Well, side marker lights are not anywhere near as common in the States as they are in Europe (or so DIY:happy’s heard from the ‘interweb’), but to make any existing ones into turn-signal-capable side lights is pretty easy and requires minimal electronics knowledge. Lot of pictures, for your viewing pleasure (and comprehension).
Here’s how to morph your euro side lights into an extra pair of turn signals
This amazing Urban Ninja kite was developed by a darling German architectural designer named Thomas Horvath, for flying in urban areas without the hassles of a traditional kite. The instructions are really well-written, and there are numerous illustrations, everything has a nice color scheme, it’s all fabulous! Some of the measurements are European, but a little Google search never killed anyone.
He dropped us a tip, and here he is - on DIY:happy! This could be you, but it isn’t, because you haven’t nudged a tip at us (unless you have, in which case, disregard the previous censure). So, write a tutorial and hit us up!
Not as raunchy as the title makes it seem, these spherical speaker systems are really cool. It puts new meaning into surround sound. A three hundred and fifty degree speaker ball can be modded into so many awesome things for parties and whatever else you need speakers for. Just don’t play dodgeball with it, K?
[note!] If you don’t have an Ikea near you… there’s something wrong with where you live. Seriously. But, if that happens (and you don’t immediately move….) use a plastic salad bowl or a strainer.
This DIY optical printer is a handy item to make. You don’t have to rely on a commercial film printing facility to make copies of your silent screen debut. As a bonus, you can add a few different effects, such as dissolves, split screens, fancy wipes, and faces to your film. Hardcore film school thugs will enjoy this a lot.
Oh yeah, and here’s another good site showing a similar method.
And another for good measure.
All you need for this awesome no-sew NES wallet is some glue, a screwdriver, pliers, and a zipper your ripped off of something that isn’t as valuable as it used to be. Like if Zubaz had zippers, you could pull some out of the closet and take the zipper off those. Then again, rainbow belts made a comeback, so anything is possible. Better keep the Zub’z for a couple more years. This doesn’t seem the the most comfortable wallet to keep in your back pocket, but if you’re hardcore enough, you’ll use it. My darling father Rich, who makes me second in command of the Keorkunian throne, lovingly refers to his wallet as “the brick”, and it literally is probably as hard and thick as this NES wallet. If he can handle it, you can too! Viva Uncomfortable Wallets!
This detects, as the title says, when an object crosses a designated finish line first. Handy for when you don’t have a multi-shot, split-second picture-taking device, and you’re having an important or semi-important race. There’s a schematic, tips, and all that included in this project site. Now, technically this is for a pinewood derby, but it can be used in a variety of spaces (oh, dear, delightful reader, you don’t need US to tell you alternative uses! You’re well-versed in DIY-wonderfulness, right?).
Decorate your jeep like it’s an official fleet vehicle for some fake company? Sure, why not! You may question the benefits of doing such a modification to your car, but consider the following:
Who ever considered doing such a thing? Well, turns out it’s not such a bad idea.
This nifty little homemade, probably free (to make) airhorn is pretty cool, and can be crafted on the fly. Admiring the ingenuity is a start, but making one for yourself is where it’s at. Good for basketball games, graduations, (alternative) weddings, and other applause-heavy scenarios, this is an awesome project. Suitable for children (with supervision around the scissors), teenagers and adults alike. Even the elderly can make one for when their hearing goes! Win-win.
The formulas that make up Coke and Pepsi are closely guarded trade secrets - perhaps the most popular and well known trade secrets in existence today. If you want to drink a Cola, you gotta shell out the big bucks (literally, these days) for one of the big guys.
OpenCola is working to change that, having released their Cola formula under the GNU license. Now you can start your own underground neighborhood Cola brewery and give the sauce to your friends and family. The inventors of the drink (is inventors the right word here?) invite people to come a change the formula in hopes of making a more perfect beverage.
Oh, and my favorite part from the article:
“Many of the oils needed for flavoring can burn skin. Use caution when preparing. They can also dissolve the plastic lining of a refrigerator; store with caution.”
Yum!
This is a cute way to keep your eyes safe from renegade splashes (?) of solder, and zany sparks from the beaker of mystery liquid you’ve been adding things to all week. Everyone knows not to mix a bleach cleaning product with an ammonia cleaning product, but does everyone know how to make really cheap safety glasses out of a (soda) pop bottle.
[note!] Not so much goggles or glasses as they are… welding helmet-ish.
As mentioned before, the Subaru WRX we showed at the Maker Faire features a remote tracking and control system. With this system you can:
It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out the possibilities. Imagine a script that checks for upcoming appointments in your computer’s calendar. 15 minutes before you leave for the appointment, your script logs in, finds your car’s location and pulls the weather for the area. If the temperature is below 40 degrees, the script will send the commands to start your car. You get in 15 minutes later and everything is warm and toasty!
This is one of many possibilities with such a system. Just imagine if the thing got stolen! “Officer, my car was stolen but I have it’s GPS coordinates. I will cut the fuel pump as soon as the officers arrive.”
You can get such a system off the shelf and installed by a local shop, but in true DIY fashion, we installed our own module from Connect2Car, who was kind enough to sponsor us. The module we used is called the “MFC Anywhere” and will be available soon from their store. We will keep you posted when it becomes available.
The mission was simple. We had only a few short days to get the MFC anywhere and the remote starter installed into the car before the Maker Faire.
See our installation of the MFC Anywhere module after the jump!
This is a funky tribute to back when all sites had hit counters (visible) on them. The particular analogue-esque hit counter in question sits somewhere attached to your PC, counting all of your lovely hits, and can be reset by taking it apart and putting the numbers back to zero! Easy, no? At any rate (mind the pun), we find this to be a cool idea.
[note!] There are a few notes dealing with voltage spikes, so read the comments at the end for additional inspiration and ideas.
Here’s an exerpt from this project that says everything we were going to say, but in a more mad-science kind of way:
“The microdrive is a little wonder on its own, it’s a very tiny harddrive - but the downside to that is that it’s a mechanical device with moving parts. Sooner or later these will all stop working. From the iPod Nano onwards the small iPods (nano, shuffle) have all been fitted with solid state flash memory instead of these microdrives.
Now with prices of flash memory cards dropping and sizes increasing, the idea was born to replace the microdrive inside my Mini with a 4GB Compact Flash card.“
Eighty eight miles per hour, Marty!
[note!] One can buy flash-based iPods from Apple (since around 2005), but it’s still fun to do it manually. Yessssir, it is.
It was a hot, sunny weekend in San Mateo this year at the second annual Maker Faire, and I have the sun burned face to prove it. Our project, the computer-intergrated WRX (mentioned before), was located on the grass near the main back entrance to the fairgrounds, and right next to The Crucible’s various fire making machines. It was funny to see everyone jump when the crucible shot fire when the DIY:happy crew was used to it after the first few hours.
A Crucible fire-spewing machine.
We were in great company with tons of great projects - car mileage mods, other car computers, and tons of other projects that you couldn’t even imagine. In fact, I thought I saw most everything, but recognize very few of the projects featured in pictures floating around the net.
More pictures after the jump.
This is a fine and handy post, one that a lot of folks living in apartment compounds with intercom systems can benefit from. This instructional set teaches you how to make a keychain to let yourself into your apartment building remotely without using a key. Anyone who has a child/shops for groceries would love this little doohickey, as it’s the residential counterpart of remote entry car keychains! Hooray!
[note!] This costs $30, tops, if you don’t have the necessary kit/parts. Which we know you do, because you’re a very resourceful, brilliant (did we mention handsome) DIY:happy reader. Would you like a massage? We’re very accommodating…
P.S. Ignore the “LOL” in the picture.
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