BuffaloFeeds » MAKE Magazine » February 28, 2010

Messenger bags made from recycled life vests

Posted: February 28th, 2010, 8:00pm MST

Lisa Katayama spotted this cool shoulder bag made from an old airplane life jacket. Unfortunately, no, it doesn't work as a life vest anymore.

[via Boing Boing]

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Remixed Ikea bar

Posted: February 28th, 2010, 6:00pm MST

Portuguese design students Diogo Aguiar and Teresa Otto built a temporary bar out of Ikea bins for the annual Queima das Fitas celebrating the end of exams:

Year after year, the students of Oporto School of Architecture are invited to think on a temporary bar to represent their institution with the expected dignity, as an outstanding architectural object. The given implantation, the fast construction and the low budget are some of the premises which must be considered.

The proposed bar stands as an iconic cube of light, composed of modular parts. Taking advantage of the IKEA build-by-your-own world, the project is a parallelepiped made out of different depth storage boxes which give it the modular diversity on its textured skin. After winning the competition, some adjustments were done and the bar grew to 4,7 metre high, standing as a visual reference.

Built in one week with the help of students, it was completed one month after the jury announcement. A total of 420 boxes were first fixed on a wooden structure and then attached to the main metal structure, on site. A huge LED net was fixed behind the boxes, allowing the bar to dramatically change its appearance: by day a white abstract and closed volume; and by night a box of changing light following the DJ set.

[via Dezeen]

Thanks for the additional info, João!

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CRAFT weekly recap

Posted: February 28th, 2010, 3:00pm MST

This week on CRAFT we saw:

Articulate Matter - A Sculptural Web Comic

The Making of David Ellison's Tables

Photoshop Cooking

DIY Play Laptop

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"Artist in residence from outer space" dies

Posted: February 28th, 2010, 2:01pm MST

Images from the McCall Studios website.

Sadly, famed science fiction and space exploration artist, Robert McCall, has died. He passed away on Friday, of a heart attack, in his Scottsdale, Arizona home.

Anybody who's paid even passing attention to sci-fi, the space program, or postage stamp art has seen Bob McCall's work. He painted the images on the 2001: A Space Odyssey poster, painted the amazing space mural at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum, and created many of the images found on NASA mission patches. His friend Isaac Asimov once described him as the "nearest thing to an artist in residence from outer space."

I remember pouring over his images as a kid and own a well-traveled copy of Vision of the Future, the Ben Bova book dedicated to McCall's work. He will be sorely missed by spacey visionaries everywhere. [Thanks, Rachel!]

Famed space artist Robert McCall, 90, dies

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Recycling design competition

Posted: February 28th, 2010, 12:00pm MST

Background: The Recycling Designprize

It is an „open" competition which invites all creatives and designers with professional or semi-professional education to submit their works and concepts.

We ask for the design of objects made of "garbage" and/or industrial rests of production. The objects should be made for daily use or for décor. The objects should be planned for production in "smaller" or "bigger" series in the frame of an institution of employment promotion. It is not allowed to use materials which are marked with the "green point" (which is a special german collection system for the packing material of consumer goods).

The aim of the designprize

Via the use of "littered things" (from industry, handicraft), garbage, "residual material", useless things shall become useable. The developed products shall be displayed for sale in institutions of employment promotion and generating so a social usability. The production of "clever", "beautiful" and "useful" objects which award a prize conduce the environment and are a contribution for employment promotion.

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Free shipping in the Maker Shed ends today

Posted: February 28th, 2010, 10:21am MST

Today is the last day to take advantage of free shipping in the Maker Shed. So what's the catch? The offer is available on orders of $125 or more, shipped to an address in the continental US. But what about all our overseas friends? No problem, you can save $10 on shipping for orders over $125. Just remember to use coupon code FEBSHIP at checkout.

Need some inspiration? Check out our new MintyBoost bundle, compressed air rocket kits, or transparent breadboards. We are also taking pre-orders of our Make: Electronics Components Pack 1.

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DIY audio test box

Posted: February 28th, 2010, 9:00am MST

From the MAKE Flickr pool:

Check out Dave's excellent prototyping box built from a child's lap desk.

I frequently work on projects in the living room in front of the TV while sitting on the couch soldering away hunched over a disarray of wires, parts, wires, speakers, cords, breadboards, and tools. Whenever I want to work from the couch I have to go into the studio and make 15 trips up and down the stairs, cables, toolbox, parts boxes, soldering iron, etc. It's always a major hassle. Then, when I've finally completed mocking something up on the breadboard and I want to test it I need speakers, headphones, a sound source and I have to connect it all with alligator clips. It's really inefficient and makes me less apt to start a project because all I can think about is the huge mess it's going to make.

Dave's project write-up includes a great description of the build process as well as wiring diagrams. Awesome!

More:

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