DIY Hacks and How Tos

DIY Hacks & How To’s: Modify a Game Controller for Accessibility

Everyone loves video games. But it can be difficult to enjoy certain games if you are injured or disabled and don’t have the manual dexterity needed to execute fast button combos. Fortunately, we can use an Arduino to do it for us. The Arduino can send signals to the controller that simulate the buttons being pressed. This lets you pre-program commands that can be activated by a single button. This kind of mod could be used to help more gamers enjoy combo heavy games.

Continue Reading June 17th, 2013 Jason Poel Smith6

DIY Hacks & How To’s: Make Your Own Stereoscopic Viewer

3D photography or stereoscopic photography is the art of capturing and displaying two slightly offset photographs to create three dimensional images. The 3D effect works because of a principle called stereopsis. This project will give you a brief introduction to the methods for taking and viewing 3D photographs.

Continue Reading June 10th, 2013 Jason Poel Smith2

DIY Hacks & How To’s: Convert From Battery Power to AC

In this project, we show you how to modify an old AC power adapter so that it can power your electronics instead of batteries.

Continue Reading June 3rd, 2013December 28th, 2015 Jason Poel Smith28

DIY Hacks & How To’s: Make a Multi-Book Secret Compartment

You are probably already familiar with the classic “Secret Book Compartment” project. There are variations of this project all over the internet. There have even been a few version that been featured in MAKE as well as on the MAKE YouTube channel. The basic concept of a secret book compartment is simple. You hollow out a large book and you use the cutout space to hide stuff. Unfortunately, most versions of this project have one major problem. You can only hide objects that are smaller than your book. However it is possible to hide larger objects by combining multiple books into one large multi-book container.

Continue Reading May 30th, 2013 Jason Poel Smith

DIY Hacks & How To’s: Swiss Army Key Ring

Most people have to keep track of at least a few keys. The easiest way to do that is to just keep them all on one key ring. But the more keys that you have, the more they fan out on the ring. If you have a lot of keys, then your key ring can get pretty bulky and impractical to carry in your pocket. Here is an alternate design for holding and organizing your keys that is a little more efficient.

Continue Reading May 20th, 2013 Jason Poel Smith8

DIY Hacks & How To’s: Get Emergency Power from a Phone Line

What do you do if the power is out, but you need to charge your cell phone to make an emergency phone call? In this episode of DIY Hacks & How To’s, Jason Poel Smith shows you how to tap the power flowing from your phone line.

Continue Reading May 6th, 2013 Jason Poel Smith49

How to Make a Custom Operation Game

Operation is a game that lets you test your hand-eye coordination by removing a variety of ailment tokens from a cartoon patient without touching the metal sides of each slot. Since its release in 1965, there have been a lot of special editions created. These feature popular characters such as Buzz Lightyear, R2D2 and Iron Man. The game’s simple design makes it very versatile and easy to adapt.

Continue Reading April 29th, 2013 Jason Poel Smith8