Wire

Wind Your Own Guitar Pickups

The brilliant Meara O’Reilly describes how to wind your own electromagnetic guitar pickups on sewing machine bobbins.

About 2 months ago, after years of begging and pleading from my family, I reluctantly agreed to get another cat from the local shelter. We already have a menagerie of beasts that share our home, but for some reason they felt we needed another. I admit, I do like our new addition to the family. […]

Magic Mirror Costume

This is the follow up to my Chomping Pacman Costume There are plenty of resources out there for creating magic mirrors, but I wanted to take things one step further. Everything that found was for an installation, and I wanted to find a way to make it into a wearable Halloween costume. My idea for […]

Charlie’s RFID Teddy Bear

Make a plush toy that talks to other objects — and you.

Water Leak Detector

The average life expectancy of a hot water heater is about 10 years, so it’s not a question of if it will leak — it’s simply a matter of when. In my part of the country, homebuilders have been installing these tanks in the attic. This saves space, but also means that if you don’t […]

Build a Lawnbot 400

I have always hated mowing the lawn. I was the guy who only mowed when the grass got to be 6″ taller than the neighbors’ lawns — not because I don’t like my neighbors, but because mowing was such a pain. After being hit by one too many rocks, I decided I no longer wanted […]