A good set of bicycle panniers can cost a chunk of change, but if you’re thinking of heading to the store to pick up a few essentials they’re pretty indispensable. Check out these cheep and easy DIY bicycle panniers you can construct from a couple of reusable grocery bags, some masonite, and a bungee.
The Makafone was a mail-order kit produced by the Modern Phonograph Supply Company starting in 1919. This ad and others like it were printed in Popular Mechanics and various trade magazines that catered to craftsmen. With the recent resurgence of interest in vintage vinyl and other archaic forms of media, I’d be curious to get a look at the plans for a Makafone and maybe build one myself.
Yesterday I carved out a bit of end of summer classroom experimentation time. One of the projects I wanted to develop was a student designed ear bud holder. They’ve crossed my radar a bit over the years, but I’ve never really needed one. I used to keep my headphones plugged into my mp3 player, and would put it on a shelf in the house, or in the elbow box in my car. Recently, though, my mp3 player and GPS unit were stolified out of my car. So now my phone seems to have become the ultimate gizmo again. It works pretty well with the music app, and Google Maps has a navigation feature that wasn’t there when I looked before. It would actually be perfect if it had an FM radio for local terrestrial audio. The problem now is, where to keep the tangle of headphone wires.
This cool camera desk lamp by Kirsty would make a perfect piece of decor for a photobug’s home or office. And because the legs of the tripod are adjustable, you can place it on your desk or use it as a floor lamp. Kirsty calls this her first draft of the lamp, but she’s “super chuffed” with how it turned out. We’re looking forward to seeing future iterations, Kirsty!
Over on CRAFT, MAKE contributing writer Scott Bedford offers a great little illustrated tutorial for hacking your own action figure into a spirited bookend. Check out the post on CRAFT, or head over to Make: Projects for a PDF of the build. Can’t wait to chop up some zombie Barbie bookends! Scott’s illustration style is […]
Welding! Welding is a glorious, mystery-infused, thoroughly bad-ass way to stick things together. Welders move in their own cloud of mythos and danger- they are dirtier, tougher, and sexier than any other kind of maker, and the things they build are big and strong and hold our world together. This positive stereotype permeates at all levels of pop culture: if a character is introduced while welding, you immediately know that they will be some kind of blue-collar superhero, or some kind of cliched contradiction- the welder quoting Hegel after winning the bar fight, or the classic trope of seeing a welder at work, and then they flip off the helmet and OMG IT IS A GIRL! A GIRL WELDING!
Brian, aka Plasma2002 of San Francisco build this LED scroller that displays messages SMSed to a Google Voice number. I’ve always loved the idea of sending messages to the big screens you usually find at concerts and other large events. I figured it could be scaled down, while still being just as entertaining. It may […]
