Marcus Willis Design

Here's a project you don't see every day.... a step by step of the construction of a pie with the topology of a sphere from 20 triangular modules attached with magnets, wow! - Link.

Related:

• Liquid nitrogen ice cream - Link.
• Recirculating gravy fountain - Link.
• Interview with a food hacker - Link.

Ryan writes -

"Inspired by MAKEer and flickr user apelad, I've created pdf versions of papercraft iPod covers. I put together a little script that automates the generation of the papercraft iPod covers complete with folding and cutlines for every iPod starting with the mini (for a total of 9). I plan to allow public access to the generator but want to test to make sure the covers fit correctly first.

If you have one of the following iPods & would like to take your template for a test drive, send an email to jryanstewart at gmail dot com. All I ask for in return is your thorough feedback. I'll post any questions and answers at the bottom of this page." - Link.

A MAKE reader writes - "After playing with various WiFi setups for a community network for the past three years, I discovered Meraki which is testing an easy to use setup for a mesh network (based on mit roofnet). The hardware was not designed for outdoor use so I used sch 40 pipe to make an inexpensive case that I can dock on my solar charger or undock the device and walkabout the neighborhood to extend the size of the network. " - Link.

Neat, grab this torrent and give the CDs away as gifts or put on flash drives -

"A "Wikipedia CD" has been made available for download on BitTorrent.com. The CD comprises of over 2500 hand-picked educational articles aimed at helping schools enhance their curriculum and children learn.

WikipediaThe CD has been compiled by volunteers for "the world's largest orphan charity", SOS Children. The articles, all of which are from the English language portal, are on common educational topics such as Geography, Science, Dinosaurs, Plants and Animals, to name a few. Articles on all countries and their capital cities have also been included." [via] - Link.

Related:

• Download Wikipedia CD 1.0 - Link.
• BitTorrent.com - Link.
• Encyclopodia (open source project that puts all of Wikipedia on iPods) - Link.

Modern Mechanix has a couple great projects (and ideas) from over 50 years ago for snow and sidewalk transportation.

More @ Modern Mechanix - Link.

Related:

• Runners Convert Wagon (Dec, 1947) - Link.
• This Sidewalk Runabout is Easy to Build (May, 1938) - Link.

• The Maker File:

• Colin Berry reads Spinout, the story he wrote for Make Volume 07 about his brother's efforts to build and race a car in the soap box derby in Longmont, Colorado. Unfortunately, he was up against more than just his own bad luck. Introduction by MAKE & CRAFT publisher, Dale Dougherty - Link.

• MAKE 07 - Spinout Was building a Soap Box Derby racer Colin's brother's last best chance at escaping his fate? Subscribers--read this article now in your digital edition!

If you have some old junk parts and extra circuit boards laying around, make a resistor man, he makes a good gift and he resists everything but temptation! - Link.

Chris writes in with the MAKE inspired TV repair on his 47" Panasonic HDTV (model: PT-47W53G) -

"I think that if I hadn't been reading Make magazine and the Make blog every day, I wouldn't have attempted this. I have their t-shirt that says "If you can't open it, you don't own it", so I figured it was my duty to give it a try and I'm glad I did.

First of all, I'd like to commend www.electronix.com. I ordered my replacement parts on Monday with two day shipping, but it was late in the day and I knew the order wouldn't ship until Tuesday, so with the holiday, I didn't expect the parts until Friday. They arrived Wednesday afternoon, so Wednesday evening, I was ready to begin. First I made a trip to Radio Shack to buy a new soldering iron and a desoldering bulb (my old iron was a bit crusty, so I bought a dual heat one with a stand since I would be working on the carpeted floor)..." - Part II & part I.

Chris saved over $430 doing this himself!

Here's a great collection of Lighting and accessories by designer Ronen Kadushin, with their production files (DXF for laser cutting) freely downloadable to use under CC license - Link.

I have access to a laser cutter, my holiday presents are now downloading...

The Ministry of the Environment Government of Japan has a guide (PDF) on using cloth as opposed to paper for wrapping gifts to cut down on the wasted paper usually used in gift wrap, great idea - Link.

Thanks Lil!

Related:

• Stitch and hem gift bags - Link.

I had some time this weekend to assemble my Daisy MP3 player kit. This amounted to 3 or 4 hours of soldering everything together, making a few mistakes, and working around some minor problems. Now I'm listening to the Make podcast on my first open source MP3 player, and I'm happy to say my feeble soldering skills got me by. If you're a little new to this stuff and you've been wondering how to put this bag of parts together, don't sweat it. I'll take you through some of the tricky spots and you can share your experiences and questions in the comments.

Skeplin writes -

"I was inspired by this artist's bottle cap fish to create my own bottle cap dragon. 540 beer bottle caps (170 Amber Bock, 206 Killians, 68 Budweiser Select, 96 Budweiser) make up this 41 x 43 inch piece." - Link.

Related:

• Bottlecap magnets and thumbtacks - Link.
• Bottlecap Pincushions - Link.

What a great kit, a fully functional Altair!

The Altair 8800 Kit is built using the highest quality parts available. Every part is new or new old stock. Every part required to complete the kit is included except the power cord, which I do not want to include due to possible liability issues.

The kit contains:

• Revision 0 Display/Control board, revision 0 CPU board, revision 0 1k SRAM board, and revision 0 motherboard
• Genuine Optima enclosure with powder coated and ink silk screened dress panel
• ALL parts required to complete the kit (please see "More Pictures" for examples of kit contents)
• 8v 100W Switching Power Supply, +16v/-16v/5v 60W Switching Power Supply
• Restored Altair 8800 Construction Manual, Technical Manual, Operators Manual, as well as my own full color assembly guide with step-by-step instructions illustrating the assembly process. Over 80 hours has been put just into the documentation (deleting copy machine specks, positioning text blocks and page numbers, etc) The manual is printed on 28lb premium Hammermil paper and bound in a 1" D ring binder. (available for PDF download in the next few days)

Lots of chatter about virtual worlds lately and what / if they're good for, how they make money and what people are doing in them. My 3 interests in this space, at least for now... -

• Using virtual worlds to make 3D objects and then take the information out for a 3D printer - Link.
• Using physical low cost hardware to cheaply run around in virtual worlds for sci/edu/entertainment and two-way device control - Link.
• Collaborative spaces for artwork, conferences, movie viewing - Link.

Moderator Marisa Olson of ">Rhizome will lead a casual conversation with James Deavin and Eva + Franco Mattes about their respective projects documenting the virtual world of Second Life.

Deavin's Photographs from the New World, mostly landscapes and interior shots, is on view at jen bekman through Saturday December 9th and in Second Life at jbSL, the gallery's virtual location, through the end of December.

The Matteses' portrait series, 13 Most Beautiful Avatars, is showing now at Ars Virtua Gallery in conjunction with the Time Shares series co-presented by Rhizome and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and will be in a "real world" show opening on 11/30 at the Italian Academy, at Columbia.

Space is limited, so please RSVP if you'd like to attend: rsvp AT jenbekman DOT com. More info here.

jen bekman
6 Spring St
(between Elizabeth + Bowery)
NYC 10012

The Steam Car Club of Great Britain has a steam powered moped project by Roger Ulsky -

" My SteamPed started life as a Motobecane Moped which I obtained in a non running condition but with all the parts intact. I eventually want to build a steam car and decided this would be a good way to get my feet "dry" with steam land vehicles... With 650 F steam, the SteamPed will cruise at 20 MPH. In the interest of longevity, I run it at 500 F and get 15 MPH." [via] - Link.

Related:

• Steam bicycles - Link.
• Steam powered @ MAKE - Link.

Not a bad case mod for a PC, a trash can, you can keep this next to your desk and no one would ever think to steal it! - [via] - Link.

Related trash computing:

HOW TO - Turn an old CRT monitor into a trash can - Link.

Waste paper can computer case - Link.

Peter writes -

"Hey MAKE, very excited about this one. The creator of DSMIDI, the wired / hacked cartridge for MIDI cable connections... and the creator of NitroTracker (see my music app roundup for DS) ... have teamed up to create a completely open source solution for sending MIDI wirelessly to and from the DS. And while normally I make up excuses to solder, in this case the marvel is that no hardware is required (other than what you need to run homebrew apps). The ability to transmit data to the computer means you can control synths and other software wirelessly -- VJs are drooling over this already. And DSMIDIWifi's receive capability turns it into a wireless synth. (If you've seen this before, the download / first build only became available a little earlier today -- meaning you can now try it yourself rather than just watch the YouTube video!). I'll be working on a tutorial for this (especially since it's worth revisiting how to run homebrew software thanks to some recent developments), so stay tuned. I should add, I'm going to try to hook up the wireless controller to Flash, as well." - Link.

Related:

• DSMIDIWifi - Link.
• Nintendo DS MIDI - Link.
• Homebrewed MIDI controllers - Link.
• Nintendo DS homebrew guide (PDF) - Link.
• Portable consoles as musical instruments... - Link.
• MIDI @ MAKE - Link.

Steve from Wicked lasers tried to sent us a zip file with the "making of" photos from the "Sonar Blu Ray laser" but big emails never work out, but pal Alan managed to get them posted up @ Hackedgadgets, check them out -

"By now I am sure all of you have heard about Blu Ray players. The heart of this innovative device is a special high power laser. Wicked Lasers is striving to bring cutting edge products to their customers. Steve over at Wicked Lasers was kind enough to show us how their new Sonar laser is developed. The crazy thing is that these lasers are so rare they must be harvested out of actual Blu Ray players. If you can afford one of these finely crafted lasers, I am jealous." - Link.

Check out links for some how-tos on making your own...

Related:

• HOW TO - Make a DVD burner into a High-Powered laser - Link.
• Fun With Lasers (great resources) - Link.
• Transmit Audio with a Laser Pen - Link.
• Play Records with a Laser - Link.
• The Homemade Laser Saber - Link.
• Green Laser! - Link.
• Laser chess... - Link.
• The Homemade Nitrogen Laser - Link.

There is a "Smartphone Smackdown" in NYC @ the Samsung Experience Center Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, a couple folks I know are speaking there so I'm going to pop by with the phones I roll with to see how bad they get smacked... If you're in NYC stop by, there will be lots of gadgety stuff and I'll have my maker-y phones with me (rotary and green linux) - Link.

The phones:

• Rotary phone - Link.
• Linux green phone - Link (this phone appears in our open source gift guide too).

Ok Makers we added a cool new link to all the blog posts on MAKE, it's called the "Technorati Link Counter Widget" - it will show other makers and sites that are linking to the post you're reading. Just click "View blog reactions" - It's a great way to find other maker-friendly sites, tech sites and people/orgs that are likely interested in similar topics - so check it out, let us know what you think, consider this an experiment... and if you have a site, post a link to MAKE so we can see you! Link & Technorati Link Counter Widget.

Here are a couple examples...

• Open source gift guide - Link & list.
• Zune hacks - Link & list.

When you view these on posts, you'll see the # of people talking before you click, so far it's pretty impressive and spam free!

Last night, in a dark alleyway in the depths of the industrial district in Seattle the sport of shovercraft was born. Here's a sneak preview of the hovercrafts we made! Watch the games this Friday in the weekend project podcast! Click here to subscribe in itunes and have them downloaded automatically as soon as they come out! - Link to Photoset