[Vince Weaver] tried to use his time machine to jump a few years in the future to get a less buggy version of Kerbal Space Program, but as usual with time travel, nothing went right and he ended up…

Laser cutters are CNC power tools, which means an operator uploads a job digitally and then pushes START to let the machine do all the work while they lie back in a hammock sipping a margarita, occ…

There is a lot of spectacle on display at Maker Faire. But to be honest, what I love seeing the most are well-executed builds pulled off by passionate hackers. Such is the case with [Debra Ansell]. Sh...

Sitting on the beach, finishing off a beer one day, [Rulof] realized that if he put a motor in the beer bottle with a propeller at the bottle’s mouth, he could attach the result to his leg an…

Human ancestors have been walking around on two legs for a few million years. We'd imagine that by now we've figured out a pretty efficient mechanism for getting around. Unconvinced, however, research...

nRF24L01+ PA/LNA module specs look great on paper. Wireless communication up to 1000m in a small package readily available from a variety of cheap sources in China? The hard work of software connec…

From context clues, we can tell that [TVMiller] has been in and around NYC for some time now. He has observed a crucial weakness in the common metropolitan. Namely, they deafen themselves with earphon...

Sometimes, the parts list says it all. 777 transistors, 1223 resistors, 136 LEDs, 455 crimp connectors, 41 protoboards and 500 grams of solder. That's what went into this transistor logic clock buil...

[Jason Knight], an intern at FabLab RUC, has worked hard for 9 months to make a sheet plastics shredder for HDPE and LDPE from things like plastic bags, bubble wrap and air cushion packaging with t…

From the Forbin Project, to HAL 9000, to War Games, movies are replete with smart computers that decide to put humans in their place. If you study literature, you'll find that science fiction isn't us...

Ever. Literally.

A gearhead friend of ours sent along a link to a YouTube video (also embedded below) promising the world's most powerful engine. Now, we'll be the first to warn you that it's just ...

One of the things you find yourself doing as a young engineer is equipping yourself with the tools of your trade. These will be the foundations upon which your career is built in a way that a diplo…

We had a chance to talk to Matthew Hertel of PocketNC at the Bay Area Maker Faire this year. During the conversation, he answered some questions I’d had about the project since I saw it on Ki…

For the recent release of X-Men Apocalypse, YouTuber [Allen Pan] from “Sufficiently Advanced” decided to make a rather ambitious project — a working Cerebro Helmet. Wait what? Whe…

Is it something in the water, or have there been a lot of really cool servo projects lately? Mechaduino is a board that sits on a regular stepper motor and turns it into a servo with a closed loop …

In the early days of broadcast television, national spectrum regulators struggled to reconcile the relatively huge bandwidth required by the new medium with the limited radio spectrum that could be al...

Like the fictitious invention of the Hula Hoop in Hudsucker Proxy, [David Spinden]'s big idea is small and obvious once you've seen it. And we're not saying that's a bad thing at all. What he's done i...

There are few projects that we see as many iterations of as the pet feeder or the plant waterer. (What is it with you people? Are you all as forgetful as we are?) Still, the fun is in the details o…

In our previous issues in this series on making circuit boards, we covered placing solder paste and placing components. Now it’s time to bake our cake! There are a variety of methods for refl…

Having to work away from the convenience of a workshop can be tough. But it's sometimes unavoidable and it always means planning ahead. When the work area also happens to be 150m under a lake's surf...