junk

Finding Jim Henson in Junk: Animatronic Bots Will Make You Smile

Finding Jim Henson in Junk: Animatronic Bots Will Make You Smile

Using junk to build animatronic bots is whimsical and amusing. These cobbled-together bots are just filled with personality.

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8 Types of Trash Every Maker Should Be Stoked to Score

You know what they say about one man’s trash. Keep your eyes on the curbside to come up on these perfectly useful items.

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Microwave Oven Hacking 101 (and 102 and 103)

Microwave Oven Hacking 101 (and 102 and 103)

An anonymous tipster sent in these great videos: how to hack microwave oven transformers. The first video shows the complete disassembly of an oven using only a screwdriver, pliers, and hammer. Part two delves into the science of how the transformer works, while the third part shows how to wind your own. Parts two and […]

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Cardboard bins!

Cardboard bins!

OK, that may not be the most exciting headline I’ve ever written, and I’m not sure the exclamation point really helps all that much. But I am, personally, nonetheless very excited about cardboard bins right now, because thanks to them, for the first time in almost five years, I am no longer burdened by a giant unsorted junk parts bucket. I have tried a lot of organizational systems, over the past few years, and I’ve finally decided that bins are where it’s at. Unfortunately, professional parts bin systems are prohibitively expensive for the number I need to satisfy my organizational compulsion. But these fold-up corrugated bins I bought off Amazon only cost 69 cents apiece, including shipping. I took an old bookcase and added an extra “halfway” shelf to each level; 6″ per shelf leaves plenty of room to toss parts into the bins without wasting space. The finished unit holds ninety 4 x 4.4 x 12″ bins, which are labeled with a thermal-tape printer and arranged alphabetically. You can see the whole enchilada in my Flickr set.

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Hand-built Cuban refugee boat

Hand-built Cuban refugee boat

Spotted in the MAKE Flickr pool, from user huebner5000. He quotes an unnamed source:

This Cuban chug arrived Wednesday, December 16th, 2009. The chug held 17 Cubans who are now legal U.S. citizens. The chug, we were told, left Cuba at 5am December 14th and landed at Dry Tortugas at 2am December 16th.

It’s all made from scrap metal and junk. The hull, reportedly, is flattened corrugated roofing material. There’s one more picture here.

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