The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for bikes, rockets, R/C vehicles, toys and other diversions.
MOCpages user David Hyman created an ambitious Lego robotic hand controlled by a wrist-mounted exoskeleton packing 3 rotation sensors and 2 touch sensors. I built it using 3 RCX bricks, one for each finger. The hand has two fingers and an opposable thumb. Each finger/thumb uses a rack & pinion mechanism which moves flexible tubes […]
Natan Linder upgraded his trusty desklamp, augmenting it with a robotic arm, pico projector, and camera to make the LuminAR.
If you live in an apartment, you know that lugging your bike up the staircase is no fun. Back in MAKE Volume 11, Virginia-based maker Matthew Russell shared instructions for making his simple swiveling balcony hoist with us. For about $50 (or less, depending on what you have laying around the workshop), build the hoist […]
Every once in a while, something gets submitted to us that resonates, tickles, informs, and/or inspires on a really deep, satisfying level. This is one of those items. Everything about it. The project itself, these super-cool origami airplanes, made from phonebook paper, the obvious dedication of the teacher who made this video and teaches his […]
This is a pretty amazing folding transformation of a 2-unit cube into a pair of stellated rhombic dodecahedra. You can buy the (fairly pricey) toy version pictured above from the Museum of Modern Art. It is also possible to make your own, from paper, by following the instructions in the video below. It is, reportedly, a very rewarding if time-consuming process. You can download the pattern here.
I love how this Mindstorms robot is able to emulate a real human gait rather than having the slow shuffle that most walking robots feature. Of course it is held up with strings, but it shows the potential of the (toy) technology. This video was created as part of our project in the Department of […]
Cory Doctorow has announced a new card game based on the cool illustrations that accompanied the serialized version of his novel Makers. Last year, my novel Makers was published and syndicated free as a series of 81 blog-posts on Tor.com. Tor had the insanely creative people at Idiots’ Books produce 81 interlocking, tesselating illustrations, one […]
