Read more about The DCMC Binding System

Read more about making a Twittering Doorbell

This project started one night while I was lying in bed trying to visualize how an AC motor worked. I knew that it was different from a DC motor as in it did not require brushes and the speed was controlled by frequency instead of voltage. After some research I came up with this project to better my understanding of AC motors.

Read more about making your own AC Motor / Generator

GetLoFi points out this interesting instructable - build a feedback add-on for use with cheap digital delay effects pedals. Enter the "Apocatastasis" -

Most expensive analog delay pedals have a feedback knob that lets you drive the output of the delay effect back into the input. My Ibanez DL5 Digital Delay did not have this feature, so I decided to make one and make it cheap.

More:

DIY analog tape delay machine

This week's EMS Labs project is about creating a set of temporary garden/outdoor lights using LEDs, coin cell batteries, and Mason jars. Easy. Cheap. Perdy.

Quick, easy, temporary, and beautiful LED garden lights

10: Make a Tabletop Biosphere

Read more about making your own Tabletop Biosphere

9: Make a pocket sized LED cube

Make your own Pocket sized LED Cube

8: Build a Jam Jar Jet

Learn how to make your own Jam Jar Jet

Build your own projects and learn how electronic sensors respond to various physical stimuli such as light, heat, infrared light, pressure, rotation, touch and magnetic fields with the Electronic Sensor Lab. Ideal for classroom use and home schooling of children age 10 and up. Experiments and manual developed by scientist, teacher and electronics writer Forrest M. Mims III.

Here's a neat instructable by user sjolly which combines compact fluorescent light bulbs with a modular lampshade design. He writes:

We recently installed new compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) in our workspace. They use less energy and last longer, but they're painfully bright...so I adapted Dan's Instructable for CFLs using heat resistant photo gels. This custom build attaches directly onto the end of the bulb so no extra materials are needed.

More:

Universal lamp shade polygon building kit

This tutorial is meant for computer cases, but could be applied to lots of things. Learn to get a mirror finish from the mnpctech website. Via Core77.

Hack-a-Day has a how-to piece on modifying/improving/circuit bending the ThingamaKIT from Bleep Labs.

How-To: Hack a ThingamaKIT

More:

• Retro ThingamaHat
• ThingamaHat
• ThingamaKIT
• ThingamaKIT build photos

• Jason Delaney's steampunk (literally) homebrew still that can be used to make alcohol, herbal oils, purify water, etc.
• Chase Hammock's touchscreen driven wearable multimedia computer
• Adam Iseman's Ard-e, a sub-$100 robotics platform

(Image courtesy Adrian Ward)

We're at Cafe Mundi, 8pm to 10; here's a map.

If you've got your own project to show off, be sure to bring it along and participate in the Opendork (ad-hoc 5-minute speeches at the end of the night)!

Here's helpful instructable for fitting(and building) a CCD video camera to a basic pair of binoculars -

Have you ever looked through your binoculars and thought " I wish I could get this on tape" ? Well now you can. In this Instructable I'll show you how to build a cheap CCD eyepiece that will fit most binoculars.
You can use it with any camcorder that has a video input to capture whatever you can get a view on with your binoculars.

Learn how to Make a wooden spoon...the Viking way

Checkout the rest of the photo set

Update:
Apparently the car, called the "Woodighini" was made by a 33 year old Canadian named "Woody". You can read more about the project on the AutoBlog website. Also, there is a great interview that can be found on the Motor Foot Blog. A big Thank You goes to JohnW for sending in the links!

Check out this wooden clock that's manually adjusted to reflect the current time. It's an art piece by Mark Formanek in collaboration with Datenstrudel. Via VVORK.

Bill Beaty documents his recipe for levitating neodymium magnets using two rotating coppers tubes. Note: The aptly named "Fantastically Dangerous Mechanical MagLev" could indeed seriously injure a person (you'll notice Bill uses a clear plastic covering over the tubes to prevent the aforementioned nastiness) -

While working on science museum exhibits in 1990 I came up with the above idea: it is known that a spinning metal disk will lift and fling a strong magnet. Therefore, metal rods with opposite spin will lift a magnet but WON'T fling it sideways. It works! I used "sched-80" heavy wall copper tubes about 1-3/8" diameter, 12" long, with 1/4" wall thickness. I hammered aluminum plugs into the tubes, carved shaft-tips with a lathe, built endblocks and bearings, spun them with an AC/DC motor, and managed to levitate a stack of two 3/4" diameter neodymium magnets. The spinning tubes must move at about 5000 RPM before the magnet starts floating.

Magnet Sculpture Kit

Long time ago i saw this unusual door bell at the make:blog. I loved the idea instantly! Even though the project is quite simple, it took me one year (sic) to get it done.

I didnt like the concept of using a electromagnet for playing the sound. I preferred a servo motor controlled by a microcontroler (Atmega8) to do the job (side effect: programmable “melodies”).

TouchKit is a modular open source multitouch development kit that enables anyone to get started using multitouch technology from the comfort of their own home. It is aimed at rapid implementation and prototyping of multitouch projects. Watch the above video to get the full effect of this kit.

TouchKit

How to build a skateboard halfpipe in 11 hours. Myself and retiree skateboard enthusiast Rob Maggi went over to a friends house to put up a halfpipe for him. I haven't built a halfpipe from scratch in many years so Rob was on point on this one. The ramp was to be 5 feet tall by 12 feet wide with a 7 foot transition which is pretty mellow but you can still blast airs out of it.

Read more about How to: Build a skateboard half-pipe in 11 hours [digg] [build photos]

My pal Randy just published an instructable for making an auto-answerer for a cell phone. It puts your callers on hold, wastes your minutes, and helps you promote your own band, not to mention bugs out your friends and confuses others. He hacked a bluetooth headset with some other components to make this customer service parody. Via fatlab.

From the MAKE Flickr photo pool:

This project is to replace the 12 volt lamp in a stock auto clearance lamp with a flashing red led that can be used to provide a caution light around a telescope when viewing under dark conditions with more than one person around. The project is based around a stock beehive clearance lamp from any auto parts store.

Flashing Marker Beacon

Read more about the XR3 hybrid car kit

Instructables user Pulsea writes:

Make a stretchy fabric USB cable for whatever reason you like. This was a first test for me and... it worked! So the next step will be to integrate this USB connection into a shirt that I can wear, with a pocket for my digital camera, containing a USB connection that connects to the end of one of a sleeve, so that I can plug right into my laptop to download my pictures.

Learn how to make you own Bicycle "Porteur" Rack

After programming the Arduino, I took out the ATMega168 and wired it into a breadboard along with a 16mhz crystal and 5 volt regulator. For the receiver I used the phototransistor wired into two logic gates of a inverting Hex Schmitt trigger. I used the Schmitt trigger to act as a buffer and ensure only proper logic level enter the USB to serial converter on the Diecimila board.

Read more about how to make a Laser Modem with an Arduino Micro-controller

How To: Build a Weed Eater motorized bicycle

From the Core77 blog:

The AEOLUS race, to be held in the Netherlands later this month, pits competing single-person land yachts against each other, with the requirement that they sail directly into the wind. The vehicles are therefore quite different from the sail-powered craft of old, using wind turbines to harvest energy and translate it into torque on the ground. A group of students at Stuttgart University called Team Inventus have been documenting their 9-month process of building such a craft (pictured above), and it's quite a thing of beauty. Featuring a 2m wind turbine and carbon-fiber construction, the craft weighs in at less than 100kg, and the videos are fascinating, if a bit over-produced.

Jenny @ CRAFT points us to this easy scrabble lazy susan using a bracket, some illustration board, and fuzzy furniture feet.

Project: The Bullwhip by William Gurstelle. You don't have to be Chuck Yeager to break the sound barrier. You just need a good bullwhip, which converts arm movement into supersonic speed and triggers the sonic boom we call a whip crack. Page 82

Project: Panoramic Pinhole Camera by Ross Orr. Lenseless and low-tech, pinhole cameras have always been maker-friendly. But forget the Quaker Oats carton, and go wide with this roll-film, panorama design. Page 92

Project: The $5 Cracker Box Amplifier by Blind Lightnin' Pete and Ed Vogel. Small box, big sound. Page 104

Working with Carbon Fiber by John Wanberg. Form, lay up, and cure your own high-performance composites. Page 164

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