The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for bikes, rockets, R/C vehicles, toys and other diversions.
The Bay Area Lego Users Group builds creations of every size and type imaginable, exclusively using Lego blocks. From entire neighborhoods of buildings, to a scale reproduction of the battleship Yamato, they had plenty on hand to show at Maker Faire Bay Area 2011. At their meetings they often have competitions to test their building prowess, in events such as coaster cars and structural stability on their very own “earthquake table.”
“How Hard Can It Be” is a new DIYer show on the National Geographic Channel this Sunday, October 2nd, at 8 pm. The show stars Vin Marshall, Paul Carson, and Eric Gocke as they create outlandish projects like the UP house, a homemade rocket, and a robo-sub. Check out the video, it looks awe-some!
Plywood might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you’re designing a cargo bike, but for Michael Downes and Jeff Sayler it led to a uniquely elegant custom ride. Downes, an industrial designer, conceived the wooden Bakfiets-style cargo bike as an entry to the Oregon Manifest Design Challenge and enlisted his neighbor, Sayler, a master shipwright, as the other half of the duo know as Art & Industry. Together they designed and built the 51 pound hauler using CNC-cut plywood glued together with a custom epoxy resin. Additional refinements such as bamboo veneer, storage compartments, hatches, and a cargo bin are to be seen on the final version.
From Instructables user The Papier Boy. Complete with freaking-out R2 unit! “The spinning droid was constructed of Styrofoam and painted to look like R2-D2. I used one of my daughterโs old toys to create the motion. The toy had a gear on it that spun when a button was pushed. I cut the toy in half (it was too big) and mounted the toy to the underside of the body and glued the droid head onto the gear. To control the spinning I used an old NES controller. ..”
Fun Bike Unicorn Club – Todd Barricklow , through the Fun Bike Unicorn Club, works metal into unique pedal-powered vehicles. His designs often start from just a sketch, and completed through a process of trial-and-error. He came to Maker Faire Bay Area 2011 to ride his creations.
Mike Doyle’s masterwork Lego Victorian on Mud Heap follows up on his similar, if less epic, creations, Three Story Victorian with Tree and Two Story with Basement. This latest work is 5.5′ x 6′ x 3′ and uses well over 100,000 Lego elements, and took 600 hours of build time. For me, this piece speaks […]
MIT students Andrew Carlson, Leah Alpert and Russell Cohen built this Tetris game that uses pads from dancing game Dance Dance Revolution to control the shapes. Each board is a 200-LED matrix. Tetris installation controlled by DDR Mats. Color Kinetic LEDs in laser cut acrylic tubes set in chip-board matrix. If one player clears two […]
