“I don’t understand, you don’t have the technology.” OK, so it’s not actually a futuristic tool with the same capabilities as the one off the hit TV series Dr. Who, but this homemade “sonic screwdriver” is a multifunction device that’s pretty cool nonetheless. Created around an Arduin...
SMD components may be a little challenging for the home builder – even though the’re inordinately practical for homebrew PCBs – but if you play around with electronics and solder long enough, you’re eventually going to run into the horrors of BGA parts. Instead of convenient pins, BGA...
The sword on the left has an electronic stun mechanism built into it. it works by energizing two blades which are separated by nylon bolts and spacers. Look closely at the tip and you’ll see the blue glow which indicates high voltage. To shock your victim you have to touch them with b...
The first part shown in her video (embedded after the jump) is to make a mold for the candies. You probably have a few bags of LEDs in your parts bin. Those along with a trough made of foam core come together to create the form for the silicone mold. After mixing, pouring, and hardeni...
In a testament to both his technical ability, and possibly even more so his tenacity, [Chris] was able to get Debian 6.07 running on a PowerMac destined for destruction. He had slated a few hours to upgrade this 56 Megabyte monster, but it turned out to be a several-day event. Those t...
Ahhh space. The final frontier. While many people dream of one day becoming an astronaut (and possibly battling aliens or cylons), it’s a select few who actually make it their reality. Fortunately for us, there’s a middle ground that allows the masses to still have some fun in the sky...
[Brian] has brought together a powerful collection of hardware to build a robot. The end goal is to have a robot that’s controlled by a Wiimote . The Wiimote communicates over Bluetooth with a Raspberry Pi, which is running a Python script. This script uses the CWiid Python module to ...
This innocent looking Maglite houses a piston and barrel, making it into a functional pneumatic BB gun . A Maglite was chosen due to its high durability, and easy access to the internals. A schrader valve sticks out of the battery cap, which allows the gun to be charged using a standa...
If you want to check your house for hot air leaks, take pictures of the heat coming off a rack of equipment, or just chase the most dangerous animal, [Arnie], through the jungles of central america, a thermal imaging camera is your friend. These devices normally cost a few thousand do...
We’ve seen our share of replica props, but [Nathan]‘s replica of the spy’s sidearm from Team Fortress 2 is the bee’s knees. The build began as an off-the-shelf Airsoft gun. After removing the barrel and cylinder, [Nathan] used Apoxie Sculpt and a whole lot of sanding to turn a stock p...
This thing is so cool it almost looks fake. But [Matt Richardson] isn’t a hoaxster. He actually built what might be called a heads-down display for your bicycle . He refers to it as a headlight because it borrows a similar function. It mounts on the handlebars and shoots light off the...
[Christopher] is really going the distance with his liquid-filled 3D printed lens project . The idea is to create a bladder out of two pieces of clear plastic. It can then be filled with liquid at a variable level of pressure to curve the plastic and create an adjustable lens. He was ...
The rig pulls a printed object up from the ooze on the build platform. They’re using resin that is cured with visible light. That’s why you see the level in the foreground; the bath needs to be a uniformed thickness so that it solidifies correctly when the light hits it from the under...
This isn’t a thrift-store coffee table modified as a craft project. [Dandujmich] built it from the ground-up using framing lumber, bottle caps, plastic resin, and some electronics for bling. The first step was to see if he had enough caps on hand for the project. It’s hard to grasp ho...
I hate when people refer to the lightbulb conspiracy. Because there’s two sides to the story. The other side is, that tungsten filament lightbulbs last longer at the expense of energy efficiency and brightness, so companies that boasted longer life bulbs did it by cheating elsewhere –...
. It gives a lot of details about the drive electronics and code used, but there are some gaps in the instructions for building the track itself. [Ben] forged ahead, purchasing linear bearings and a double-guide rail from IGUS. He didn’t mention the price on that item but we found 100...
[Simon], a gardener in the United Kingdom, created this super cheap and easy to build rocket stove . The great thing about this little guy is that the methods and materials used to create it are so basic, anyone should be able to quickly make their own for just a few bucks. If nothing...
Unlike the hatchet-based system shown off in the first episode this machine has a hopper into which several Oreos may be loaded. The demo cookie is like none we’ve seen before because the top portion is pushed off as if it took no effort at all. The creme is then softened with a strea...
Sure, we could just slap the steam-punk label on this doorbell hack, but we think that cheapens it. The rig uses a combination of mercury switch and creative mechanics to form a doorbell . And we think it goes beyond aesthetics to a statement of who you are starting with the front doo...
They’ve bought an RV and are headed for your state with buckets full of hobby electronic hardware. It’s SparkFun’s National Education tour and if you want them to host a workshop for kids in your area now’s the time to sign up! It’s no stretch to say that our everyday lives are tightl...
Hardware design enthusiasts should already be salivating just looking at this image. But [Ken Shirriff's] write-up on how the 8085 processor’s registers were designed will put you in silicon reverse-engineering heaven. He manages to get to the bottom of the tricks the designers used t...
Over on the xda developers forum, [exception13] shows us the work he’s put into geting Debian running on his Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 , allowing him to dual boot Android and Linux on a single device. The project is still in a fairly early state, but so far [exception13] has most of th...
If there’s one problem with the RepRap, it’s the cost of filament. Sure, there’s also the computationally difficult problem of slicing 3D models, but a 5 to 10 times markup on turning plastic pellets into filament is the biggest problem. It’s even a bigger problem than the problems of...
Here’s a way to play around with simple computing concepts without going too crazy with the hardware side of things. [John Eisenmann] calls it the DUO tiny. It’s a programmable computer based around the ATtiny84 . He wrote the operating system himself, building in a set of commands th...
[Martynas Mickevičius] has a Grandmother who is visually impaired. She enjoys listening to audiobooks and has been doing so using a DVD player for quite some time. The problem is that there is no way for her to save her position in between listening session. He set out to help by buil...
![[Fran's] PCB etching techniques](http://static.openruby.com/assets/pages/db/f2/dbf2bc22c1717b6a031376cc1367af8c_100.jpg)
We think that anyone who’s done at-home PCB fabrication will appreciate the tidiness that [Fran] maintains throughout her etching process. She recently posted a three-part video tutorial which showcases her techniques. As you can see in the screenshot above, her habits reek of top-not...
This wooden box is a wireless pinball controller and tablet stand . The idea is to set it on a workbench to give you some of the thrill of standing and playing the real thing. [Jeff] has been rather addicted to playing a pinball app on Android lately, and started the journey because h...
Why should cyclists have all of the fancy toys? Bicycle computers are very common these days but you won’t find similar hardware for skateboards and longboards. [KobraX22] isn’t taking it lying down. He built this speed and distance computer for his longboard . It doesn’t use very man...
What if we told you we had a computer you can take with you? What if it only weighed 28 pounds? This is a pretty hard sell when today you can get a 1.5 GHz quad-core processor packing computer to carry in your pocket which weighs less than 5 ounces. But back in the day the Donner 3500...
[Chris Thorpe] is a model railroading aficionado, and from his earliest memories he was infatuated with the narrow gauge locomotives that plied their odd steel tracks in northern Wales. Of course [Chris] went on to create model railroads, but kit manufacturers such as Airfix and Hornb...
