Announcements

As 5 am rolled around, the monster truck street cleaners did their tour on the streets of San Francisco, while hundreds of bleary-eyed inventors lined up at the Renaissance Parc 55 Hotel, some hauling exotic prototypes, portfolios, and shrouded gadgets. Earlier in the week, over 400 people waited for up to 2 days in Los Angeles. Anyone with an idea has a shot at bringing their dream to the world and winning a million dollars on ABC’s American Inventor, a new reality show from Simon Cowell and the producers of American Idol, set to air in March of 2006. MAKE magazine’s Phillip Torrone & Natalie Zee report…

The nice folks at the excellent site Treehugger sent us their weekly round up – here it goes. “This week at Treehugger: How to get re-use out of things you own: “Help Its Broken” will show you how. We found plans to make your own pedal-powered hovercraft. Learn how to make a bag out of, well, recycled plastic bags. And, pour your drink back into the bottle: we find tumblers made from recycled beer bottles….

Chris Connors, Duxbury High School, Technology and Engineering, put together a great contest for kids – here is the story and the winners (MAKE was a judge)… “The contest project was about creating another way for kids to get inspired to try new things. Some of these projects were things that they were thinking or planning to do. Creating the documentation for the contest helps them be able to show their thinking and their creativity. When they can show off what they have done, it is easier for the community to see how good they are. The documentation can also change the way you approach a project. If you know you are going to have to show it and say it, you think things through differently than if you are just getting the job done…”

Just finished watching the premiere episode of SYSTM and it’s really good- Kevin Rose and gang mod a wireless video receiver to “warspy” (looking for wireless cams in home, biz, etc..) the production and graphics in the show are outstanding- my favorite parts are the chip animations, it’s always a challenge to show those types of things, on video in particular, they did a nice job- so here’s a review with screenshots from the show!…

We’re gearing up for a special addition to the Makezine.com site called MAKE:audio. We still have some things to work out on the technical side, but here are the types of interviews with Makers, authors and all around interesting people you can expect…