The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for bikes, rockets, R/C vehicles, toys and other diversions.
Build your own life-size grasshopper and explore solar power with this educational mini solar robot kit. The snap-together, attention-getting Solar Frightened Grasshopper teaches how solar energy can be used to generate electricity. This easy-to-use science kit is perfect for first-time experimenters with little or no experience. Ages 10 and up.
How are your reflexes? Ken Delahoussaye’s Pendulum Challenge (featured in MAKE Volume 26) is a fun and clever handheld game that you assemble on a printed circuit board. The game’s arc-shaped array of 15 LEDs (14 red and 1 green) simulate the path of a swinging pendulum, which you try to stop at the bottom […]
This kit’s great for office warfare but it’s really meant for flight-testing paper airplanes. Two DC motors spin rubber discs in opposite directions to grab your plane and propel it up to 30mph. There’s no soldering, just pre-cut wires and a screw terminal block. Intended for teaching kids ages 14 and up, it’s easily assembled in […]
This detailed post from modeling forum member Panzerpaul nicely shows off the skill and hard work that went into creating his radio-controlled replica of a WWII-era German tank destroyer commonly called a Hetzer. To house the R/C electronics and other guts, the hull has to be hollow.
Stewert King shot this video of a talented woodworker in the streets of Marrakech using a bow lathe to turn out a chess piece. This simple hand-powered tool, in the right hands (and in this case feet), can produce intricately carved items in a matter of minutes. The show of skill and dexterity is truly mesmerizing.
In support of the latest issue of MAKE, Volume 28, MAKE contributor Stefan Jones sent me a link to this PDF of a booklet from the 1950s on model airplane building. It was put out by Sterling Models and reprinted from Flying Models Magazine.
More sci-fi cosplay badness from prop-maker, costumer, and MAKE pal Shawn Thorsson. I haven’t played Dead Space 2, yet, but I enjoyed the first one, and I have to say that protagonist Isaac Clarke’s “Engineering RIG suit” looks exactly the same to me. And Shawn’s version is pretty spot-on. Lots of details over at Shawn’s blog, and more pics in his Flickr set. [Thanks, Shawn!]
