And we’re back with our eleventh installment of Your Comments. Here are our favorites from the past week, from Make: Online, our Facebook page, and Twitter.
Prompted by the Make & Mend ideas from @make_tips DanYHKim had an interesting tip for re-using coffee grounds:
I was patching my roof with a tar-like material, and got stuff on my knife, screwdriver and skin. I cleaned myself by scrubbing the skin off, but the tar was too hard to easily remove from tools. I used spent coffee grounds as a mild abrasive to rub off the tar residue. The grounds abrade a bit of tar off the tool, and leave enough oil behind to keep it from sticking back to the piece. Clean-up was surprisingly fast. It also works with skin, but an Espresso or Turkish grind is less painful to use.
Kathryn Small was pleased with the results of their microwave reverse engineering:
It was great to finally use the microwave for an experiment where it *probably wouldn’t* blow up. This is probably because we only have one microwave. If we had two, we’d *have* to pull the second one apart :D
Stefanie Mixon Kompathoum wins the prize for best pun with this Facebook suggestion to name Collin’s silly hat:
Name this hat ” Collin-der”
Robot Mike is apparently enjoying his very own Slink-O-Matic machine:
Jim made me my very own Slink-O-Matic. I have no stairs in my house so it is indeed a very welcome machine. While I’m sure it can solve differential equations with ease, I just use it as a hypnotic brain dissolver. Thanks Jim!
On Facebook, Thyme Council had a suggestion to improve the Post-apocalyptic tanker truck home concept:
the concept looks awesome! i just don’t get the necessity for the “post-apocalyptic” angel; aren’t there a 1000++ of these sitting around going to waste, NOW, and don’t we have people who need homes, NOW? seriously.
However, capt.tagon was not convinced:
Most Apocalyptic movies are assembled from building blocks like this, until you say, hey, wait a minute, but… and start comparing them to real life disasters. Even most modern fallout shelter and survivalist den scenarios fall apart when you start combining them with reality.
On twitter, tinyenormous shared the joy of taking the hand of man for a spin:
@make Just got to take #handofman giant robot for a test drive. It was featured in #makemag Epic is too small of a word to describe it!
Rob Cruickshank gave a success story about traveling with homemade electronics:
Well before 9/11, I flew to Tokyo with an art piece which comprised a bunch of circuit boards in a tupperware-style container, together with gel-cell batteries, and many metres of red wire connected to speakers which, since they were intended to be inconspicuously installed outside, were painted with camouflage patterns. After something like 18 hours in the air, I arrived at Narita airport, and promptly gapped out, and turned my back on the suitcase and walked away from it. Of course, minutes later, it was gone, so I had to find Security, and explained what I’d lost, and was led to two guys with “we’ve been expecting you” looks on their faces. It took a while to explain exactly what the thing was, but the magic word seemed to be “hobby”. “Ahhh. Hobby! Ok, you can go.” Everyone was actually very polite and helpful. I don’t think the story would play out in exactly the same way today. My two pieces of advice are: If possible, be able to demo your piece. A half-finished thing that you can’t demo will be percieved as more of a threat. Also, when traveling with odd things in your bags, get to security *early* to allow for extra grilling without the stress of missing your plane making you appear nervous.
Like these comments? Be sure to sound off in the comments! You could be in next week’s column.
Above photo is “Coffee Grounds” by Flickr user rjg329.
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