Fun & Games

The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for bikes, rockets, R/C vehicles, toys and other diversions.

pov top tells it both ways

pov top tells it both ways

Dhananjay Gadre has created another great project! We recently built a LED spinning top with message display. Its an improved version of a similar top published by Elektor in their December 2008 issue. The Elektor top can be spun only in one direction. The synchronization required to print message on the LEDs arranged along the […]

Reprogramming pinball machines

MAKE Projects Editor, Paul Spinrad, sent me a link to this project and the following message: Some CS / Game Development students hacked a Lord Of The Rings pinball machine, taking full control of its sensors, actuators, and display, and reprogrammed it to play Pinhorse — like the basketball game, but you try to match […]

Maker Profile – Bicycle Rodeo

Introducing Cyclecide, an inventive band of Bay Area performance artists who make creations out of materials from the junkyard. These Makers create everything from amusement park rides to outrageous bicycle contraptions to found-object sculpture. Plus, we take a historical spin through the origins of the modern bicycle. Check out Cyclecide’s website at cyclecide.com. Get the […]

Puzzlemation in action

John posted this vid of the Puzzlemation led matrix modules in use for those who didn’t catch them at Maker Faire. This really gets across the impressiveness of the project – pretty easy to imagine this device being a popular evolution of the classic jigsaw design. We’d likely be assembling scenes from our fave DVDs […]

Meatricity

Meatricity

Meatricity is the electricity generated by the muscle power of humans or other animals. After a great day working on project ideas for Alternative Energy module in next summer’s Learn 2 Teach / Teach 2 Learn program at the South End Technology Center, I drove by a huge workout gym sort of filled with beautiful […]