Being a maker doesn’t stop at the doorstep. There are tons of DIY car hacks you can use to upgrade, restore, or optimize your ride – all without relying on expensive mechanics! Whether it’s installing a hands-free device for your entertainment center or adding additional lighting for headlights, these do-it-yourself car hacks are just perfect for makers who enjoy customizing their automobiles in unique and innovative ways.
On the latest episode of The Ben Heck Show, Ben helps Charlie and his son Bug create the Squatch Tracker 9000, a remote-controlled Sasquatch-hunting car. Made mostly out of foamcore, this great project doesn’t require any expensive parts.
The winners from Road to Maker Faire Challenge are announced! Look for the winning project next month at Maker Faire Bay Area.
New Make: Labs intern, Paul Mundell, talks about his latest project — adding an automatic door unlocker to his 98 Toyota Tacoma.
Built from a welded frame atop a 1979 Ford Falcon (a vehicle popular with the then-ruling military junta), Argentinian art-car maker Raul Lemesoff drives around the streets of Buenos Aires distributing free books…
Yet another reason to own a stainless steel car. An “insane amount of time,” but the results are undeniably stunning; check out more pics in this thread at autopia.org. Rob Beschizza found that it’s been done at least once before.
Wannes Vermeulen created an iPad app to control a modded RC car, complete with a remote point-of-view camera: I used two servo motors attached to the original remote control of the car to adjust speed and steering. These are controlled by an Arduino Uno, which gets the accelerometer data from the iPad through a socket server on my laptop. I also fitted my old Android smartphone to the car, which uses an IPCam app to stream the video to the iPad. The “camera”, the iPad and the laptop are connected to the same Wi-Fi network to share their data.
MAKE contributor Jeffrey McGrew, of the brilliant design duo (w/ Jillian Northrup) Because We Can, was involved in building part of Jon Sarriugarte/Kyrsten Mate’s serpent art cars for this year’s Burning Man. Jeffrey and Jillian built the amazing Viking ship-inspired tails.
