MAKE magazine reader John Mangan shared a nifty simple trick with us: you can remove dried hot glue with isopropyl alcohol and cotton swabs. He made a video demonstration to share the knowledge, I posted it on Makezine yesterday, and it’s been well-received. Since there are no shortage of crafts that utilize hot glue, I’m […]
The IR Jammer kit provides a bit of safe and non-destructive fun with anything that receives IR signals.
My iPad deserves better than the ugly beige plastic cookbook holder I’ve been using to prop it up. Instead of splurging on an expensive pre-made one, I decided to build a one-of-a-kind brushed aluminum stand. A trip to my local hardware store yielded the channel aluminum, flat bar, and hardware fittings I’d need. Cutting, drilling, and finishing with my Dremel made this beauty come together in a single afternoon. The iPad is very secure in this stand, thanks to the angles involved and a bit of gravity.
You’re likely already familiar with the Larson Scanner kit, created by Evil Mad Scientist Labs and carried in the Maker Shed. Named after Glen A. Larson, the man behind the original Battlestar Galactica and Knight Rider TV shows, it’s a microcontrolled 9-LED display that emulates the back and forth panning light patterns used on the […]
Our roundup of ten clever and useful projects for making blackboards and whiteboards.
Prolific MAKE contributor, Andrew Lewis, has a piece up on Upcraft showing off his workshop. It’s a really sweet looking setup: There is an oscilloscope fixed under the bench, and an easel above. I like to think that I’m working between two different ends of the creative spectrum, with art above me and science below. […]
Whatever else may be said of me, I am fundamentally a dreamer: I have ideas. Lots of them. Most are terrible (ask me sometime about my scheme to potty-train cattle), but every so often one will work out. And, like many creative people, when others see my work I often get asked “How did you ever think of that?” When I was younger, the process was as mysterious to me as to anybody else. But over the years I’ve learned a lot about where my ideas come from and what to do with them when they pop up, and the more I read about and talk to other creative people, the more I come to believe that there are, in fact, some more-or-less universal principles of creativity. And while there will always be something mysterious in the workings of the muse, I do not subscribe to the common belief that creativity is a magical gift bestowed on some and not on others. Like drawing, doing algebra, or speaking a second language, having original ideas is a mental skill that can be developed and, with practice, can become second nature. What follows is a brief list of the stations on my own personal “assembly line” of ideas. If you need an idea and can’t seem to have one, give it a read, give it a try, and see what shakes loose. If it works for you, remember it; if it doesn’t, throw it away. Experiment, as always, and develop your own process.
