MAKE Flickr photo pool member Chris Mckenna writes “I was inspired by Mister Jalopy’s MAKE volume 04 World’s Biggest MP3 Player article to hack together something from a thrift store bought console radio. No where near as complicated as the project described in the article, but perhaps interesting to some. It sounds pretty awesome.” Nice work! Link.
Trevor writes “When I got my first iTrip, I loved it. Yea, the range and quality could be better, but hey, I’ve got my iPod playing in my car. Then I found a tutorial online which explained how to increase the iTrip’s range simply by taking the antenna out of the case. When I did it, I was amazed at the increase in audio quality. Such a simple hack can easily make your iTrip much better. Then, I got the new iTrip LCD from Griffin, which has an LCD screen to display the station and a knob to change it. Griffin says the LCD version has better audio quality and range than the old iTrip, but it still didn’t match my hacked iTrip. Since I couldn’t find a tutorial online, I decided to just dive in. I used the same basic method as with the old iTrip, with a few small changes. If you decide to do this to your iTrip, know that it does void the warranty, and you need to be very careful.” Link and alternate link.
Excellent site documenting a homemade pipe organ – Maker Raphi writes “The following website describes the process of how I designed and am currently building a 5 stop, 5 rank, all wood pipe organ for my house. I’m not an organist and I can barely play piano but I love music, organs and woodworking. Add to that that I’m a mechanical engineer and you have all the ingredients for a project like this.” Thanks Joel! Link.
“The nitrogen laser will give 100kW pulses of light at 337.1nm (UVA light). The pulses are only 6ns long, so the energy per pulse is just 0.6mJ. It is a very simple laser, and it does not require mirrors or glass working at all! But using a mirror at one end of the laser will boost the output to over 250%. And if the nitrogen entering the laser (it is a flowing gas laser, but it can be made sealed) is cooled, it can go up to 120 pps. So if it is running at 120 pps, and has a mirror at one end, the average power output will be 180 mW. Although the beam is invisible it can be used to pump dye lasers to give beams with wavelengths ranging from infrared to ultraviolet.” Link.
Clever instructable for protecting and camouflaging your bike using an old innertube – “An old innertube or two can be artfully used to protect your bicycle frame from damage. This is excellent in preventing damage to your frame from using U-Locks to lock them up. Also great to dress down your bicycle for urban environments.” Link.
Leadingzero writes “Inspired by Ladyada’s infamous GameGrrl, I recently became determined to make my own portable NES out of the MegaJoy (one of those knockoff Nintendo systems that can be found in malls) and the recently discontinued HIP Gear Screen pad. However, for my project I wanted to do something slightly different. I wanted to give mine a more unique feel, so when I recently found my old Sega GameGear I instantly knew that it was destined for this project.” Link.
“Two Industrial Design students from the National Univeristy of Singapore (NUS) are the first Asians to win the Design Lab Award at the international Electrolux Design Lab 2005 competition! Their product? A waterfall-inspired washing unit that require neither water nor detergents.” [