Great how-to on making your own binary clock! John writes “I saw your blog entry that linked to a project to build a binary LED clock. I built my own binary clock a few years ago, and I recently posted a detailed article on how I built it…” The site has many iterations of the 3 clocks John built along with the circuit diagrams. Link.
Here’s how to disassemble a DC WMATA’s SmarTrip card and turn it into a keychain-ready size –“The SmartTrip card is composed of three sheets of laminated cardboard (or plastic; it’s tough to tell). The middle one is where the important guts are located. The outer two serve a decorative and protective function. The first order of business is to remove those outer layers. But before you do, resign yourself to destroying the card. You might be able to transplant its brain into a new body, but DCist doesn’t want any angry emails demanding money for replacement cards.” Link.
Make contributer Cy on creative uses for all that holiday trash – “Christmas, it’s inevitable, things will get discarded, broken, or ignored,” says Cy Tymony, a Torrance resident and author of Sneakier Uses for Everyday Things (the sequel to his Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things). “But why should things just go into a landfill?” In Tymony’s world, if you’ve got boxes, make boomerangs. Got milk? Make plastic.” Link.
Gina writes “…my crafty father-in-law had built a lighting system for his kitchen pantry out of Christmas lights and a Timex watch holder. He drilled a hole in the plastic watch holder just under the tension flap that holds the watch up, and inserted a reverse switch inside the hole. Once the switch was connected to the lights, when the pantry door closes, the circuit breaks and the lights go off. When the pantry door is opened, the circuit closes and lights go on and Mom can see which can she’s plucking off the shelf.” Link and photos.
Neat how-to and video from Troy…“This is my hydrogen generator that I built Using stainless steel switch plate covers. You may be asking, Why switch plate covers? Well in the area I live in I was having trouble finding Someone to sell me a sheet of stainless steel and cut it for me. So I was in the Home Depot (a local hardware store) And I ran across switch plate covers made of stainless steel. All cut to size and all uniform. Well this made it too easy for me so I bought them About 36 @ $1.24 ea. I thought it was kind of expensive but what the heck. I was not getting the generator built waiting for a deal to drop in my lap. So on to the building of the h2 generator.” Thanks Jason! Link.
Drew writes “The quarter-scale dalek I was working on (which I mentioned in a previous Make blog comment) is now complete. I’ve included a build log with plenty of in-progress pictures and a parts list in case you want to make your own. This dalek is a one-quarter scale model of the popular race of villanous mutants from Dr. Who. (Although daleks resemble robots, they are actually biological creatures inside an armored shell.) The model has no moving parts (otherwise it would be an action figure). It is about 15 inches (38.1cm) high. It is composed of foamboard, wood, aluminum, and other materials.” Link.
MAKE is sponsoring “This Day in Apple History” over on Applematters – each day you can get an email of what happened in Apple history that day and also a daily podcast of “This Day in Apple History” (Click here to subscribe with iTunes). Link. They’re giving away prizes too, a custom-engraved brand-new white 60GB 5G iPod engraved with the original Apple logo, an Apple Newton and an Apple II.. The iPod will be laser etched by MAKE magazine at Squid Labs.
