Projects

Cameras

DIY Photography: Ring Flashes Are Expensive. Make Your Own Using Fibre Optics

7:00AM March 7, 2011 | Jack Loftus

Budding portrait photographers take note: Ring flashes are a sometimes necessary, but expensive tool you might need to really make those stages shots pop. More »

Gadgets

Build A Do Nothing Machine

8:00AM January 10, 2011 | Jack Loftus

Also called the Trammel of Archimedes, the “do nothing machine” excels at nothing in particular, but looks damn cool doing it. Now you can build your own! More »

Cameras

DIY Third Person Camera Makes You The Center Of Your Own Attention

11:00AM December 27, 2010 | Jack Loftus

Third person “video game” rigs have been constructed and featured before, but this one’s a wireless DIY version that’s sure to freak out onlookers you pass by on your own personal, hooded 3D adventure across town. More »

Geek Out

Keep This Altoids Tin Martini Kit On You At All Times

12:20PM November 25, 2010 | Kyle VanHemert

newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http://www.youtube.com/v/-u8iojba_Ro&hl=en&fs=1&hd=1","customParams":[] ,"width":500,"height":332.5,"ratio":0.615,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"youtube","wrap":true,"agegate":false} ); I will say this up front: I like projects that stuff cool things in little Altoids tins. Don’t know why! I just do. But I think we can all get behind this one, which puts a martini in your pocket. More »

But What Kind Of Box Was This Huge Cardboard Machine Delivered In?

8:00AM June 17, 2010 | Kyle VanHemert

Here we have a large, complex machine built entirely of cardboard. It has cardboard gears and cardboard pulleys, cardboard levers and cardboard buttons. I wonder if it was packaged in a box made of a hulking old computer. [Make] More »

Just Chillin’ In My Gigantic Packing Tape Spider Web

10:30AM June 6, 2010 | Kyle VanHemert

What’s the coolest thing you can do with 117,000 feet of packing tape? If you said anything besides building a humongous, self-supporting spider web inside a historic Viennese stock exchange, then you are oh so very wrong. Let’s explore! More »

Gadgets

The Nightmare Fog Machine

6:30AM June 6, 2010 | Kyle VanHemert

These ghostly jellyfish won’t sting you—they’re just high-tech smoke signals, created by a new installation that uses pulsing speakers to send fog through openings in huge slabs of concrete. But the puffs are considerably less frightening in motion: More »

This Hacked Ikea Furniture Takes Care Of Its Own Feng Shui

1:00AM June 6, 2010 | Kyle VanHemert

When you consider it, we’re not so nice with our furniture. We plop our heavy selves on top of them and place drinks on them without coasters. We push them around, figuratively and literally. This smart furniture, however, pushes back. More »

Lego Crawler Town Makes Having A Little Yellow Head Worth It

2:00PM February 21, 2010 | Kyle VanHemert

I’ve played with my fair share of LEGOs, but I never actually envied the little guys until I set eyes on Dave DeGobbi’s Crawler Town, a piece as impressively conceived as it is constructed. [Flickr via Brothers Brick] More »

Microvision Pico-Projector Game Controller Hitting Walls This Year

5:00AM January 11, 2010 | Jack Loftus

The Microvision pico-projector video game gun controller we profiled last month might actually see the light of day – and soon. Who’s ready for some murky, awkward angle FPS fun? More »