TALES FROM MAKE: ONLINE
Garden of DIY Delights
Make: Projects (makeprojects.com) is our newest online service, a living library of how-to tutorials being built by the entire maker community. Sure it’s got great projects from our magazine and websites, but more importantly it’s got great projects contributed by makers like you, plus wiki-based primers ranging from cooking and brewing to gear-cutting and servomotor basics.
Because all of Make: Projects is built on a custom wiki (thanks to our friends at iFixit), every article is a “living document” that can be edited by anybody. Have some expertise? Share it by writing a how-to. Find a mistake? You can fix it. Did you do a project and take better photographs? Add them. Have questions or feedback about a build? Add those too, and see the project improve.
We’re excited to see how this service grows and changes over time. To make it truly great, we need your help. You can get started at makeprojects.com/Info/start. Here’s a sampling — what will you contribute?
PROJECTS FROM MAKE
Step-by-step projects from MAKE magazine and Make: Online.
Geared Candleholder
Kinetic sculptor Ben Cowden shows how to make a burly, elegant candleholder with two gear-driven arms that raise and lower the candle platforms. You’ll learn to fabricate your own gears, using sheet aluminum and a drill to cut the teeth. From MAKE Volume 21. makezine.com/go/geared
Medicine Man Glider Build from scratch an old-school, balsa-wood-and-tissue-paper glider with an awesome 5-foot wingspan. Much larger photos than appeared in the magazine (Volume 17) make the details of this involved build easier to see and understand. makezine.com/go/glider
USER-CONTRIBUTED PROJECTS
Makers are rolling up their sleeves and sharing their how-tos and DIY wisdom with us — keep ’em coming!
Install a Penny Countertop Replace a boring counter surface with a lustrous, durable, and cheap new top using two-part clear epoxy, marine-grade polyurethane, and a sack of pennies. makezine.com/go/penny
Mylar Light Box Ryan Jenkins of the Exploratorium shows how rolls of mylar film in a box, covered with tissue paper, can produce all sorts of beautiful patterns when held over a light source. And check out his fantastic photos. makezine.com/go/mylar
TECHNIQUES AND PRIMERS
Over time, we expect the collected expertise of the maker community to become a significant draw.
Technique: Label-Etch a Glass Bottle Sean Ragan shares a simple trick he discovered for etching designs onto glass bottles using the bottle’s original label as a built-in “resist” to the etchant. makezine.com/go/etch
Primer: EL Wire Louis M. Brill and Steve Boverie explain electroluminescent (EL) wire, aka “lightwire” — how it’s built, how it works, and how it can be used in creative electronics projects to light up the night. makeprojects.com/Wiki/elwire