Arduino-powered breathalyzer LED display
Santa Clara, CA, resident Al Linke’s LED-enhanced pergola flashes its lights in tune with the music, or in response to an alcohol sensor. It’s all controlled by an Arduino Mega.
Year: 2010
How-To: Make a fake beard
This tutorial from last year on CRAFT is just as fresh as ever. If you can’t grow one to match your local urban lumberjacks, make a fake beard (by Erin Dollar).
Jaw-dropping “unmixing” demo appears to reverse entropy
I identify as a scientist, but I gotta admit: When I saw this video from Steve Spangler Science, my first impulse was to jump back from the computer, cross myself, and douse the screen with holy water. It reminded me of a line from John Carpenter’s underappreciated 1987 horror movie, Prince of Darkness:
And we assume time is an arrow because it is as a clock…Cause precedes effect – fruit rots, water flows downstream. We’re born, we age, we die. The reverse NEVER happens…
Unless, apparently, you’re dealing with a system operating under conditions of laminar flow. Obviously, there is no real “violation” of the second law of thermodynamics, here, but because almost all of our intuitions about how liquids are going to behave are formed under conditions of turbulent flow, it sure does seem like it.
Best of CRAFT Patterns: Lacy Long Socks
Lacy and decorative socks are back in fashion more than ever this fall and winter. I love these Lacy Long Socks knitting pattern that we featured back in 2008 from the book, Love to Knit Socks. Knit these adorable socks up this weekend. Then, show them off with your booties or knit them longer so […]
Forget the T-shirt cannon, how about a T-shirt tank!?
Andrew, a MAKE subscriber from Glen Ellyn, IL, sent us a link to this in-store T-shirt tank that Kevin from Workshop 88 (a makerspace in the Western Chicago Suburbs) built. It’s a working tank, complete with headlights and a swiveling turret, made out of things like paint buckets and cedar edging. The T-shirt cannon was […]
Programmable Halloween costume
Minneapolitan Michael Krumpus programmed his son’s halloween costume to flash LEDs in random patterns. Like many parents, we make hand-made costumes for our kids instead of buying cheaply-made (and expensive) costumes based on licensed characters. This year, my youngest son wanted to be a robot. My wife did a great job making the costume, but […]
Pavlov’s cell phone
Ian Page writes: For the last 8 years, whenever my cell phone received a call or text it would vibrate in my pocket. ‘Bondage Happens’ is a device I wear on my head that is connected to my cell phone. Whenever I receive a call or text the phone will vibrate and the device will […]
