The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for the kitchen, garage and backyard from food to furniture to fun & games for your family.
There’s a new google-maps-style API for the virtual world Second Life. It’s in beta, but we made an example of what’s possible – you can click the arrows and see snap shots of the virtual edition of MAKE, our theater and the tree house. Click the navigation arrows as well as the zoom in/zoom out controls to see the rest of the virtual world. The cool thing about this is that it’s a “real” view into another world. Link.
Rob sent in this great LED Menorah with a USB interface, the Maker J. Schrier writes – “It can correctly calculate the dates of Hannukah for at least the next few thousand years (or any historical date back to 2 B.C.E.). As well as “lighting” the candles based on when the sunsets (I set the default geography for San Francisco/Berkeley, but you can enter any latitude/longitude and (assuming you don’t live too close to the arctic circle) it will be correct to within a few minutes. Furthermore, the shamas (candle you use to light the other candles) can blink out any morse-code message you want It will convert the words to morse code for you!” Link.
For any of you Second Life makers who have been itching to create the ultimate virtual home there are a couple of bidding wars over on Ebay. Both Linden Lab and Anshe Chung (largest virtual land owner) are holding auctions for your very own island, which includes 120 hours of in world consulting and building. Also, special thanks to everyone who came out to the virtual MAKE meet up on Friday write up here.
Chris has a great arcade building how to, he writes – “…the cabinet construction was completed in 24 hours, but it took about three months to get around to the last few bits (like decorating the unit), so don’t complain if after one day you don’t get something that looks like the unit on the left! Please browse through the links at the top and bottom of each page. They will cover the construction diary (in blow-by-blow detail), the finishing of the unit together with a shopping list, prices and then information on the PC inside the unit. Finally you will be able to download some plans we created after building the device, together with some of the graphics that are on the unit.” Thanks Rick! Link.
Rob writes “One of my co-workers and his brother are somewhat serious about their Christmas lights. They welcomed the introduction of LED lights, because it meant that they could stop adding new electrical panels to their house. Of particular interest to MAKE readers are the technical notes on the sidebar of their site.” Link. But wait, there’s more! Snopes on another music sync’d home, and you can see it on Google video. Lastly, build your own – with MAKE!
Great step-by-step guide on hacking the Atari Flashback 2 Console, adding a cartridge port to play old 2600 games – “So, you’ve decided to take your Atari Flashback 2 console to the next level? Well then, here are the basic details to help assist you in hacking/modding your console into a full fledged Atari 2600 system that can use your original cartridges.” Link.
Chris writes in with a great site from Yamaha that has all sorts of fun papercrafts to download, print and make “This has a range of papercraft projects including Yamaha motorcycles, rare animals and some very cool seasonal themed projects like a jack-o-lantern… and for Japanese festivals.” Link.
