Make: Online: Holiday projects Archives

Archive: Holiday projects

July 4, 2009

4th of July roundup-abration!

Any holiday that necessitates pyrotechnics and cookouts must be a good one, right? - right!
In honor of such an awesome holiday, enjoy a collection of 4th-related posts for your perusing pleasure - oh, and Happy Independence Day!

How to: Make an American flag

HOW TO - Take photos of Fireworks & HOW TO - Photograph fireworks

Make your own smoke-bombs

Fireworks Drawings

LED fireworks

Wireless fireworks launch controller

Model rocketry and hobby fireworks

HOW TO - Make a sparkler & a geek's guide to fireworks

What MAKEs America great - Happy 4th of July from MAKE

Fireworks animation by PES

Unexpected, delightful; I did enjoy this fireworks animation by PES.

July 3, 2009

4th of July guide on Instructables

Instructables has a roundup of 4th projects for a happy weekend. BBQs, recipes, summer clothes, and water abound.

Bottle rocket mayhem

Ever wondered what it'd be like to set off 204 bottle rocks at the same time? I know I have. Turns out, it's a good time (so long as you're not in the line of fire).

I Love Bottle Rockets

June 30, 2009

Keeping their cool

Over on GeekDad, Dana Bostic came up with this simple backyard cool-the-kids "hack" -- a hose sprayer set to "shower," zip-tied to a tall step ladder pouring down onto a trampoline -- so the kids can work up a sweat and cool off at the same time!

Keeping the Kids Cool This Summer [Thanks, Shawn!]

June 28, 2009

Make: Projects - Magnetic toolbox

My Dad got a shiny new red tractor the week before Father's Day, which created a great opportunity for an easy, inexpensive, handmade gift: I bought a classic little red toolbox, to match the tractor, and fitted it with eight 3/4" ring supermagnets on the bottom to make it stick to the fender. There's a rubber washer between each magnet and the bottom of the toolbox, to cushion the magnets, each of which is secured using a 3/4" automotive panel fastener--basically a barbed plastic push fastener.

Inserted through the hole in the magnet, through the rubber washer, and through a 1/4" hole drilled in the bottom of the toolbox, the panel fastener secures everything in place. The head of the fastener also makes a nice black plastic "foot" on the bottom of each magnet, which protects the finish on the tractor from marring against the magnet, without being so thick as to block magnetic attraction.

More:

June 21, 2009

Happy Father's Day!

From all of us here at MAKE and CRAFT, we're wishing you and your loved ones a grand ol' Dad's Day! We hope you're all enjoying a fantastic day with the family. Pictured above is some DAD binary cross stitch with RAM frame by Early Bird Special.

June 19, 2009

How-To: Custom beer bottles

Over at CRAFT, Rachel points us to this tutorial for customizing a six pack of beer for Father's Day. Great for homebrew!

More:

June 18, 2009

O'Reilly Father's Day discount

O'Reilly is offering a discount of 40% on books, courses, workshops, and conferences in celebration of Father's Day. They're even throwing in a 20% Maker Shed discount when you use code DAD40 through June 22:

We're also sharing stories and posting photos of geeky Dads and Grandpas with their favorite tech books here. Please send us your fav pics to press@oreilly.com (by Friday, June 19). We'll be twittering about our Father's Day celebration, too. Please use #geekdad when you twitter.

Pictured above is O'Reilly's senior sysadmin, Dean Roman, and his kids (we're feeling love for you over here, too, Dean)!

More:

DIY for Dad: Happy Father's Day from MAKE, a gift guide for Dad

June 17, 2009

Instructables Father's Day guide

Instructables has a roundup of cool projects you can make for/with your dad; if you find the right one maybe you can get him the instructions, tools, and materials to make it himself!

More:

DIY for Dad: Happy Father's Day from MAKE, a gift guide for Dad

June 16, 2009

DIY for Dad: Happy Father's Day from MAKE, a gift guide for Dad

Father's Day is Sunday, June 21, 2009. Started by Sonora Dodd to honor her father who raised five children alone after the Civil War, President Coolidge supported the idea, Lyndon signed a proclamation, and in 1972 it was official.

The MAKE team has put together some ideas for gifts to make, buy, and give this Father's Day. Got a story about a dad in your life? Post it up in the comments. Click through to read our huge guide!

Read full story

June 5, 2009

Mini mint tin toolboxes

I love these tiny toolboxes (as Father's Day gifts), made from Altoids tins, that Natalie posted next door on CRAFT. If the mint tin seems a little... er... impractical for holding tools, there's also a project on the same page for having kids color artwork for lids on mint tins to hold nuts, bolts, screws, etc.

There is one application for a toolset that would fit in such a tin, the emergency field soldering kit project we featured in The Best of Instructables (which can also be found here). I made one of these. Haven't had a call to use it yet, but it'd sure look cuter to show up on the scene with the kit housed in one of these red boxes.

Surprise Dad with the Smallest Toolbox Ever!

May 13, 2009

Another MAKEcation family challenge

This makes me happier than I can tell you! It's another family that spends their vacation/family time together making things. Steve Hoefer writes:

Whenever a bunch of my family gets together it becomes readily apparent that most of us like to make stuff. And it just so happens that the first weekend of May a great many of us gathered to the Farm in Iowa, and one lazy afternoon it was suggested that we form groups to make chairs (for sitting and enjoying campfires) out of things found around the farm.

This idea was seized upon with great enthusiasm, which should probably tell you something about my family.

And so what started as a suggesting for "something to do" spread quickly. Before darkness fell, we had created seating for eleven and gathered them around a camp fire.

I love these people! We'll be featuring more family challenges and MAKEcation ideas (i.e. staying home and making things together as a vacation, or going on make/DIY-oriented vacations) as we head into summer. Start thinking now about what you and your family might do for a MAKEcation, document it, and send it to us. We'll be running some MAKEcation contests as well. Stay tuned...

The Great Chair Challenge

More:
Hydrogen balloon camera project

May 11, 2009

How-To: Ratchet noise maker

Instructables user eqqman made this ratchet noisemaker, also known as a "gragger," used in the celebtration of Purim.

April 30, 2009

Electric angry cat

Liane sent me this demo of an awesome little electric cat she built from wire, a pager motor, and a coin cell battery - so simple and cool! The battery pressure switch is a very nice touch (npi!). This could be a big hit on Halloween with a little fake fur coat ;)

Volume 10, Page 119

April 12, 2009

Fun things to do with Peeps (besides eating them)

Spring has sprung, the grass is green again, the trees are in bloom, the animals are stirring. And to me, that all means one important thing: Peeps are in season! I've had a rather unnatural attraction to Peeps every since I was a child. There's something about this strange, over-the-top-sweet, pillowy confection that makes it simultaneous attractive and repulsive. It's WAY too much of a good thing: too much sweet, too much cute, two much color (this year's colors are vivid to a degree that's downright hallucinatory). And then there's the strange "mouth feel" of gooey, pillow-soft innards and a crunchy crystalline sugar coating. Not to mention the rather disturbing idea of eating a rack of baby chicks, fused to each other at the hip, sold to you at Eastern time by a company called Just Born of Bethlehem, PA. It all adds up to a uniquely American pop-surrealist experience that I revel in each year. And from all of the crazy, educational, and absurd websites and videos I've seen online over the years, so don't a lot of people. Happy Spring, everybody!

Every spring since it emerged, I've done a posting to my favorite Peeps-related activity: Peep War! It's a free downloadable tabletop wargame where you get to eat the enemies you attack/capture, a section at a time! Jelly beans counters are involved too. Yum. If you don't have Peeps and jelly beans to play with, you can use paper/cardboard counters. You are not advised to eat them.

The venerable website for evil mad science experimentation with Peeps is Peeps Research. They wrote the book on Peeps abuse... er I mean scientific study. They subject Peeps to extreme cold, heat, pressure, various solutions, and the health effects of smoking and drinking on Peeps. Hilarity (and a wee bit of actual learning) ensues.

Another Peeps research site is Bunny Survival Test. Here they perform experiments in laser light exposure, oxygen deprivation, and one intriguing one called "Coyote Test," which sadly, has a broken link.

The go-to Peeps experiment is Peeps in a microwave. Do a search on YouTube and you'll find dozens of examples. Here, Jeri Ellsworth's friend Kevin Rouviere built a "Faraday cage" out of metal strainers. As long as the openings in the strainer are smaller than the wavelength of the radio frequency, the Peeps are safe. The control Peep outside the cage? Not so much.

I love the way this video starts off: "Ten Peeps in a package. Ten days in a week. Coincidence? I don't think so." From there, the Peeps are subjected to all manner of destructive mayhem.

It's not all marshmallow chick cruelty in the name of basement science. There's also Peeps movie re-enactment, like this telling of the Lord of the Rings: Lord of the Peeps: Fellowship of the Peep.

And did you know that Peeps like to travel? They do.

For more Peeps fun and games, check out the Big List of Peeps Links. Unfortunately, it hasn't been updated in a while, so a number of the links are broken.

Previous Peeps coverage on Make: Online:

Electrocuting Peeps

Explody Easter Peeps (High speed photography)

A nice little local dragon

Photo from The Boston Globe

A few years ago a dragon turned up down the street. Chuck Nudd had spent some winter months concocting a behemoth animatronic dragon from some cast off steel junk. It started out as a dinosaur, but morphed into a dragon as the design came out. Draco is both wildly popular and just another town resident. Chuck's wife Robin and kids dress the dragon for various holidays and events. This week he stands proud as the easter bunny.

Check out this article in the Boston Globe.

Today Draco is posing as the Easter bunny, with furry ears, a whiskered nose, a fluffy tail, and a basket of eggs. A couple thousand daffodils, heralds of spring, provide a pretty backdrop for the creature, who has apparently succeeded in flying under the radar of any zoning bylaw that might restrict what is placed in one's yard.

A while ago I met up with man and dragon at a parade and interviewed them.

Chuck Nudd created Draco out of lots of steel Junk he had. The animated dragon has flapping wings powered by a windshield washer motor and illuminated turn signal eyes. Sometimes he gets a smoke machine to help him breathe. Draco is often decorated for the seasons and holidays. He moves around town on the back of Chuck's trailer and has been seen at sports events, graduations, parades and in his lair on the Nudd property.

April 10, 2009

LED Easter eggs

Here's a Atmel ATtiny13 driving a 10x8 LED matrix inside of a decorated sytrofoam Easter egg. Holiday maker fun for the whole family! Even Hello Kitty got in on the fun.

Gorgeous LED Egg

April 5, 2009

Ukrainian dyed eggs

Wondering what to do to create that special Easter egg? A few years ago I got a bit obsessed with Ukranian Easter eggs. They took loads of time, but resulted in some very attractive eggs that would be memorable to any ovorecipient.

After blowing out the eggs, I had a very nice omelet with garlic from the garden. Over a period of a few days, I made about a half dozen eggs, each with individual designs dyed onto the surface of the shell. It was a nice way to spend the days leading up to Easter. The other day I saw one of the eggs on my parents' table as part of their holiday setup. Now I wish I had made more.

Here are some instructions from Learn Pysanky:

Give it a try and show us your eggies in the MAKE Flickr pool.

April 1, 2009

Dancebot USB (think: DIY Keepon), new for Trossen

When Keepon first debuted, bouncing along to Spoon's "I Turn My Camera On", the tech community went nuts! The simple, cute external appearance of this robot and it's natural ability to bop along with music was an instant hit on Youtube. Unfortunately, beneath that elastic yellow skin was well over $20,000 worth of cutting edge robotic technology, putting this awesome robot out of reach of its fans. We saw this as a problem and answered the call to unite Keepon and it's millions of fans globally! Trossen Robotics established a partnership with Keepon creator Hideki Kozima and the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) to develop an affordable household version that captured the feeling and emotion of the original.
After many months of painstaking R&D, Trossen Robotics is proud to announce the Dancebot USB! Once only available to universities as a high end social development research robot, we are now offering the affordable yet equally groovy Dancebot USB. This easy to build kit only takes minutes to put together, another minute to put on the Spoon song of your choice, and within seconds your Dancebot USB will be dancing along to the beat. Be the envy of your coworkers with this ultimate desktop gadget! Show off to your friends, amaze your family, and impress your employer!

Dancebot USB