How to fabricate, out of mostly recycled materials, an ultraviolet nighttime bug trap, since ultraviolet light attracts most insects. Tired of nighttime critters and drowning in bug spray? Try this blacklight device to control mosquitoes and other nighttime insects.
Hack two simple pieces of electronics for a new purpose. This cell phone charger is not for those who use their phones a lot, although it could have other purposes, like being an MP3 player charger or anything that charges from a USB connection.
Clock radios are everyday hated devices that designers seem to ignore, judging by how little their features and user interfaces have changed. This project adds a new capability, letting would-be sleepyheads enjoy a human-machine interaction of a different sort. Don’t worry, we’re not going to connect your clock to an MP3 player and play mellow […]
RC hobby servomotors were just made for hacking. What’s not obvious is how much you can hack them — with a few tricks, you can use a servo to control almost anything. Hobby servos consist of a DC gear motor, a potentiometer (usually 5K), and a control circuit. The output shaft is the output of […]
Motorize a phenakistoscope, a 19th-century parlor novelty that preceded motion pictures, and keep its frames synched to an LED strobe by using a sensor and an Arduino microcontroller. Invented in 1832 by Joseph Plateau, this device creates a moving picture from a sequence of stills arranged on a spinning disk and viewed through strategically cut […]
Author Note: Since the release of the article in MAKE Magazine Volume 15 in 2008, the Compressed Air Rocket has been popular beyond belief. We’ve sold thousands of kits and Kip Kay’s Weekend Project on YouTube has over one million views! Now we’re rolling out a Version 2.0 of the launcher as well as the […]
Inside your webcam is an imager chip with thousands of sensors, each much smaller than a hair. Replace the lens with an LED, place a sample directly on the the chip, and you have a lensless microscope capable of streaming live video of plankton or other microorganisms to any display.
