Reader Input
Rosy CupCakes, router safety, shocked kids, and pirate booms.
Fun & Games
The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for bikes, rockets, R/C vehicles, toys and other diversions.
Tattooed Lego minifigs
This is a viral marketing campaign for some kind of extra-fine point Pilot pen. I love the minifigs themselves, but the campaign bugs me for a couple of reasons: 1) I’ve been Googling around pretty hard and can’t seem to figure out exactly which of Pilot’s many pens these photos are promoting, and 2) nowhere does it explicitly state that the art on the minifigs was actually done with whatever pen they are advertising. So even if I could figure out which one that was, it’s not at all clear that I could actually use it to tattoo my own minifigs. In any case, any kind of super-fine-point permanent maker would probably work. [via Boing Boing]
DIY powder coating rig
I stumbled across this powder coating make blog post a while ago and decided to build something similar. My first attempt worked well but I built an improved unit with a similar topology to commercial units. I’m in the process of building my third prototype now.
How-To: Make a Tangram Puzzle
Meg of Elsie Marley shares a tutorial for making a tangram puzzle from balsa wood. I used to love playing with these when I was a kid, and I’m thinking I need to try my hand at it again and introduce my kids to the fun of a tangram puzzle.
How-To: Simple rolly bot
Randy Sarafan writes: This Simple Bot was inspired by a work by artist James Rouvelle called Colony in which a bunch odd shaped ovals self-propel around their environment. It is my understanding that his bots were made by placing a vibrating motor freely inside of a Styrofoam ball that was then coated to give it […]
Droid controlled MultiCuber 777 solves 7x7x7 V-Cube
The ARM powered Motorola Droid controlled LEGO Mindstorms NXT robot called MultiCuber 777 solves a 7x7x7 V-CUBE 7 in 38 minutes 54 seconds.
Remote controlled shoulder puppets
My significant other was recently given one of these Woodbaby shoulder puppets by a friend of hers who frequents renaissance faires, where the Woodbaby is a popular commodity. The puppet features a strong magnet in its base that mates with a curved metal “shoulder plate” that goes under your clothing and keeps the figure firmly perched on your shoulder. The mechanical control cable (which, per this thread discussing a DIY version, are R/C airplane control surface push-rods) runs to a simple controller that can be concealed in a pocket and manipulated to make the figure turn its head and look around in a surprisingly life-like manner. More elaborate versions have additional controls like wings and blinking, light-up eyes. Flickr user JeffreyWiden made his own. Would be cool to see an electronic version with a wireless control fob.