Mary Wales Loomis shares with us her own self-taught method of making your own shoes. The best part of this is that the shoes start out from a mold made of your most comfortable shoes, or even your own feet. These things probably won’t make you run faster or jump higher, but you can choose your own fabric and friends are sure to haggle you about making them some of these sweet kicks too. Mary also sells a book with more detailed instructions and designs.
Ah yes, plasti-dip is truly a man’s best friend. This great idea comes from the MAKE photo pool - crack the bulky case off your USB drive and dip the electronics in plasti-dip. Not only does this make your USB drive super-thin, it also continues to protect the sensitive electronics from electro-magnetic certain death. The plastic covering is dense enough to not interfere with the operation of your thumb drive. Now, is yellow the only choice?
Electric motors are so cool and a simple. The one found here is even really easy to make. I made one in freshman science. Maybe someone could add ‘wings’ to it and make a fan!
There’s not too many notes here on this particular project, but it would definitely be a cool one to tackle. Using a rotary switch, a small gearbox, and a motor you can create a mechanical sequencer. There are three channels and 3 steps for each channel, controlled by small switches. Everything is made from recycled parts (Except the switches and jacks).
Elephant Staircase provides a wonderful tutorial on modding a disposable digital camera from Ritz, CVS, or Walgreens into a reusable piece of your photography arsenal. A pinout is provided which will allow you to connect the camera via USB to retrieve pictures you have taken from it. Sample pictures are shown, reinforcing the fact that this is a good deal. We’d say this is perfect for your high-flying aerial shots.
Unprotected windows let an amazing amount of energy into your house on sunny days. This is great for winter, but in the summer it can get you feeling like you live in an oven. These curtains will not win you style points, but they will win you lower power bill points by helping to keep the sunlight from heating up your house until the A/C has to kick on the compensate. You can regain some of your style dignity by putting regular curtains right over your new outer-space ones. [via]
What I really want to see is curtains made of solar panels that will run your A/C.
Modding your watch with a new case is easy and rewarding. As an official representative of the ministry of stuffing stuff in other stuff, DIY:happy supports, nay - encourages, this particular project. So go ahead, impress your friends with a tic-tac watch face or a cable wrap wrist band watch. Methinks it’s time to hit up Wal*Mart* for some cheapo watches. Best of all, these watch mods are created by our favorite DIY Blogger, Phillip Torrone. [via]
*Neither DIY:happy, nor it’s staff, support exploitation of workers in 3rd world countries. Except for low prices.
Using a kite is a fun way to take some great aerial photography shots. But how do you connect the camera to the kite? Several options are shown in the KAP Rigs group on flickr. There are rigs that will fit a wide variety of kites and will support different types of cameras. Some will take you a few minutes to put together, and some are far more complicated. Check it out and let us know about your own kite aerial photography at tips@diyhappy.com.
Tired of that plain white cover over your light switch? Learn how to make a new light switch cover out of clay. Use different colored clay to come up with a custom color scheme for your light switch.
Punch Cards are what the computing caveman used before disks and other medias were introduced. If you still have a bunch lying around (and who doesn’t?) why not turn them into a curtain? All the little holes will let a little bit of light through and make a really cool design. This yet another great piece of outdated computer components turned art. [via and via]
This webcam has been modified to give you a visual of the small blue flashes of light given off by Cherenkov radiation. This type of radiation is emitted whenever a charged particle passes through matter with greater speed than light. So basically what you’re watching is mini atom-bombs going off all over the place. Although you won’t be able to put an end to World War II with this webcam, you will be able to impress your friends.
One of my most memorable summer activities growing up was making paper boats and racing them against other boats in the irrigation ditches. You can make these boats and race them in any body of water, though - no irrigation ditch required. Learn how to make an easy six-fold boat.
Boat Donations BoatAngel Uses Boat Donations to fund Life changing media -check www.Carangel.com/projects.html
If screen printing just ain’t your thing, you may try the much less professional route - using your T-Shirt as a Canvas for you next work of art. This tutorial offers some tips on painting on T-Shirts and getting results that actually don’t look all that ghetto. Instructions are provided in English and … uh … some other language.
This fun and simple project will have you shooting lasers all over your wall as a cool visualization. This isn’t only a great project for light show aficionados - it’s fun for people interested in time lapse photography as well. The project is made almost entirely out of old walkman parts (what, you haven’t gutted your walkman yet?) This project is also easily modified to allow feedback for sound, variable speed motors, etc.
Projector Rentals Delivered Worldwide
This video appears to show how to access the backdoor menu on Coca-Cola machines. This is supposed to work on machines that dispense the 20oz bottles, and have the little white buttons next to each flavor. The video doesn’t say what to do once you’re in the menu, but leaves that for creative minds like yourself. I don’t think you’d get in big trouble for accessing the menu but your could get in trouble if you say, empty the machine in to the trunk of your car. We (seriously) don’t condone theft. A neat trick that is sure to impress your friends, nonetheless.
The key sequence shown in the video is 4, 2, 3, 1. That is, you push the fourth button down first and so on. The display should now read “5572″ which is the menu, apparently. From there, key 3 will scroll through the menu and key 5 will exit. The rest is up to you. [via]
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