for the first time ever, happy as can be with his resurrected iPod in one hand and buzzing phone in the other. Problem solved.
Do you have tales of repairs and making things right? How about advice on how to get the right patterns for skins to fit various models of phones or audio players? Would you like to make new skins for your laptop, digicam or even dashboard? Share your ideas in the comments or add pictures and video to the Make Flickr pool.
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This is a nice instructable about making a really inexpensive green house. This is a great solution for keeping your plants warm for the winter. Check out the link for a step-by-step tutorial and video.
More about Building an Easy 5 x 5 Home Greenhouse for under $25
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Photos showing process of removing laser from HD-DVD drive.
The new iPhone update is pretty good - the maps app has street view, public transit - but best of all you can now download podcasts over Wi-Fi and wireless. I've been doing podcasts in some manner for over 5 years and this is what I've been waiting for!
This update contains many bug fixes and improvements, including the following: * Enhancements to Maps -Google Street View -public transit and walking directions -display address of dropped pins -share location via email * Enhancements to Mail -resolved isolated issues with Schedule fetching of email * Improved stability and performance of Safari * Podcasts are now available for download in iTunes application (over Wi-Fi and cellular network) * Decrease in call set-up failures and drops * Improved sound quality of visual voicemail messages * Pressing the Home button from any Home screen takes you to the first Home screen * Preference to turn on/off auto-correction in Keyboard SettingsKeep reading for some screenshots of the MAKE podcast (we're #8 in tech, woo!). Here's something I've seen anyone note yet, the podcast client for the iPhone? It can *see* the PDFs in iTunes but cannot download them, darn! Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in iPhone | Digg this!
This is a pound we built for an easy rain water reservoir for water and to hold fish
This is an interesting hack of a "voice changer" kit. I really like the sounds so far, and I think know it can be hacked a lot more. It would be cool to stuff this in a project box and add a few more hacking controls.
More about Pitch shifting with a "Voice Changer" kit
In the Maker Shed:
DIY Design Electronics Kit
ill show how to make an awesome poster in gimp
How to make an awesome shirt with some bleach and freezer paper.
Dodecahedron Table Lamp by Charles Platt. Have fun with classic Platonic geometry while building your own dodecahedron table lamp. Page 164 - MAKE 11. Read this article now in the MAKE digital edition.
Or get MAKE 11 from the Maker store and/or subscribe to MAKE (use code CMAKE for $5 off USD).
You can view all our in depth Primers from MAKE here too.
Solar Power System Design - A Primer @ MAKE
Solering and Desoldering - A Primer @ MAKE
HOW TO - Make printed circuit boards - A Primer @ MAKE
Welding - A Primer @ MAKE
Microcontroller Programming - A Primer @ MAKE
Sensor interfaces - A Primer @ MAKE
MIDI control - A Primer @ MAKE
Moldmaking by MythBuster Adam Savage - A Primer @ MAKE
Working with carbon fiber - A Primer @ MAKE
A sublime combination of sweet, sour & salt.. it's easy to make and even healthy!!
Last week I mentioned that adding &fmt=18 to a Youtube URL, or &ap=%2526fmt%3D18 to the embed code URLs allows you to view and embed Youtube clips in nice looking 480x360 resolution, encoded with the H.264 codec. The result is a much better playback experience than the standard 320x240 sorenson encoded clips, but a post today on webmonkey gives us another tweak that can produce even better results for some videos.
Above is an example of Collin Cunningham's brilliant LED investigation in high def.
By changing that fmt variable to &fmt=22 or tacking on &ap=%2526fmt%3D22 to the embed URLs—that's right, turn it up twice past 11—Youtube will kick out compatible videos at a whopping 720p resolution.
Here's some example embed code:
<object width="600" height="362"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/P3PDLsJQcGI&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&ap=%2526fmt%3D22"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/P3PDLsJQcGI&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&ap=%2526fmt%3D22" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="600" height="362"></embed></object>
The only downside to embedding videos this way is that it really raises the bandwidth requirement for viewers. On my home connection, it can take several seconds before the video begins playback, and depending on how well my wireless is behaving, it's not uncommon that the download rate will be slower thank playback, requiring quite a bit of pre-buffering. On the other hand, some videos are just worth the wait.
How To: Watch YouTube Movies in Full 720p HD Glory
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Using 3m Scotchlite fabric and spray adhesive you can wrap the frame tubing of your bike. You'll have the ultimate nightrider.
Ok, time to make a fan, you may do it for whatever you desier. the parts you may need are
www.pondplantgirl.com/coldframe.htm Here is how you can build your own home greenshouse for under $25. Also see my website at: www.pondplantgirl.com/coldframe.htm
Andrew writes -
Our favorite new iPhone hack, the duiPhone, will let you know for sure whether you should hand the car keys to a friend after a long night in the bar… Once you blow into the mouthpiece, the application will determine your blood alcohol level - either telling you you’re good to go, or that you should consider calling a cab. We built this from a store-bought-and-hacked breathalyzer attached to a 3G iPhone - our first experiment with Tellart’s newest Sketchtool: NADA Mobile. Yes, this video was taken at our office. Yes, those are real 40s on the table.
MAKE: Tokyo Meeting 02 was held on 11/8 at Tokyo's Tama Art University, and the MAKE: Japan events just keep getting bigger, better, and wonderfully wilder. Here are a few highlights gleaned from the massive influx of pictures, video, and bloggings that this event inspired.
Here's a video featuring four particularly awesome things from the meeting:
・Make: hat
・Air canon
・iPhone radio-controlled model car
・Homemade tank
Click through to see more!
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I dig this sweet bike hack. You'd want to be pretty confident in the tubing stability and mounting hardware before offering a ride to anyone you like. It is acceptable to require that they wear tube socks.
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Sonar garment to assist the visually impaired with navigating the built environment. Made from Lilypad main board, LV-MaxSonar ultrasonic range finder and a LilyPad vibeboard. The range finder can be set to locate a solid object X distance in front of the user and turn the vibeboard on alerting th...
I did this keyholder initially as a birthday present for a friend, but I really liked the design so I ended up making one for myself. The design is based on a magnetic connection between a small magnet hidden behind the wall-mounted plate and a steel ball attached to a triangiular acrylic keychain. ...
What happy people don’t do - Watch TV... I wonder if the Cornfield Electronics paid for this study? :)
Happy people spend a lot of time socializing, going to church and reading newspapers — but they don’t spend a lot of time watching television, a new study finds.
That’s what unhappy people do.
Although people who describe themselves as happy enjoy watching television, it turns out to be the single activity they engage in less often than unhappy people, said John Robinson, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland and the author of the study, which appeared in the journal Social Indicators Research.
While most large studies on happiness have focused on the demographic characteristics of happy people — factors like age and marital status — Dr. Robinson and his colleagues tried to identify what activities happy people engage in. The study relied primarily on the responses of 45,000 Americans collected over 35 years by the University of Chicago’s General Social Survey, and on published “time diary” studies recording the daily activities of participants.
“We looked at 8 to 10 activities that happy people engage in, and for each one, the people who did the activities more — visiting others, going to church, all those things — were more happy,” Dr. Robinson said. “TV was the one activity that showed a negative relationship. Unhappy people did it more, and happy people did it less.”
More:
Super TV-B-Gone kit, the happy maker. A great beginner kit to get started in electronics, hack it, mod it, be happy.
Hacking at Random has set a date and location for what sounds like a rather worthwhile conference:
Hacking at RandomInternational technology & security conference. Four days of technology, ideological debates and hands-on tinkering.
On August 13-16, 2009 the 20th anniversary edition of the four-yearly Dutch outdoor technology-conference will take place near Vierhouten, NL.
What is HAR?
Since 1989 the international community that builds the internet has been getting together on a series of conferences to discuss the state of contemporary technology, the future of it and the sociological and political consequences of their work. The participants vary from students and people with personal interests to researchers, scientists and entrepreneurs who are widely recognized as the best in their field.The atmosphere is friendly and relaxed, the average level of knowledge is high and outside of the official lectures the site is buzzing with energy, ideas and projects. The New York Times likened the 1997 edition to a "Woodstock for Hackers". We do our best to keep that atmosphere.
Woodstock for Hackers? I'm drooling already:)
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MAKE publisher and BoingBoing guest blogger Dale Dougherty points out this collection of unhappy hard drive sound clips you may be all too familiar with.
These are the last words of devices which will hopefully find new life as wind chimes clocks and more good stuff. Could be fun to build a percussive sample set out of these! [via BoingBoing]
More:
&
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Punkky is a watch enthusiast from Japan. On his blog, PIC Microcontroller Note, he's documenting the built of a 7-Segment PIC Digital Clock using the PIC16F628A MCU. It's his first MCU project. After working the kinks out on breadboards, he etched and hand-routed a board (he'll share the Eagle file with others if you ask).
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Pixel-based typography from 1567 - On the death and 441-year life of the pixel via DF.
The struggle to adequately render letterforms on a pixel grid is a familiar one, and an ancient one as well: this bitmap alphabet is from La Vera Perfettione del Disegno di varie sorte di ricami, an embroidery guide by Giovanni Ostaus published in 1567. Renaissance ‘lace books’ have much to offer the modern digital designer, who also faces the challenge of portraying clear and replicable images in a constrained environment.Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this!
Tellart turned an iPhone into a duiPhone with its latest Sketchtools kit. Combine a 3G iPhone, an ordinary store-bought breathalyzer, and the NADA Mobile, which consists of a communication board, sensors, and actuators, and get a useful iPhone application. Blow into the mouthpiece, and the iPhone will inform you if you can safely drive, or if you should call a cab.
We’d like to find out more about the NADA Mobile, since it looks like it could be the start of a lot of fun projects. It’s the latest of Tellart’s Sketchtools line, which can only be accessed if you work with Tellart as a consultant, or if you work with them to organize a workshop for your organization.
[via Digg]
The iTunes U category @ the iTunes store gathers together a ton of free and interesting educational vids on a variety of topics including - engineering, mathematics, science, and much more - iTunes U
More:
Interactive electronics learning online!
German designer [Michael Schoner] of NL Architects turned an ordinary street bench into a public sound system that can be accessed by passersby with iPods and cellphones with Bluetooth. Boom Bench features 60 watt co-axial speakers, two subwoofers, and a bass shaker in the seat that’ll allow you to feel the vibrations of your music choices. It was on display in Amsterdam last month for the Urban Play event. It remains to be seen whether this new urban development will make your daily wait for the bus more entertaining or aggravating.
[via Notcot]
Add lights to your graphing calculator. Do it now. [Sil3ntP8nd8] added some, and seems to have done a decent job. They are spread around the back, supplying a nice even light on, well, on whatever is under your calculator. It may be difficult to see too much detail though on account of the water marks. You have to protect your intellectual property though. This almost compares to the DS LED monstrosity we covered recently.
How to make it & Science and Invention covers... absolutely stunning.
But wait, there's more!
Not to be limited to pencil, the Drawdio sound generating/art project is seen here using the conductivity of water from a paint brush. Temporary marks can be made and used - then just let them evaporate away. Neat!
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This is a cool way to incorporate an Arduino into your Thanksgiving dinner. Check out this site on Thanksgiving for live video feeds and core turkey temperature graphs thanks to an Arduino. [Thanks Michael]
In addition to video, flickr and twitter feeds, probably the single coolest part of the site is the live temperature graph. We have an arduino based system that measures the temperature of the bird, the air in the smoker and the outside air and updates a graph on the site so anyone can see how the bird is coming.
More about the Arduino Based Turkey Temperature Probes
In the Maker Shed:
Bare Bones Arduino Board Kit (Unassembled)
10 Years of the ISS in pictures @ Universe Today.
Artist Jason Freeny has produced this awesome Micro Schematic of a LEGO minifig. Via I Heart Guts!
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The ultimate gadget of 1930s - Jaeger LeCoultre Compass via NOTCOT. Is this real?
Meredith from the Steampun
