Wood screws

Halloween Time Machine

An animatronic fun ride, with images, sounds, vibrations, built inside of an outhouse.

Tape-Hinge Acrylic Box Construction

If you have a router and the means to cut a straight line with it, this trick for building a 5-sided acrylic box is considerably easier than the common slab-joint method, and gives better-looking results, to boot.

Coffee Table MAME Console

By John Baichtal and Adam Wolf Do you remember those classic video game arcades filled with rattling quarters, 8-bit songs, and flashing lights? You can reclaim that excitement in your own living room with this Coffee Table MAME Console. In 1997, Italian software developer Nicola Salmoria released the first iteration of MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine […]

Gigantic Bubble Generator

When I read the Geekcon 2010 call for projects, I thought, what the hack — I’ll do it. Inspired by Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, I decided to let creativity into my life, and start inventing things. I watched Sterling Johnson’s magnificent “Giant Stinson Beach Bubbles” clip on YouTube, and when I described it to […]

Electromagnetic Aluminum Levitator

About 13 years ago I learned of some military research into a satellite- and missile-defense device that would propel projectiles using Lenz’s law, which governs the direction of electrical current induced by a changing magnetic field. I decided to make a little gadget based on the same principle for my kids, to get them interested […]

The Wimshurst Influence Machine

When assembling a proper laboratory, the gentleman or lady experimenter should be sure to include a Wimshurst electrostatic generating machine. This device will serve tirelessly in investigations into the field of natural philosophy, and provide interesting parlor games such as the “electric kiss.” Herein we will demonstrate the construction of such a spectacular device, with […]