Toys and Games

Etching Metalized Plastic

Etching Metalized Plastic

I have been hacking on some cheap R/C cars, lately, and wanted to etch metal films off of a few of the bits. I knew that the usual strong acid and base suspects would remove it, but many folks don’t keep these substances around, for whatever reasons. I got curious about milder etchants, and did a simple test with some household chemicals.

How-To: Connect 4 Binary Clock

How-To: Connect 4 Binary Clock

Seeing this old Connect 4 game took me on a nostalgic trip back to the early 80s, sprawled out on our old brown carpeting, spending hours strategizing, stacking the chips, then pulling the lever and watching them all fall. And the fact that three classmates thought to convert it into a binary clock and share […]

Alien Arena: Reloaded Edition Released!

Alien Arena: Reloaded Edition Released!

A while back, I wrote an Intern’s Corner post entitled My Open Source Life Outside of MAKE, in which I talked about my experience working on Alien Arena, the open source first-person shooter. Well, for those who might be interested, I’m proud to announce that version 7.60, codenamed “Reloaded Edition,” has recently been released. It’s […]