The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for bikes, rockets, R/C vehicles, toys and other diversions.
The day before Maker Faire Bay Area opened, we ran into Kurt and Bobbi Pires putting the finishing touches on a unique quadricycle in the South Lot of the fairgrounds. Dubbed Opabinia Regalis, the vehicle is named after an extinct Precambrian creature and has now been reborn as an angry, fire-spewing art bike.
I love simple toys that are created with everyday household items, so these paper strip tops from Curious Kangaroos really strike my fancy. Playing with tops can actually be a nice little meditative break in your day, and a few of these on your desk would be great fun. [via Nerdstink]
This Great Ball Contraption features an nicely designed robotic arm. [Via The NXT Step]
Philadelphia area maker Jenn Hall improved the visual quality of her motorcycle helmet by turning it into a R2D2 helmet. The process included scuffing up the existing paint job and adding consecutive coats of spray paint and laboriously cut masking tape. The whole thing is finished off with some PVC tubing, some blinking lights, and plenty of clear coat. What a great way to liven up an otherwise mundane safety apparatus.
Since most urban cyclists can never be sure what they’ll be locking to, they’ll often keep both a chain and a U-Lock for versatility’s sake. If you had an extra twelve pounds to make your bike theft-proof, how would you do it?
While quadrotors are a popular topic here at MAKE, Lockheed Martin is taking things in the other direction with Samarai, their proof-of-concept monocoptor. The design is inspired by a maple seed, often called a “whirlybird” for the way it falls from the tree, rotating as it slowly floats towards the earth. Lockheed’s prototype is 10 […]
OK, almost entirely: The actual cutting is done by a metal drill bit. Everything else, however, is Lego system elements. It looks like the machine uses a “raster” type subtractive process, covering the surface of the block in a close-packed grid of holes, each of which is drilled to an appropriate depth to form the final surface contours.
