This elegant sampler design built by Ofir uses laser-cut cardboard with conductive paint - beautiful work, looks (and sounds) like a lot of fun. Head over to the site to see the whole Ohm noisemaker instrument family - "ohm" lofi cardboard sampler
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Awesome progress shots of Justin Gray's (Graywrx Sculptural Welding, Oakland, CA) latest project: a jet turbine-powered tracked robot. You can see pictures and videos of some of his other flame-throwing robots on his blog.
I love the creativity found in this "next-gen" remote-controlled vibrobot. It has a PICAXE brain, uses a 16-pin DIP socket as its vibro-feet, and a universal TV remote as its controller.
Steven Goodwin shares tips and measurements for making the perfect study hall instrument -
If there's one piece of science that every kid knows, it's that twanging a ruler on the edge of the desk makes a noise, and by changing the amount of overhang will change the pitch. Give anyone a new ruler, and the first thing they'll do is twang it, to see how it sounds. This is an interesting fact of life. […] So, to bring an element of fun back to the proceedings, we can combine these facts to build a very simple 'rule organ'. By taping thirteen rulers to a nearby desk, each with a different amount of overhang, we have a rudimentary musical (?!?!?!?) instrument. So, how much overhang is necessary, and how do we do it?
Head over to his site for the specifics - Rule Organ
Artist Ruth Whiting had a show up in Asheville, NC of her oil paintings of cables and plugs. Many of the paintings celebrate the details of the cable much in the same way plants are often rendered: luscious. Via BoingBoing.
I always wondered what went into those high-end speaker cabinets, and instructables user billbob has resolved my curiosity. He covers electrical construction, but mainly focuses on making really stellar speaker boxes, and has tons of pictures and tips. I know just as well as anybody around here that electronics projects aren't always that great looking, but here's an anomaly.
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After a frustrating day at the office, it feels good to go make something that simply works. (playing with a bunch of ultra-bright LEDs doesn't hurt either)
David Carter is the author of many silly pop-up books for kids - he also wrote The Elements of Pop-ups, a book about the construction and mechanics of pop-ups. He's put together a page of movies and PDF dies showing how to make your own pop-ups.
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Reuse a crashed hard drive or two for a set of wind chimes. Easy to make and sound great. Thanks go to Thomas Arey for the original article in Make Magazine.
This mod shows you how to replace the AA batteries inside your old G3 powerbook's battery. Sure you can go buy a replacement, but why not just pry it open and do it yourself?
"Fold Loud" by JooYoun Paek merges the ancient art of origami with digital music control to create a calming interface for sound -
Playing Fold Loud involves folding origami shapes to create soothing harmonic vocal sounds. Each fold is assigned to a different human vocal sound so that combinations of folds create harmonies. Users can fold multiple Fold Loud sheets together to produce a chorus of voices. Opened circuits made out of conductive fabric are visibly stitched onto the sheets of paper which creates a meta-technological aesthetic. When the sheets are folded along crease lines, a circuit is closed like a switch. Thus, the interface guides participants to use repetitive delicate hand gestures such as flipping, pushing and creasing. Fold Loud invites users to slow down and reflect on different physical senses by crafting paper into both geometric origami objects and harmonic music.
Visit the site for more pics and a video demonstration - Fold Loud Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this!
This miniature antenna tower project has a 4 Element Yagi-Uda and some blinking lights at the top for transmission. Check out the full parts list and instruction set at the link below.
Matt Hallock has a how to for building a lo-fi fisheye camera lens for around $10 using supplies found at your local hardware store. Fisheye lenses are crazy cost prohibitive for most of us, but this method gets you 90 percent of the effect, plus a little Holga-esque unpredictability to boot!
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This mod shows you how to add 3 cymbals to your current Rock Band setup. Now if only you could hook up your current drum kit to the game instead of having to work around the plastic set you get.
The Dan Perez Studio website has a great 3 part series on mold making and casting. He makes the molds using room temperature vulcanizing rubber so it's easy to use. If you want to cast parts for you next project, check out his website, it's really good.
This is an old project, but I think it is worth a mention on the blog. It's a POV clock that requires only a few parts. All the schematics and code are available on the website. Looks like a nice intermediate electronics project, give it a try.
Carving your own rubber stamp is really easy, and you only need a few tools. I can't say that I am going to make the cupcake stamp, but some kind of DIY rubber stamp is on my list of things to do and I will use this web site as a reference.
Could you please post a warning about engraving Moleskines. We found out through one of the other guys who also engraves the books (Joe Mansfield) that the covers contain PVC. We have gotten a good bit of internet coverage on our site, and I know (having had several emails from people) that we have inspired others to do the same, so we want to issue this warning:
WARNING!!!!: Do NOT engrave sketchbooks (in our case Moleskines) or any other materials without the proper PUREX PVC filtration system. Burning PVC creates several carcinogenic gases along with dioxins and also produces hydrochloric gas. Burning this without the proper filtration device IS HARMFUL to your health, and the hydrochloric gas WILL corrode your machine.
Etsy is running a project, calling for videos of essential or favorite tools. This one takes the cake for me - a pedal-powered tablesaw demonstrated and explained by Etsy user Woodmosaics (from Spickard, Missouri). Incredible! He has a flickr set of it, too.
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