Roland sent along this great DIY site for building Halloween settings “For Halloween 2004, we added a spooky crypt to our graveyard scene. This project requires a fair amount of work, but with a few helpers (at least one of which has some woodworking skills), you too can have a ghost haunt a crypt for your Halloween celebration.” Link.
Here’s another laptop to picture frame project – this one uses an iBook. The iBook screen was flipped around, a new color added and the whole thing uses a hockey puck to stand on its own. The power button was moved to a more accessible spot too. Link.
This site allows you to enter any image or Flickr photo location and it will generate a calendar. You need to select each month and create the months manually, but with just 12 photos and little bit of time you could make a nice present for someone during the holidays. [via] Link. Oh, here’s mine – it’s November, and that’s “cyborg your dog” month here.
Johnathan writes “Now that volume 4 of MAKE is hitting newsstands, I have posted my article from volume 3: “DIY Security Bits”. Figured it might be a good way to give blog readers more of a taste of the magazine content (though the existing sample PDFs are obviously the first stop for that.) The article details a method for making your own security bits for tamperproof screws, whose drivers are often ridiculously priced and just as ridiculously scarce.” Link.
Jake writes “I make kerosene lamps from old electrical lamp parts. Much of the hardware in today’s electric lamps is actually descended from the days of kerosene and gas, the ubiquitous 3/8″ threaded rod for instance. It’s amazing how genuinely useful a good kerosene lamp is, it’s oh so easy to imagine a steampunk future where Mr. Edison’s electric light never came to be!” Link.
Interesting device built from a Sherline 5400 tabletop milling machine…information on a a portable, battery powered, electromechanical projectile launcher the author designed and built. It is a type of “centrifugal” launcher powered by a DC motor. The launcher fires primarily plastic spheres (or steel with some modifications) semi- or full- automatically that is more powerful than a typical airsoft gun. No compressed air or any other energy source besides the battery pack is needed to power the launcher, so it is capable of sustained full automatic fire. The device is called a “PEST”, or Portable Electromechanical Slug Thrower for short. *grin* The PEST has the following specifications… Link.
MAKE Flickr photo pool member Kalanda has a photo set of the DIY video projector he made from an old overhead projector and a LCD screen. It’s a pretty low tech creation, but the results appear pretty good. The design also includes two little PC fans to keep the LCD cool while it is running. Link. Bonus link: There’s also another LCD projector project on the photo pool too here.
