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Ordinary LEGO bricks just aren’t heavy enough to hold back a door (although you can wedge them in between the door and the floor). So Instructables user lizzyastro knitted a cover for a brick, using bottle caps to form the knobs.
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We’ve previously featured Instructables user BrittLiv’s “You Killed Kenny!” doorstop. She’s back with a new project. This time, it’s a pixelated trash can. No, that’s not a computer generated image. It’s a wooden trashcan carved and painted to look like an image from a video game.
Instructables user rabidiga made this pan flute. It was his entry in a contest to build a post-apocalyptic musical instrument for under $30. He didn’t spent a penny, but only used materials that he already owned:
Super easy to make. Took me about an hour even though I am clumsy as hell when it comes to working with wire. Depending on your choice of supplies it could have easily been finished in half the time. And while they don’t sound perfect I was able to belt out a killer ‘Ode to Joy’ even if it was a bit out of tune.
Link via Everyday, No Days Off | Previously: Tampon Pan Flute
As you collected all those Altoid tins for various projects, you may have developed a taste for the “curiously strong peppermints.” Instructables has the recipe so that you can make them at home, with only four ingredients and one extra tool. The flavor is your choice. Link -via Lifehacker
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Our friends at The Art of Manliness rounded up 22 creative uses for empty Altoids tins, such as the above portable grill made by Instructables user =SMART=. The steel rods come from a coat hanger.
Other mods at the link include a router plane, a dart gun, and a s’mores maker.
Link | Previously: Wonderful Altoids Hacks
Isn’t this an adorable house? You almost expect to see Frodo coming out of it! Owen Geiger built this earthen dome in Thailand in 2007. The main component is bags of soil. You can build your own with his tutorial at Instructables. Link -via The Daily What
Does it seem like your lunchbreak goes too quickly? It’s time to reverse the effect with the Lunchtime Clock by Instructables user randofo. This clock slows down during the lunch hour so that you can relax a little:
Thanks to great in advances in clock technology, I present to you a clock that speeds up 20% every day at 11:00 and slows down 20% every day at 11:48, giving you an extra twelve minutes of lunch to enjoy. Twelve minutes may not seem like a lot but, to put it into perspective, this is a full additional hour of lunchtime gained every week.
Not only is this super cool, it’s homemade! Instructables user chr posted the entire process, with pictures. This project is entered into a contest where the rules were “Make something awesome”. I think he did. Link -via The Daily What
Instructables user sdudley created a frame for his Dremel rotary tool that makes it an effective, if tiny, table saw. He’s provided a stencil that you can print out and use as a guide when cutting the wood.
Instructables user BrittLiv made a doorstop that looks like the ever-dying, ever-resurrecting South Park character Kenny McCormick. The legs, boots, and pool of blood are made out of sugru, a moldable type of silicone. The rest is composed of a thin rubber mat, wood, and modeling clay.
Instructables user seamster made a duck model out of tape, cardboard, newspaper, marbles, and dowels. He writes:
I used colored packing tape to cover the head. Black tape was used first and then covered with green. I tried a couple of other things but liked the way this looked the best, based on what I had to work with.
I used yellow electrical tape to cover the beak.
Black marbles were glued into small holes cut into the head above the cheeks.
Comments Off Instructables user spookylean turned an Altoids mint box into a portable martini kit. This way, he’s prepared for a martini emergency. He writes:
All you will need to be prepared in any emergency is an Altoids or equivalent tin, some tiny bottles (the smallest one is from a miniature Tabasco sauce bottle), a tiny ziploc bag, a folding paper cup (about the easiest origami there is), and the stopper cannibalized from a dollar store water pistol. Oh, and of course gin (I favour Plymouth) and vermouth (Noilly Prat).
Link via Weer’d World
Instructables user Mangetout turned an aluminum drink can into a very nicely embossed metal box. In this video, he provides step-by-step instructions on how you can do likewise. Once you look at the finished product, you’ll be amazed to think that it was originally an energy drink can.
Watch as Instructables member fungus amungus demonstrates surgical techniques n Gummi bears. Witness tumor excision, heart transplants (shown), brain transplants, and progressively sillier experimental operations. As one commenter pointed out, it couldn’t be as traumatic as being chewed up and swallowed! Link -via Digg
Many people put glow-in-the dark star stickers on a child’s bedroom ceiling. With this Instructable, you can go all the way and have twinkling fiber optic stars! The project is just one of many listed in Instructables’ Best of 2009 list. You’ll find links to the most popular projects of the year broken down by categories (art, home, food, pets, games, etc). Maybe you’ll find something to keep you busy during the after-Christmas doldrums. Link
Inspired by this scene from the BBC show The Young Ones, the how-to blog Instructables turned an old VCR into a functional toaster. It even prints “VHS” on the face of every piece of bread toasted. Video at the link.
Link via Geek Crafts | Image: Instructables
What better way to get kids interested in biology at an early age than to make them their very own plush cell? Instructables has all the info you need to make your very own cuddly block of life.
Instructables has a detailed set of how to’s to let you convert your computer case into a taxidermy beaver. Nothing says quality technology like dead animals. It’s pretty easy, just look at step one:
Purchase a beaver of your very own
There are lots of old taxidermy mounts out there – garage sales, antique stores, ebay are all good sources for older pieces. You’ll probably want a high quality mount since you’ll be removing the bulk of the internal structure, so better quality (ie not falling apart) probably means stronger.
I made these plastic milk bottle lights by embedding LEDs in the caps, hanging them from a bent section of pipe and hooking them up to an Arduino microcontroller.
Not happy with an on-off switch, I thought they might look mesmerising with a rotary control knob turning them on in sequence. It works! They make great low lighting to wind down for sleep, and they’re great to hang in the hall for parties too.
There are complete build instructions on Instructables.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by Nachimir.
If you’re confounded by Neatorama’s Upcoming Queue and can’t make heads or tails out of the submission process, Instructable user DIYJosh has got you covered.
Here’s the step-by-step instruction on how to use the Upcoming Queue feature of the blog, in the typical Instructable way:
In this instructable I will outline the steps to get started using the Upcoming Queue along with some common mistakes that keep your post from reaching the front page.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by StuckeyJ.
Instructable user randofo outfitted his office chair with a gas detection sensor, then programmed it to publish updates on Twitter whenever a fart is detected! “Office Chair” now has 2,395 followers on Twitter. Here is a sample of the results:
# I wish I were some other chair
about 15 hours ago from web# He farted right on me again
about 17 hours ago from web# allow me to repeat… ppppfffffffffftttttttttttt
about 18 hours ago from web# Ugh. That was a gross one
about 18 hours ago from web
Link to instructions. Link to Twitter feed. -Thanks, Emily Farris!
There are instructions to create your own, but honestly… it looks pretty hard. Maybe it’s not if you have all of the right tools, though. Difficult to make or not, dude deserves props for ingenuity.
Link via Geekologie
Instructable user arcticpenguin unraveled the mystery behind various screw types (what? You think that there are only Phillips and slotted screws?). Take for example, the history of the Phillips screw:
This cross drive screw story starts when Henry Phillips purchased a crude form of a cruciform-recessed screw head concept from an Oregon inventor named J.P. Thompson.
Henry F. Phillips (1890 to 1958), a U.S. businessman from Portland, Oregon, has the honor of having the Phillips head screw and screwdriver named after him.
The cruciform shape can be considered to be a cruciform design with their 90 degree shapes as most have similar physics properties.
Phillips developed Thompsons invention screw into a workable form. Phillips had come up with a recessed cross screw designed for efficiency on an auto assembly line. The idea was that the screwdriver would turn the screw with increasing force until the tip of the driver popped out, called camout. When tightening a Phillips screw with a Phillips screw driver you will notice that when the torque gets to be too strong, the screw driver winds itself out of the screw so the screw head would not be ruined or brake off.
Phillips also founded the Phillips Screw Company in Oregon in 1933, but never actually made screws. He had called on every established screw manufacturer in the US and was told simply that the screw could not be made. Screw makers of the 1930s dismissed the Phillips concept since it calls for a relatively complex recessed socket shape in the head of the screw; as distinct from the simple milled slot of a slotted type screw.
Phillips then called on the American Screw Company, a newcomer to the industry whose new president, Eugene Clark, personally became interested in the new product, despite the opposition of his engineers, who like others in the industry had insisted it could not be made. According to one printed report, the president of American Screw Company said: "I finally told my head men that I would put on pension all who insisted it could not be done. After that an efficient method was evolved to manufacture the fasteners and now we have licensed all other major companies to use it." (Source)
Yummy burgers made out of mushrooms that look like Mario mushrooms! 1 Up to nom town. For instructions to make your own, don’t miss this Instructables post. If you like that, don’t miss their Mario holiday guide here.
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