Washers

Cardboard Cat Rocket

Cardboard Cat Rocket

No matter how many fancy cat toys they have, there is nothing in this world that makes my cats happier than a good old fashioned cardboard box. So, taking a cue from them, I designed a cat tree that turns four regular cardboard boxes into a flashy two-story cat rocket, complete with carpet for scratching […]

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The BeatBearing Tangible Rhythm Sequencer

The BeatBearing Tangible Rhythm Sequencer

The BeatBearing is an exciting and intuitive way to make music. Move the balls on a grid, and you change the beat. Music sequencing couldn’t be simpler. Like countless other musicians, I use a computer to create beats and sequence them into mixes. Pointing and clicking with a mouse is fine for a studio, but […]

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The “Discreet Companion” Ladies’ Raygun

The “Discreet Companion” Ladies’ Raygun

Torch lighters are handy, cheap, and easy to find. They come in a wide variety of shapes and styles, so there’s room for customizing to your personal taste. I normally modify mine with antique parts, but here I chose parts that you can get in most hardware and home stores. The finished raygun works well […]

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Lamp with a Thousand Eyes

Lamp with a Thousand Eyes

Roger Korman meets Man Ray in this from-scratch assemblage that requires virtually no skill. It does, however, require a little vision with respect to overall style and design, as much as stacking cottage cheese containers constitutes “design.” The lamp base is composed of plaster forms cast from plastic food containers. Reusable storage containers like Tupperware […]

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Marble Adding Machine

Marble Adding Machine

Computers add binary numbers constantly, but we never see how. This elegant machine does the math using glass marbles. I started building marble track machines years ago using Lego. I experimented with all sorts of crazy ways for the marbles to descend. One was a rocker that shunted a stream of dropping marbles one-by-one to […]

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