I first learned how to make these great little bobbins in my beginning weaving class at Northern Illinois University. They are great for weaving, especially tapestry weaving, but also when working brocade on the floor loom. And really great for organizing your stash when there are tons of little random balls in there. Unlike balls […]
Looking for something to do in NYC this afternoon? Then you should totally check out Gizmodo Gallery 2009, a technology art/history show featuring products and projects from many makers, including Make associate editor Becky Stern’s TV-B-Gone hoodie.
If you know me, you know I love lasers. And patterns. And lasercut patterns. Hirmes on Thingiverse made this lasercut Islamic pattern box. Stick an LED inside and it would make a great ornament or lantern.
Around this time of year one might notice that their local variety of mesquite tree is littering the neighborhood with odd figured legumes. These curly, hooked and sometimes pom-pom shaped pods (screw bean, honey and velvet) offer up a nutritious treat to the creative forager. With a bit of mastery, the pods can also become high value products – flour and sweetener that sell for 30X their white flour and sugar standards. Mesquite’s sweet, dark taste makes it a great match for pancakes, breads, molasses and a host of baked goods.
Alexis Belonio is an associate professor in agricultural engineering at the Central Philippine University of Iloilo City. In 2008 he received a Rolex Award for Enterprise for a rice-husk-burning stove he designed. Belonio’s stove is not complicated, either mechanically or conceptually: A columnar metal burner with the addition of a small intake fan at the base to tip the stoichiometry of combustion towards oxidation, giving a blue, clean, efficient flame that leaves little or no residue. Traditional rice husk burners, by contrast, do not have this forced-air feature and produce a yellow, dirty, inefficient flame that leaves tar behind. The upshot is more efficient use of rice husk biomass and greatly reduced pollution from the many rice-husk burners in use today.
The electric chair is an old haunted-house standby, but YouTuber kenpilot’s version is really outstanding. Excelsior!
There is in fact no evidence that this wonderful perpetually-drumming-fingers automaton by Nik Ramage was ever intended to be anything but a piece of art. But it had the bad fortune to come across my desk in the midst of the Make: Halloween Contest 2009 frenzy so I am hereby diminishing it to the status of Halloween prop. At least potentially. Personally, if I could afford one I’d leave it out all year under a spotlight. Beautiful.
