Making Fun Things
I’ve heard that the best reason to make things is to give them away as gifts, and I completely agree.I doodled a little robot one day and thought it looked pretty cool. I built this little robot pendant in SolidWorks, developed it as I went along, and printed it in steel through Shapeways.Sometimes the quick
The Distraction Contraption is a custom arcade machine I designed and made in 2011 as a gift to myself. It was built around an old computer using laser-cut MDF, acrylic, LEGO gears, and roadside electronics. I was inspired by a smaller arcade machine from Sam Seide. It was built with a small-form-factor PC, custom designed
You know when you’re trying to hide beef jerky in a treasure chest, but the lock just isn’t musical enough? And when your old-timey pirate chest is somehow lacking in Zelda references? This practical project was built to address those concerns and more. The Magic Beef Box is a musical secret treasure chest, sponsored by
Here’s another fun thing that happened at Make: We had an excellent synth project. It’s not very often you run across a compelling analog noise making circuit, but this one made all kinds of cool space gun sound effects from 70’s sci-fi shows. The effect was fantastic, but sound didn’t exactly translate well to print. So
The second Adafruit came out with 50mm LED rings, I knew what they were for. Made in 2013, these were built following the excellent tutorial over on the fruit, only I used a Tiny Lily instead, and attached the LiPo battery to the exterior because I’m not strapping a small bomb that close to my
I designed and printed a morph ball for a Sphero toy. Something about the art of Metroid just has a way of sticking in my brain, I guess. For some reason I couldn’t find anyone else making a real-life morph ball, so I went and made it happen.
Fun fact, I’ve done some work at an underground blog called Make. Part of that work involved making a small pirate radio station, complete with Art Deco 3D-printed case. For those who doubt me, here’s some proof: That’s me, teaching kids how to build a pirate radio station and leading a bike parade. Check out
I built a custom upright arcade machine out of plywood, Formica, and dreams. This was for the lobby of a design firm, so it had to be slick. It’s a beast. This one was done with a custom grill over speakers loud enough to fill a good-sized venue. We permanently set the max volume at