Fun & Games

The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for bikes, rockets, R/C vehicles, toys and other diversions.

The First Citizen of My Personal Robot Nation Has Arrived

The First Citizen of My Personal Robot Nation Has Arrived

Back in November at AnDevCon II, I met Jonathan Hirshon of Horizon Communications, who hooked me up with a complimentary robot from My Robot Nation. This had nothing to do with Android; it probably came up because we had a MakerBot running in O’Reilly’s booth printing out little Androids (using casainho’s Android magnet design from Thingiverse). Enough about androids and robots. As ST:TNG’s Lt. Commander Data is so fond of reminding us, there is a difference between the two!

Continue Reading Brian Jepson10
Breaking into Making: A Meditation

Breaking into Making: A Meditation

At what point did you know you were a “maker?” Making springs from an insatiable need to learn about, dissect, and modify. For some this impulse came early, for others, it didn’t arise until later. Maybe you were the kid who could always fix a broken bike, or you dug into your family’s first PC at a young age and didn’t stop until, years later, you had graduated to making complex gadgets using physical computing.

Continue Reading Michael Colombo24

Tinker, Tinker, Little Star

We hope you and your are having a fantastic holiday in whatever tradition you celebrate. Speaking of tradition, last year we posed this depression-era Fleischer brothers cartoon, “Christmas Comes But Once a Year.” It got such a positive response, I think we’ll make it a tradition. It so delightful, inventive, and a perfect holiday message the maker spirit.

Continue Reading Gareth Branwyn16

Lego Loom

Congratulations to Lego hacker sren2000 for this brilliant loom. I’m building some Mindstorms robots right now and sren2000’s work blows me away with its sophistication. [Thanks to Shep at Tinkernology for linking to sren2000’s Lego pen plotter, which is also great!]

Continue Reading John Baichtal8