It all started with a small LCD salvaged from an old printer. I recruited my code-savvy older brother, Adam, and we soon had the LCD displaying text from an Arduino microcontroller. This was neat, but it was inconvenient having to plug the Arduino into a computer for reprogramming whenever we wanted to change the text. […]
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In the summer of 1860, the Second Opium War was reaching its climax. Three years earlier, Britain and France had invaded Canton, China, in order to expand their trade in such unsavory commodities as opium and indentured servants. Chinese Emperor Xianfeng had resisted the outsiders, and a low-intensity war continued in fits and starts. The […]
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In our consumer society, most materials are discarded once they become old or obsolete. Many of these rejects have a hidden beauty that can be brought back to life in a new form; discarded or never-used printed circuit boards (PCBs) fall into this category. A consequence of the high-tech bubble bust of a few years […]
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Easily disassemble a coat hanger to make an affordable antenna for your digital television. Stop fighting with your existing antenna and make your own.
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If you’re growing your own fruit and vegetables, or just trying to eat food that’s produced locally, you come across one obvious problem: when something is in season, you have more than you can handle, and then there’s nothing for the rest of the year. The obvious solution is to preserve your food when you […]
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Author Note: Since the release of the article in MAKE Magazine Volume 15 in 2008, the Compressed Air Rocket has been popular beyond belief. We’ve sold thousands of kits and Kip Kay’s Weekend Project on YouTube has over one million views! Now we’re rolling out a Version 2.0 of the launcher as well as the […]
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Before moving off to college I wanted to build something that would be suitable as a kitchen table and double as my desk for studying. It needed to be sturdy and robust enough to last through college and for the years to come, yet I did not want to build a piece of furniture that […]
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