Fun & Games

The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for bikes, rockets, R/C vehicles, toys and other diversions.

Antique military headset for gaming

Antique military headset for gaming

Joe Bower got a Vietnam-era US Army Radio Headset in an antiques/surplus store, sealed in the box, for $15. Using a dissected Molex cable and a cheap 2.5mm headset jack, he was able to get the set working with Xbox Live. Now Call of Duty has that extra note of authenticity (especially ’cause there’s extra […]

Life-size Katamari controller

Life-size Katamari controller

Kellbot of NYCResistor built this sweet Katamari Damacy controller from a mouse, Arduino, and PSX controller – A long time ago, in a galaxy identical to this one, I wanted to make a life-sized Katamari, and use it to play Katamary Damacy on PS2. My friend Eric Skiff shot a video, and while it’s not […]

DIY videotape pinball

Some time last year, there was a bunch of news about how VCR tapes would no longer be manufactured. Around the same time I noticed that none of the VCRs showing up at the dump had digital tuners. Wouldn’t it have been nice if those manufacturers could have dropped in a little extra circuit board […]

DIY bike helmet fan

DIY bike helmet fan

From the MAKE Flickr pool Matt outfitted his headgear with some quick-n-dirty AC – I was bored one day at NYCR and started playing with my rising collections of motors. Ended up stuffing an 18v motor into my bike helmet and putting two 9vs in series on it. Runs awesome. Surprisingly effective as a cooling […]

Rock Band axe in a box

Rock Band axe in a box

From the MAKE Flickr pool Flickr member TheCase converted a busted RB guitar to an unusually compact version – This is an initially unintended side effect of working on a Rock Band automatic guitar playing robot. The minimal set of electronics from a previously malfunctioning 360 wireless guitar (thanks Mig!) – also contains the relays […]