Gizmodo: Homemade

Homemade Iron Man Suit Can Probably Kick Real Tony's Ass (Tony From the Pizza Place)

Jesus Diaz — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:00:00 EDT

While the nightmarish beer-belly-ready Iron Man suit was WRONG and disturbing, this homemade version of the original suit is a perfect reproduction of the original. And still disturbing. As you can see in the gallery, it's perfectly made, with the same finish and every single detail of the real Iron Man suit, down to the last notch and junction.

The armor was made to fit a 6.2-foot, 35-inch, 200-pound person, using glass fiber for the armor parts, flexible plastic for the midsection and neck, and foam rubber for the gloves. The arc reactor lights up, and the eyes are covered with reflective lenses.

For sound effects, however, you still have to shout "pew pew pew" while waving your arms up in the air. [My Disguises]

MAKE Makes Call for Makers for October Austin Faire

Kit Eaton — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:01:09 EDT

We love the whacky creativity of the Maker Faire here at Giz, and all you DIY gadget enthusiasts out there will be pleased to hear MAKE has just put out a call for Makers for the upcoming Austin Faire. You've got until September 4th to get your application in, and the faire itself will be happening October 18th and 19th at the Travis County Expo Center. [MakerFaire via LaughingSquid]

Wacky Afghan Engineer Develops Remote Controlled Kalashnikov Burglar Alarm

Sean Fallon — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:00:00 EDT

The infamous Kalashnikov has a long and illustrious history of murder and mayhem, which makes it the perfect centerpiece for a contraption developed by unemployed Afghan electrical engineer Hanif Molavizadeh. With only a small movement outside his window, the device will trigger a "song like warning." It will then call Molavizadeh's cellphone which can be used to send a message to the would-be thief through the alarm box. If that doesn't work, the Kalashnikov can be fired remotely to lay down some serious vigilante justice.

Not content to stop with home protection, Molavizadeh has expanded his unique and painful approach to crime fighting to the automotive realm. In fact, he has already constructed a system that can deliver a non-lethal electric shock to a car thief via his cellphone. Despite interest from private individuals and local news sources, the Afghan government isn't taking his work seriously—which shows you just how bad the situation is in Afghanistan. This is the kind of dude you keep your eye on. [NPR via Gizmag]

Homemade Conan the Barbarian Booby Trap Almost Stabs Verizon Agent to Death

matt buchanan — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:55:00 EDT

Long Island is a dangerous place, filled with bad accents and crazy people wandering around, like Verizon technicians. Eric Stetz knows mere deadbolts won't keep them out. No, you've gotta get medieval, Conan the Barbarian style. So he built a booby trap out of a massive knife, crutch and elastic trip-cord to poke intruders in the head. To death. Like the Verizon guy scheduled to visit his apartment.

Luckily for Mr. Verizon, the building's super dropped by to make sure everything was cool, and managed to avoid being chop sueyed with his ninja super skills as the knife snapped at him like cobra when he opened the door. When arrested, Eric asked the cops "Did anyone get hurt with my knives? I wish they did." Since they didn't, the court thought it was cool to release this dude on bail. I love this country. [Newsday via Gothamist]

Homemade Cocaine-Smuggling Sub: Party Time on Das Boot

Sean Fallon — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:00:24 EST

When it comes to the millions of dollars involved in smuggling drugs, even coked out dealers can tackle a big, complicated project. Recently, Colombian marines seized a homemade fiberglass submarine big enough to hold 4 crew members and 12 metric tons of cocaine —making it one of the largest such crafts found. Since the sub never saw action on the Pacific, there is no telling whether or not it would have actually worked. Still, if you had to die a slow death at the bottom of the sea, this would be the vessel to do it in. [Reuters]

How to Build Your Own Sex Doll

Jason Chen — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 16:00:15 EDT

Feel like doing it yourself? Fleshbot points us to a tutorial on how to build yourself a "realistic" sex doll out of spare parts you have lying around. We're not sure how many of us have mannequin parts lying around to make a sex doll out of, but a can of Pringles and the end of a lightsaber we definitely do.

Best touch? Making a used popcorn container from the theater into sex receptacle. Those M&Ms never knew what hit them. – Jason Chen

Make Your Own Sexdoll [Homemade Sex Toys (NSFW) via Fleshbot (NSFW)]

Homemade Solar Cell Built Right In Your Kitchen

Gizloco — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 13:19:20 EDT

With The Man jacking up energy prices, it's probably not a bad idea to start investigating the benefits of solar power. (No, nobody cares about energy derived from the wind, Netherlands, thank you very much.) The solar panel in question is made from cuprous oxide rather than the usual silicon. Science Toys has the step-by-step instructions on how you can turn a trip to the local hardware store into a fun afternoon building a device capable of delivering a whopping 12.5 microwatts of power. Isn't learning fun?

Admittedly, this is more of a proof-of-concept than anything else since you probably won't even be able to power light bulbs or anything, but soon enough we'll be able to build bigger cells with bigger solar panels until we make a cell so large it will destroy us all. (Or something to that effect.) – Nicholas Deleon

Make a solar cell in your kitchen [Science Toys via MAKE: Blog]

Make Your Own Air Conditioner

Charlie White — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:57:55 EDT

Our second cousins at Lifehacker tell us about a guy named Pete H. who got sick and tired of the sweltering heat and made his own air conditioner out of an aquarium pump, a fan, some copper tubing and a plastic box full of ice.

After carefully arranging the copper tubing in front of a fan, Pete used the aquarium pump to push water through the closed system, where it passed in front of the fan on its way back to the ice. Hey, this could be a good way to liquid-cool a PC, too. – Charlie White

Make your own air conditioner [lifehacker]