DIY

Scrapheap printer orchestra plays Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan famously sang that the times they are a-changin' -- but little did he know just how much. So much, in fact, that a MIDI-controlled orchestra made of old consumer electronics can now play one of his all-time classics.

Chris Cairns of production company Partizan teamed with creative firm Isthisgood? to turn old Brother photocopiers, scanners, fax machines, printers, hard drives, and modems into a full-scale scrapheap symphony with a penchant for folk.

They soldered, reprogrammed, hacked, and rewired 97 printer relics destined for the landfill and even custom-designed their own circuitboard that could control all of the printers from one main computer. … Read more

Skittles-sorting machine separates the rainbow

Van Halen's tour contract once famously included a clause that a bowl of M&Ms was to be provided backstage with all the brown ones removed. Such a feat would be a lot easier to achieve today using a device like the Skittles Sorting Machine.

The Skittles Sorting Machine does exactly what it sounds like. Pour Skittles into a funnel at the top and wait as the machine patiently evaluates each one and delivers it into a bowl with like colors. Once done, you can taste the individual colors of the rainbow.

The machine is even more impressive when you learn maker Brian Egenriether fabricated many of the parts from epoxy, pulled the funnel from a hummingbird feeder, and poached additional parts from a telescope.… Read more

How to keep your devices charged up during a blackout

The night Hurricane Sandy hit New York, I had no reason to believe the power in Manhattan would go out. After all, Hurricane Irene the year before had left the lights on here, even if big swaths of NYC's outer boroughs and suburbs lost power.

But, almost as an afterthought, I pulled out a bulky Dell laptop I had sitting around (just visible in the bottom left of the photo above) and plugged it in to charge its internal battery, just to have as many charged-up devices on hand as possible. Of course, the lights did go out in … Read more

Repurpose paintbrushes to clean camera gear

Lens cleaning equipment such as blower brushes and compressed air can take up quite a bit of space in your bag. The folks at Digital Camera World have come up with a novel DIY way of keeping things compact by transforming paintbrushes into portable tools for cleaning off minute particles when shooting in dusty environments.

All you need is an inexpensive paintbrush that's readily available at any craft shop.… Read more

DeLorean push car costume for the littlest Marty McFly

Instructables user cory4281 scores a major win for geek moms everywhere with an impressive DeLorean push car and Marty McFly costume for her son on Halloween.

The "Back to the Future"-inspired costume began with a red puffy vest her son already had and an innocent aside about Marty McFly. It ended with the transformation of a push car into a little souped-up DeLorean with wheels rotated down, ready to fly through time.… Read more

Baby Ripley drives 'Aliens' Power Loader costume for Halloween

It's important to prepare your baby for a life of geekiness at an early age. Halloween is a great opportunity for this, especially if you have the skills to build a Power Loader costume from "Aliens" with your baby standing in as Ripley.

Awesome dad Jason Smith did just that. It took him two nights and a day to put the large and elaborate costume together out of cardboard boxes and hot melt glue. His little daughter is safely strapped into a Baby Bjorn with a roll cage for added protection. There's even a rotating light on top.… Read more

Tetris or treat! Playable pumpkin Tetris haunts Halloween

All right, kid, I'll give you three Snickers, four rolls of Smarties, and five bags of M&Ms if you can beat my pumpkin-Tetris high score. Hacker/squash carver Nathan Pryor has created something a little more elaborate than a candle inside a jack o' lantern. He has a playable pumpkin Tetris.

Pryor carved an impeccable grid into a good-size pumpkin and loaded it with 128 LEDs for the display. He named this glorious triumph of technology over fruit "Pumpktris." Say that five times fast.… Read more

DIY: Turn an old lamp into a flexible phone stand

One glance at Une Bobine and I was interested. The iPhone and Android phone accessory, which got its start on Kickstarter, offers a seemingly better way to position your phone however (and wherever) you want. And besides, it's gorgeous.

My main interest in Une Bobine was that it would allow me to position my phone alongside my desktop monitor, making multitasking easy while my screens were aligned. More than that, however, I could use it as a tripod for video calling and photo-taking.… Read more

Pinball machine made entirely of K'Nex construction toys

Some people play with construction toys. Some people build massive and elaborate functioning structures out of construction toys. University of Colorado engineering student Andrew Locke fits into the latter category.

Locke built a fully functional pinball machine out of K'Nex. K'Nex may not have quite the same fame as Legos, but it's definitely a versatile construction system. It's also a very detailed construction system. It took Locke 4 months to put the beast together.… Read more