Author Archives: Kristina Panos

R/C Rocket-Beest Burns Up Fuses Out There Alone

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We’re beginning to think the “S” in [Jeremy S Cook] stands for strandbeest. He’ll be the talk of the 4th of July picnic once he brings out his latest build—a weaponized, remote-controlled strandbeest that shoots bottle rockets. There are a bank of money shots up on Imgur.

This ‘beest is the natural next step after his remote-controlled walker, which we featured a month or so ago. Like that one, the locomotion comes from a pair of micro gear motors that are controlled by an Arduino Nano over Bluetooth. The pyrotechnics begin when nitinol wire cleverly strung across two lever nuts …read more

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Sunny Custom Keyboard Illuminates the Past

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Ever wonder why keyboard number pads and telephone dials have reversed layouts? Theories abound, but the most plausible one is that, shrug, it just happened that way. And now we’re stuck with it.

Well, that answer’s not good enough for [Jesse], so he punched up his own keyboard design that combines the golden years of function-rich Sun and IBM keyboards with Ma Bell’s DTMF number arrangement. That’s right, Sundial has 24 function keys total, and the number pad matches Ma Bell’s all the way down to the asterisk/zero/octothorpe pattern on the bottom row. How do we know what the …read more

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Pool Ball Return System Chalked Up To Ingenuity

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Do you play pool? If so, you probably take the automatic ball return systems in bar and billiard hall tables for granted. [Roger Makes] was tired of walking around his home table to collect the balls every time he wanted to play, so he designed a time-saving ball return system.

Instead of falling into the little netted baskets that came with the table, the balls now drop into 3D-printed pockets and ride along dowel rod rails into a central collection box, which is suspended by straps beneath the rack-em-up end of the table. The rails themselves are fortified with ABS …read more

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Apple Coin Bank Plants the Seed of Saving

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Consider the piggy bank. Behind that innocent, docile expression is a capitalistic metaphor waiting to ruin your fond memories of saving for that BMX bike or whatever else it was that drove home the value of a dollar. As fun as it is to drop a coin in a slot, the act of saving your pennies and learning financial responsibility could be a bit more engaging.

It seems like [gzumwalt] feels the same way. He’s designed a coin bank for his grand-kids that takes a more active role in the deposit process—it straight up eats the things. Put a coin …read more

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E-Dermis: Feeling At Your (Prosthetic) Fingertips

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When we lose a limb, the brain is really none the wiser. It continues to send signals out, but since they no longer have a destination, the person is stuck with one-way communication and a phantom-limb feeling. The fact that the brain carries on has always been promising as far as prostheses are concerned, because it means the electrical signals could potentially be used to control new limbs and digits the natural way.

It’s also good news for adding a sense of touch to upper-limb prostheses. Researchers at Johns Hopkins university have spent the last year testing out their concept …read more

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Roll Your Own Trackball Mouse

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What do you do when you’re into trackball mice, but nothing out there is affordable or meets all your murine needs? You build one, of course. And if you’re like [Dangerously Explosive], who has a bunch of old optical mice squeaking around the shop, you can mix and match them to build the perfect one.

The mouse, which looks frozen mid-transformation into a rodential assassin, is a customized work of utilitarian art. Despite the excellent results, this project was not without its traps. [Dangerously] got really far into the build before discovering the USB interface chip was dead. Then he …read more

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Lawn From Hell Saved by Mower From Heaven

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It’s that time of year again, at least in the northern hemisphere. Everything is alive and growing, especially that narrow-leafed non-commodity that so many of us farm without tangible reward. [sonofdodie] has a particularly hard row to hoe—his backyard is one big, 30° slope of knee-ruining agony. After 30 years of trudging up and down the hill, his body was telling him to find a better way. But no lawn service would touch it, so he waited for divine inspiration.

And lo, the answer came to [sonofdodie] in a trio of string trimmers. These Whirling Dervishes of grass grazing are …read more

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DIY Talkbox Gives You More Bounce to the Ounce

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Back in the 70s, you couldn’t swing a macrame plant hanger around a record store without knocking over numerous displays of albums featuring talkboxes. They were all over 70s music, kind of like how almost every 80s song has a sax solo and/or Michael McDonald on backing vocals. Not sure you’ve heard one being used? Trust us, you definitely have and just don’t realize it.

Talkboxes are essentially an amplifier and a speaker contained in a box. The speaker is the acoustic diaphragm type used in bullhorns and civil defense sirens. You run your guitar, keyboard, or electrified hurdy gurdy …read more

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Bike-Driven Scarf Knitter is an Accessory to Warmth

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Despite all our technological achievements, humans still spend a lot of time waiting around for trains. Add a stiff winter breeze to the injury of commuting, and you’ve got a classic recipe for misery. [George Barratt-Jones] decided to inject some warmth into this scene by inviting people to knit a free scarf for themselves by riding a bike.

All a person has to do is ride the Cyclo-Knitter for five minutes and marvel at their handiwork. By the time the scarf is finished, they’ve cycled past being cold, and they have something to hold in the warmth. Cyclo-Knitter is essentially …read more

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CalClock Keeps You Tied To The Mast

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Now that most of what we do revolves around our phones and/or the internet, it’s nearly impossible to take a short break from work to check the ol’ calendar without being lured by the sirens on the shore of social media. Well, [samvanhook] was tired of being drawn in when all he really needs is a vague idea of what’s coming up for him in the next 12 hours. Enter the CalClock.

Thanks to color-coded segments, [sam] can tell at a glance if he has something coming up soon in Google Calendar, or if he can dive back into work. …read more

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