Recently, we’ve been brainstorming ideas for a breadboarding workshop to put on at Maker Faire and other events. Hoping to save participants the tedium of cutting and stripping their own jumper wires (and the cost of providing readymade jumpers) we hit on the idea of using staples. I first read about this hack on Instructables, awhile back, and was excited to find a chance to put it to use. Just one problem: it doesn’t work.
It won’t be long before our college-aged readers head back to school for yet another year of studying and general devotion to all things academic. To make the next couple semesters a little more geeky, we’re rounding up our favorite hacks that would be perfect for the residence halls.
The always inspired Jeri Ellsworth outdid herself at this year’s Maker Faire Bay Area. Jeri is known for the phrase “Did you bring a hack?” and she lives by such sentiment — Jeri always brings a hack. This year, at Maker Faire, it was a Commodore 64 Bass “keytar” that makes use of the original […]
One of the downfalls of using PVC pipe as a construction media is that your joints are either permanent, or they fall apart when pulled. If only there was a way to make a robust, temporary connection. Thanks to Bill Waters’ happy mistake, he discovered how to do just that by using ShapeLock (PCL.)
Check out the schedule for this summer’s Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) hacker conference, of which this is the 9th. The talks include everything from Open Source Hardware to Advanced Handcuff Hacking to the legendary Social Engineering panel. I wish I was going!
In an effort to shave off precious microseconds from the tedium of having to manually switch modes in his favorite multi-modal text editor, Aleksandr Levchuk fashioned a USB clutch pedal to do the job. Now, instead of typing an “i” to insert text or hitting to edit it, Aleksandr need only tap the pedal to enter the corresponding mode.
Ask MAKE is a monthly column where we answer your questions. Send your vexing conundrums on any aspect of making to askmake@makezine.com. If we don’t have the answer, we’ll scare up somebody who does.
