Trimbandit's Scary Animated Zombie Groundbreaker Instructable uses two pneumatics to make a partially buried zombie jerk and pitch and seem to try to claw its way out of your lawn -- it's an incredibly effective illusion, one that capitalizes on the jerking, sudden motions of the pneumatic to lend a terrifying, otherworldly vigor that makes the mannequin skinned over the pneumatics seem like the living dead. Read the rest
We're big fans of useless machines around here: those boxes with one or more switches, that, when toggled, trigger some kind of arm that pops out and puts the switch back in the off position, before retreating to the inside of the box. Read the rest
Making a solar hot-dog oven is a science fair standby, but JohnW539's CNC-milled Sundogger Instructable really digs into the classroom portion, drawing on the creator's experience as a physics/astronomy/computer science prof at Middle Tennessee State University. Read the rest
Got a 3D printer? Read the rest
LEDs are diodes (that's what the D stands for) and diodes are sensitive to voltage drops: when you blow on an LED, you make it ever so slightly cooler, and that causes an infinitesimal, but detectable voltage drop. Read the rest
Raz85's Instructable for a Cardboard Spider Quadruped offers a nice demonstration of the surprisingly durable material properties of humble cardboard, replacing the more familiar milled metal or plastic limbs for a quadruped robot with scrap cardboard. Read the rest
If the novelty of holding an elaborate bearing (possibly connected to some motion-sensitive LEDs) is wearing thin, have no fear: with a 3D printer and a little ingenuity, you can make your own double-pendulum fidget spinner, a chaotic system that is intensely sensitive to initial conditions, such that it becomes very hard to predict the motion of the pendulum when you set it to swinging. Read the rest
Jonathan Odom -- aka Jon-a-Tron -- worked out that the fidget-spinner fad has created a world where we're all holding spinny things all the time, and that means we could all be holding amazing, awesome zoetropes! Read the rest
Becky Stern writes, "Send your valentine a note through the net! This DIY electronics project uses a small vibrating motor to gently wave a tissue paper heart and flash an LED when it receives instructions over the internet from another device. I built two versions of the ESP8266 wifi circuit, also equipped with two buttons for triggering the two commands. The devices talk over the Adafruit IO cloud data service to communicate with each other from anywhere with wifi, and I'll show you how to activate your valentine with the API gateway service IFTTT as well, in case you only want to build one valentine circuit." Read the rest
Mistablik is an American high-school student who put his mind to finding alternate uses for the lockers that lined his school's hallways -- lockers that sit empty as students switch over to electronic textbooks -- and decided to build a tiny, secure, Arduino-based vending machine that would sell soda to his fellow students. Read the rest
Long story short: start with a reliable chocolate chip cookie recipe (this one has chia!), bake and decorate with sugar pears, slivered almonds, food coloring markers (I didn't know that these were a thing, but these are a thing!) and some sculpting tools. (via Geeks Are Sexy) Read the rest
Tiffin pails are the ubiquitous, ingenious and practical lunchpails of Indian workers, delivered daily by an army of spectacularly well-coordinated "dabba wallahs." Read the rest
The severed, animated, flopping zombie appendage is a staple of horror films, and these zombie-mouth cupcakes look like someone has decorated an amuse-bouche with a bouche coupé. Read the rest
Sugru's R&D department blew off a little steam by making a Sugru-reinforced gatling water-pistol that fires multicolored streams of dyed water. Read the rest
Johntonta grew weary of the meaningless modern round of office slavery, so he created a kayak made from desk-lumber, a business-suit skin, computer-wire lashings. He documented the Post-bureaucratic jetsam kayak on Instructables so you too can sail away on the careless seas. Read the rest
By photoshopping a pair of mirror-flipped profile-shots of your face onto either side of a full-on shot, you can make a gimmicked photo that, when curled and placed in a jar of water, creates a convincing illusion of your head in a jar. Mikeasaurus's Instructable has easy-to-follow instructions for making your own. Read the rest
Jeffrey sez, "The renowned 360 photographer Andrea Biffi has posted complete instructions for building your own Nixie Tube clock, even including how to etch your own circuit board.
While the process seems to be slightly more difficult that 'total noob' difficulty (also, with nixie tubes, hazardous voltages are involved, so be careful!), it looks like loads of fun, with an absolutely beautiful end product."
Simple user-adjustable DIY Nixie Clock by andrea biffi
(Thanks, Jeffrey!) Read the rest
