Mad Arduinos!
Backwards Geocaching: How to Make a Reverse Geocache Box
If you've never heard of geocaching, it's kind of a grown-up treasure hunt you play everywhere in the world. GPS coordinates are given as clues and the players must find the cache box. There is usually a log book to write your name and a small toy or present to collect.
Robot Basics: Using an H Bridge to Move Your Bot Backwards
I love robots. They have the potential to evolve into Asimovian destroyers of the human species, but have only just mastered the art of cleaning my rug. They have an ever increasing cool factor and a growing number of cheap and simple components that let the hobby roboticist reach for the burning miasmas of plasma. But to get to the stars, we need to start with the basics.
How To: Make Your Solar-Powered Projects More Efficient with This DIY Sun Tracker
Omniscience is not required to make some really cool shit happen. Yes, it took a while, but we can make fuel from the Sun! Solar panels are basically our answer to God. And now that we can make solar electricity, finding the most efficient way to harvest it is tricky.
How To: Forget Keys—Use a Secret Knock to Open Your Locked Boxes
There is something special about a secret knock. It gets you into secret super villain meetings and is a surefire way to test for rotating bookcase passages. Secret knocks usually work with an intimidating drug lord and for policeman listening at the door for the correct pattern of raps.
How To: Automate Your Doorbell with Freaking Lasers
Doorbells are a great idea. They let you know when someone who's not a burglar is trying to enter your house, apartment, or squat. They eliminate the need for lots of noisy yelling and startling door pounding.
DIY Lab Equipment: Build Your Own Reflow Oven Out of a Toaster for Precision Temperature Soldering
Ever wonder how all of those tiny chips and components can fit inside your laptop or smartphone? If you tried to squeeze them in there yourself, your laptop would quickly become too heavy for your lap, and your mobile phone would need wheels to stay mobile.
How To: Prank an Entire Dorm with a Perfume-Spraying Swiffer WetJet Booby Trap
Pranks are fun, but finding a way to maximize the affect of a prank can be tricky. Toilet papering the whole campus or repainting all of the parking spaces slightly smaller can take a long time and a lot of resources. A better plan of attack is to booby trap the choke points where your victims are forced to pass through. Think like a guerrilla. A dorm doorway is a good idea.
How To: Trigger Anything from Anywhere with Just a Phone Call
Smartphones are crazy awesome. You can do your banking, track your children, find directions, and even pretend to have a mustache. The only thing that these personal supercomputers are missing is physical interaction with the environment.
How To: Make These Sonic Distance Sensors for the Bad Driver in Your Life
Today's fancy cars come with all sorts of options, from power mirrors to working seat belts. Some of us condemned to live in the reality of capitalist recession have no car, or perhaps a very modest one. But your modest car can still have some cutting edge technology wedged into the trunk and dashboard if you know what you want and where to look for parts. Today, we make a parking sensor using a sonic range finder, just like in the vehicles our owners drive!
Get Into the Kit Business: How to Build and Sell Your Own Arduino Shields
The DIY industry is booming, despite the desperate blackmailing of society by finance capitalists. Companies like Adafruit and Makerbot are grossing well over a million dollars a year, and Evil Mad Science Laboratories just recently dedicated themselves to running a full-time kit business. Making kits is fun, but starting a business can be scary. If you already enjoy making gadgets and want to take the plunge into selling your own kits online, this article is for you.
How To: Design Your Own Custom Arduino Board Microcontroller
Microcontrollers are great. You can do anything from water your garden to catch wildlife trash diggers in the act—and on the cheap. I prefer to use the Arduino microcontroller because of the large and helpful community built around the website. Though it is my favorite, there are some drawbacks to using an Arduino board in every project. It gets expensive, the board can take up too much space, and the rat's nest of breadboard wires are a pain to repair.
How To: Wildlife Photography with a DIY Motion-Triggered Camera
Even if you live in a big city, chances are you have some wild raccoons or foxes that cannot abide a vertical trash barrel. While apparently omnipresent, these phantasmic critters usually vanish in the night leaving only a shameless trail of refuse you never wanted to see ever again. While I haven't found a way to stop them, I can help you snap some photos of the dastardly creatures.
How To: Build a Vacation Pet Feeder with a DIY Linear Actuator
If you are a pet owner, going on vacation can be stressful. Usually, you need a friend or neighbor to come over everyday and feed your pets. However, by enslaving robots you can keep your pet happy and enjoy a stress-free holiday.
DIY Polygraph Machine: Detect Lies with Tin Foil, Wire and Arduino
Lying is awesome. From a very young age, children learn that flat out denying the truth gets you out of trouble and helps keep you calm in the face of horror. But what happens when you just have to know if someone, say, used your toothbrush? You could ask them to take an expensive and arduous polygraph test.
How To: Create a Smart Sprinkler System to Water Your Garden When the Soil Dries Up
Spring has sprung, which means it's time to plant all those delicious vegetables and lucrative cash crops. If you are like me, every year you meticulously plan every aspect of your garden before dutifully neglecting it all summer. I decided enough was enough and built this simple automatic watering system.
Inception in Real Life: Make These Lucid Dreaming Glasses and Take Control of Your Dreams
Dreams are like an internal human holodeck. Inside your mind, anything is possible, from your grandest wishes to your worst nightmares. This is all well and good, but what if you could control your dreams and become the omniscient god of a handpicked reality whenever you go to sleep? Inception took this idea to the logical extreme by invading other people's dreams.
Make a Physical Computer Virus: Plant a Parasite to Prank Your Peeps
Computer viruses are terrifying. They are undetectable, dangerous, and operate constantly right under your nose. For the average computer user, there are only a few repair options. You could buy expensive antivirus software that causes more problems than it fixes, you can wipe your hard drive clean and lose all of your important data, or if all else fails—just switch to Linux.
How To: Create a Swarm of Robot Minions with These Popsicle Stick Arduino Hexapods
You're never too young to start building your vast swarm of robotic minions. Taking over the world requires a whole lot of robots. The sheer volume of robots needed means your first wave will have to be made of cheap materials. After they take over key resources, you can upgrade to Kevlar and titanium. But to start, let's make popsicle stick insect robots!
How To: Make Your Own "TV-B-Gone" to Silence All Televisions That Oppose You
Whether you're in an airport, restaurant or waiting room, the insidious grip of televisions on human life is omnipresent. Sometimes it's nice to talk to other human beings while looking at them directly—actually hearing what they have to say.
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