As Advanced Materials Month enters its final week, we’re gathering together some of the coolest projects from the dusty archives of MAKE. Next up, projects using electro-luminescent wire! Above, check out this bicycle with pedal-powered EL wire!
Don’t risk breaking any bottles next time you carry beer to a party. Now you can make your own 6 Packer, a laser cuttable six pack carrier designed by Thingiverse user timogiles. Since it’s designed in OpenSCAD, an open source parametric 3D modeling program, you can easily change the material thickness, bottle diameter, fastener size, and hand grip size and cut a 6 Packer to your own specifications.
Prop building is engrained in Maker culture. Motion picture special effects, steampunk finery, live action role playing games, cosplay, historical reenactments, and the theater all rely on props to help tell the story. For the enthusiast, building a prop is a great way to channel enthusiasm for a particular subject and expand the user experience. The research and attention to detail poured into some prop building projects can even surpass the original inspiration in form and function.
A remarkable exhibit on the maker movement had been running since September at London’s Victoria and Albert museum, having just closed in January. A visit over the holidays to London gave me a chance to see the exhibit for myself. The show collects the products, processes, and tools from dozens of makers throughout the world, […]
By Super Awesome Sylvia and her dad, James Are you curious about experimenting with electronics, but the fear of electric shock or soldering iron burns keep you away? Why not try squishy circuits! With a special recipe of food-safe, kitchen-made, pliable dough developed at the University of St. Thomas, kids of all ages can easily […]
Waiting out an unfortunately lengthy shipment, Stockholm area maker Johan von Konow decided to build for his son a working set of augmented reality game pieces for the Cars 2 AppMATes game on his iPad. To achieve a faithful representation of the characters in the game, Johan modified a couple of PEZ dispenser tops approximately […]
Shawn Thorsson’s HALO First Aid Kit is cooler than merely a replica — it actually serves as a first aid kit. So the other day (which was a Wednesday in this case) I was suffering from some time alone with my macabre imagination and decided that I needed my first aid kit to be more […]
