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DIY

diy lamp

DIY Duck Hunt Lamp Still Has That Blasted Laughing Dog

When I look at the classic Nintendo Zapper I think of my younger days as a screaming, hot-headed 8-bit gamer, but not Fluffypants. No siree. The enterprising DIY lamp artist looked at the orange and gray plastic and saw a lamp. A few hours and one fabricated cardboard NES cartridge stand later, that laughing dog was back in action, ready to haunt my dreams once again. If this model played the level intro music I'd be tempted to break out the glue gun, but for now I'll just marvel at its brilliance from afar. [Craftster via Boing Boing Gadgets]

college

The Most Ridiculous Beer Pong Table Ever Automatically Washes Your Balls

A group of electrical engineering students at West Virginia University has built the most insane beer pong table ever. It's got lights all around that react to the music playing as well as a pair of built-in swirling ball washers. It's incredible. They're taking orders for them now if you want one of your own, but be warned: this first one cost them $1,000 and 400 hours of work to complete, so it won't be cheap. Hit the jump for a video of it in action, and be sure to skip to 2:30 unless you think still photos of electrical engineering majors and circuit boards are suddenly cool when set to Linkin Park. More »

diy

DIY Party Button: For Emergency Use Only

You never know when a partying emergency will strike—which is why you must always be prepared. If you have the know-how, you can build one of these Emergency Party Buttons and launch the fun in a matter of moments. When the key is turned and the button is pressed, the blinds will close, the lights will dim, the stereo will blast, blacklights, laser lights and a strobe will come to life, and a fog machine will do its thing. To see it in action, check out the video after the break. More »

diy

The Ultimate Geek Scooter is a Rolling Entertainment Center

One would think that owning a normal scooter outside of Europe would be geeky enough, but the guys behind this project simply were not satisfied with a run-of-the mill vehicle. In fact, they managed to cram a PC with a 1.2 GHz Mini-ITX motherboard, 1GB of RAM, a 2GB SSD, Bluetooth, and wireless internet into the frame along with a TV and radio tuner, 8" LCD touchscreen, GPS, web cam, system status monitor, a mobile PVR and even an electric guitar PC uplink.

More »

open-source

Build Your Own Multitouch Table With the Cubit

Engineers at Eyebeam, a New York arts and technology center, are drastically reducing the cost of ownership for multitouch tables by taking them open-source. Schematics for the Cubit, a multitouch tabletop display, are available online for people who want to make a scaled-down Microsoft Surface for one tenth the Surface's price. More »

diy

DIY Glowing Video Tape USB Hub: Put an Old VHS Tape to Good Use

Have any old VHS tapes lying around? Really? What the hell is wrong with you? That stuff should have been tossed ages ago. Anyway, since you have one, it might be a good idea to repurpose it into something useful—like a USB hub. As far as DIY projects go, this one should be simple enough—even for a novice. All you need outside of the tape is a USB hub, some LEDs, a small switch (optional) and some cables. It looks cool, and when all is said and done you can act all high and mighty about your herculean recycling effort. Additional image after the break. More »

macbook air

Hacked MacBook Air With Built-In 3G Wireless

This is what every MacBook Air needs: built-in 3G wireless. In order to get this goodness into the MBA, Jordan Bunnell busted up a Verizon USB727 Air Card and soldered it up with the MBA's unused USB controllers on the motherboard and used a little bit of voodoo to get power flowing to the card. There's a little bit more elbow grease to get the antenna ports situated and the card crammed in there nice and properly, but as you can see, it pays off. Check out the whole nerdy process in detail over at his site, though our heart's a little too faint to attempt the feat. [Get Listed Locally via engadget]

diy

DIY G-Force Meter Turns Your Civic Into Top Gun

Perfect for Speed Racers and out-of-control Soyuz capsules, this DIY personal G-force meter attaches to your dashboard and enhances the driving experience when a mere speedometer won't do. The device measures acceleration/tilt on one axis and attaches to the windshield of your Porsche Honda Civic with a few suction cups. Three 7-Segment LED displays show instantaneous acceleration measurement to two decimal accuracy. Watch designer Chris build the meter in rhythm to techno music and pull a paltry 0.6 G's while braking after the jump. More »

booze

Put Some Age On Your Cheap Booze With the Help of 15,000 Volts

Why get drunk on cheap booze when you can get drunk on cheap booze that actually tastes good? That is the question Jon Sarriugarte asked himself when he and a buddy set out to solve the problem of how to artificially age brandy. Inspired by a single sentence in a book from the 1930s, they decided that electric current would do the trick. Fortunately, John already had a luminous transformer in his basement (don't we all), and he proceeded to pump 15,000 volts into a glass of bitter brandy. To his surprise, the taste had mellowed considerably. More »

flamethrowing

X-Man Wannabe Student Builds Wrist-Mounted Flamethrower

Everett Bradford is a student with a wannabe superhero streak, so for a project in his mechanisms class he's built his own flamethrower. A wrist-mounted one, to give an arm-directed puff of flame like Pyro from X-Men. As you can see from the video, it actually works... so ten out of ten to Everett. But minus several million for the instant when he puts it to his face to puff on the pilot light. Didn't his Mom tell him not be careless with fire? [Gadget Lab]

diy

LEGO Mousetrap Makes Mice Hate Danish Cheese

This LEGO mousetrap by Jason Allemann is pure, classic simplicity made of bricks. Created with LEGO technic, the trap measures 30 x 16 x 24 studs, and captured two mice that had decided to live in his home (one in the picture above.) The mechanism itself is quite simple: More »

storage

Century DIY SSD Now Goes Up to 2TB (in Theory)

While both Intel and Samsung are promising big drops in SSD prices by the year's end for now they still cost plenty. Unless you want to take the DIY route, and use this nifty gizmo from Century which uses compact flash cards for storage. The new version now accepts CF 3x cards and can create drives between 2GB and a crazy (and impossible, for now) 2TB in size. So you could buy a pair of 32GB CF cards for around $270, add in $192.57 for the DIY drive and you'd have a 64GB SATA SSD for about $460— less than half the cost of the 64GB MacBook Air's drive. Not bad, eh? Available from May 1st. [GeekStuff4U via Akihabaranews]

xbox 360

Experience the Joys of Constant Lag With Xbox Live on Dial-Up

For you poor, poor souls who own an Xbox 360 but still rely on dial-up for your internet, an intrepid Instructables member has written up a great "How To" on using your phone line to log onto Xbox Live. All you need is a PC running Windows with a working dial-up connection, an ethernet cable and an Xbox 360 (duh). Yes! Now even those of us still riding along the 56.6K information dirt trail will be able to download new Rock Band tracks! [Instructables]

diy

Bond With Your Family, Build Your Own Arcade Machine

Want to become the coolest parent ever? Turn off the computers, put down the television remote, and do a little DIY with your kids this weekend by building your own arcade machine. While you assemble the pieces, regale little Tommy or Gina with the tales of your Space Invaders past. And when they look up at you, little eyes shining, and ask why you couldn't just get an emulator, tell them they were both adopted. [IGN via Kotaku]

keyport

Build Your Own Keyport for 20 Bucks, Save $280

You could pay $300, send Keyport all of your keys and wait for months for your sweet keyfob and get nothing back, except for maybe your money. But then you're still out a Keyport. Or, you could build your own for about $20 and an hour of time your time, using a Leatherman Micra modded with a little elbow grease and key-grinding to hold all of your keys in a compact unit with flip-out action. And just think of how manly and awesome you'll feel after messing around with real tools and sweating. Hit the link for a step-by-step. [EDC Forums via Toolmonger, Thanks Keith!]

friday guide

How to Solve the Rubik Cube in Six-Seconds Flat

We are very big fans of Rubik's Magic Cube, even while none most of us have not solved it yet. Not even trying this one, really. Until today. Why I didn't think about this before, I don't know, but that felt oh-so-good. [Rubik in Gizmodo—thanks Carlitos]

air powered

DIY Moped Runs on Air

This Puch moped only has a range of about 7 miles and with a top speed of only 18 mph, it isn't going to break any land speed records, but there is definitely something special about it: it runs on air. Jim Stansfield, an aeronautics graduate outfitted his Puch with a pair of carbon-fiber air cylinders, two rotary air engines and the rest, as they say, is history. More »

diy

DIY Scientific Calculator Watch: Wrist Candy For Mega Nerds

If you thought the original calculator watch was nerdy, get a load of this DIY gem from designer David Jones. According to his website, the "uWatch" is the "world's most powerful programmable RPN/Algebraic scientific calculator watch." Unfortunately, the project site is still under construction, so a step-by-step tutorial has yet to be developed. However, there are a bunch of photos that should give you geniuses a basic idea on how to build one yourself. In the meantime, I'm going to up the ante and attach a watchband to my old TI-86. [uWatch via EMSL via MAKE]