Jeff’s “Princess and the Pea” alarm clock takes a cue from a classic fairy tale to provide a not-so-subtle wake-up call – No ordinary alarm clock: the Princess and the Pea Alarm Clock (“PPAC”) leaves no room for snoozing, inflating a green “pea” between the mattress and box spring, making it impossible to stay in […]
Using a cold cathode tube artist Dana Maltby paints colorful, surreal images full of undulating trails and kaleidoscopic detail. Learn to build your own cold cathode setup with this step-by-step tutorial.
An “Advent wreath” is a horizontal wreath, traditionally with four candles which are lit successively to mark each of the four weeks of Advent in the liturgical calendar of some western-tradition Christian churches. Alexander Weber has produced a beautiful little electronic version which uses 4 LEDs, a coin cell, a coin cell holder, a paperclip, and an 8-bit microcontroller chip. It is light-responsive, and uses one of the LEDs in “reverse” mode as a photodiode to detect darkness. The LEDs flicker, and the number of LEDs lit at any point is cycled by briefly cutting the power. Awesome design.
Neil sent me this link to a cool trick for holding round-head screws while you cut the threads shorter. Cut a thin slit in a correspondingly-threaded nut, through one of the points. A rotary tool with an abrasive disk is probably a good tool for this. Then you can thread the screw in and grip the nut across the flats with pliers or a vise. Compression across the width of the slit will hold the screw firmly in place, and you can use the flat side of the nut to guide the saw.
Brandon has been doing some research into the manufacturing and design of a custom Daft Punk helmet. He points out this great build log on the project from Volpin Props.
Part one shows the process of creating the basic form out of cardboard, expanding foam, clay and other materials.
Turn an entire wall into an erasable whiteboard.
Never in my life could I imagine the job that came from using the words Star Trek Pez LED menorah all together in one title. Joyce and Kaufman made this kitchy creation using one of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories delux LED menorah kits. Just terrific!
