You Bring Your iPhone Paddle, I’ll Bring My iPad Ping Pong Table [IPad Apps]
We’ve seen iPad games that use iPhones as controllers, but Ping Pong Battle has to be one of the most fun looking ones in the bunch. It turns your iPad into a ping pong table and two iPhones into padd…
This Is What’ll Happen When You Drop Your iPhone 4 [Apple]
No camera tricks, no dummy iPhones, no editing, and no science. Just a video of an unfortunate iPhone 4 being dropped over and over again. This is what’ll happen when you drop your iPhone 4. More&n…
Tony Hawk Ride Controller Modded Into a Real Skateboard [DIY]
People didn’t seem too interested in using a toy skateboard to play video game skateboarding with Tony Hawk Ride. Maybe because it wasn’t realistic enough? Well, screwing some trucks and wheels on ther…
Build a Mini USB Fridge for Cold, Convenient Drinks [Friday Fun]
Whether you’re in the office or in the study getting things done, this DIY mini USB fridge keeps your drinks cold and ready to go by your desk, letting you power through tasks without interru…
Build a Pizza Oven Out of a Weber Grill
We’ve covered building your own pizza oven before, from nice and cheap to really cheap. But none of these were crowned Best Pizza Food Cart by vlog Ah Nom Nom; that title belongs to San Franciscan PizzaHacker and his modified Weber Grill.
Sure, PizzaHacker’s pizza is delicious because it uses choice ingredients and a sourdough recipe to die for—but the other half of the equation is FrankenWeber, his modified Weber-grill-turned-mobile-pizza-oven. If you’re looking for an easy, movable outdoor solution to your DIY pizza needs, this might be the way to go:
Part of what makes this open air culinary spectacle work is the heavily modded Webber 22.5″ grill that’s been outfitted with fireproof blocks and a domed top comprised of refactory cement and perlite that’s been molded in the original Webber top. Using chunks of wood and charcoal, the Franken-Webber quickly reaches 1000F (the ideal temperature for cooking authentic Neopolitan-style pizza).
For a closer look at the FrankenWeber and its inner workings, check out the above video on Pizzahacker by Ah Nom Nom. There’s no specific how-to for building it, but it shouldn’t be difficult with the above materials and the close-up view in the video. If you’ve been hankering for some DIY pizza action but our past options just haven’t done it for you, this might just be the solution.
Add a Fine Focus Knob to Your Camera for $5
Focus rings let you manually adjust the focus of your images—video too, on select DSLRs—but they aren’t particularly smooth. A DIY focus knob gives you finer control over the range of focus.
Photo by lonelysandwhich.
Although most focus rings are mechanically smooth and not deficient in any way, the limitation is the size of your hand. It’s not easy to hold the camera and smoothly turn the focus ring more than a half turn or so. By adding a DIY focus knob, you can increase the range of focus you can cover with a single movement. How does it work? Check out the two videos below, the first demonstrates the view from the camera and the second shows how the actual device is constructed.
The build is simple, inexpensive, and produces great results. The only caution we would offer is to make sure not to over-tighten your hose clamp and damage the focus ring—hose clamps tighten more quickly and with a stronger grip than you’d initially anticipate!
Have a clever camera hack of your own to share? Let’s hear about it in the comments.
Add Some Rumble-Action to Your Mouse
If you like the vibration feedback found in gaming console controllers and want to add a little rumble-action to your mouse, all-things-DIY magazine Make offers a tutorial that may be right up your alley.
The rumble mouse is an electronics project from Make Magazine Vol. 06, put together by Greg Lipscomb. In the video below, Kip Kay demonstrates the process of taking an old cellphone, pager, or other small vibration motor and wiring into a basic $20 mouse.
It’s a pretty neat project, although it does have one shortcoming—there’s no way for the computer to send unique feedback like a game console does to a controller. You’ll get vibration for your own gaming actions, but when things happen to you in the game (like getting shot at instead of doing the shooting), you won’t get impact rumbles or the like. Still, in light of the coding you’d need to do to get it working with different games, this is a fun little hack. Check out the link below to see the digital edition of Make and find additional instructions and schematics.
Have a fun peripherals-hack of your own to share? Let’s hear about it in the comments.
Build a Lego Router
We love the Linksys WRT54GL router for its extreme hackability (it’s what we used to turn our $60 router into a $600 router with DD-WRT or with Tomato), so we couldn’t help but appreciate this fun WRT54GL Lego mod.
Clever DIYer Luke Anderson got an urge to do some building, and realized that his not-so-attractive router would fit nicely and might look rather sleek inside some Lego blocks, so he got building (which you can see in the timelapse video above). His step-by-step guide contains Creative Commons licensed design documents and assembly images, so if you’re looking for a geeky weekend diversion, this may be just the ticket.
While you’re at it, consider doing some more functional DIY WRT54GL router work with our two previous guides.
Giant Gas-Powered Vortex Cannon Destroying Shed Filmed at 1300fps [Cannons]
This is what happens when you build an extremely powerful vortex cannon, loaded with “one of the most dangerous gas mixes in the world,” to fire it against houses made of straw, sticks, and bricks, like the big bad wolf.
Looking at the video—filmed at 1300 frames per second—it seems like the big bad wolf would have had a chance against the three little pigs, and eat the suckers roasted in a wood brick oven, with just salt and a bit of water. If the third pig didn’t use cement, that is.
Otherwise, the 200mph cloud—which is formed by the pressure inside the air vortex condensing the water above the lake—seems powerful enough to knock down a man. Certainly more powerful than the candle cannon. [BBC YouTube Channel via Makezine]
David Bowie Space Oddity iPhone App Lets You Remix the Thin White Duke Anywhere [David Bowie]
Since it’s been 40 years (!!) since Bowie’s classic Space Oddity was released, there’s a fancy new anniversary EP coming out. And with it is an iPhone App that features the original multi-track stems of the song and remix capabilities.
The app, by iKlax, lets you make your own Bowie mix right on your phone. You might have better luck doing a real remix on your computer by just downloading the files on their own, which you can do, but hey, remixing Bowie on your iPhone! You can’t say that isn’t pretty neat. It’ll set you back $2.
DAVID BOWIE AND VIRGIN/EMI CELEBRATE 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF “SPACE ODDITY” WITH COMMEMORATIVE DIGITAL EP & APP WITH REMIX FEATURES
“Space Oddity” Digital EP and iPhone/iPod touch App Available Now for Download Purchase; Both Offer Unique Opportunity For Fans To Create Their Own Mixes of Song
Hollywood, California – July 21, 2009 – David Bowie and Virgin/EMI are celebrating the 40th anniversary of Bowie’s “Space Oddity” with the release of a commemorative digital EP and a new app for the iPhone and iPod touch. The digital EP, available now for download purchase from all major digital service providers, features four versions of “Space Oddity” plus its original eight multi-track stems, enabling fans to remix the song as they please using their own software or with iKlax software. iKlax’s “Remix David Bowie – Space Oddity” app, available now on the iTunes App Store, also allows fans to become ‘Ground Control’ to remix the track their way.
Originally released on July 11, 1969 to coincide with the Apollo 11 moon landings, “Space Oddity” was featured by the BBC in its television coverage of the lunar event, and the song later won an Ivor Novello award. The song’s enigmatic protagonist, Major Tom, has become a recurrent theme throughout Bowie’s work and career, and was revisited in the song “Ashes To Ashes.”
www.davidbowie.ultimatefanpage.com / www.davidbowie.com
DAVID BOWIE: “Space Oddity (40th Anniversary EP)” (digital)
1. Space Oddity (original U.K. mono single edit)
2. Space Oddity (U.S. mono single edit)
3. Space Oddity (U.S. stereo single edit)
4. Space Oddity (1979 re-record)
Houston-Hull, TX