how-to-trick-video: 06/02/08

DIY Ornaments

Make your own awesome nerdtacular ornaments to give as gifts or decorate your tree!

Mousetrap Powered Vehicle!

Vroom! Power a balsa wood vehicle from the energy of a mousetrap! Fun and easy project! No mice were harmed during the filming of this video.

Transistorize Your iPod

Get vintage sounds from time-warp radio with this fun "back to the future" project. Top 40 songs from the 70's don't sound the same on big stereo systems or headphones but they will now!

Create Teeny Tiny Solar Insect Robots

One of the great things about these little bots is that you can make them from scavenged materials. Use parts from broken electronics and bring them back to life as little robots!

We'll base the project around a digital clock radio and a light gun for gaming; huge selections of both of these are available inexpensively second-hand, with many beautiful and well-designed examples. To enable our FPSI (First Person Shooter Interface), we'll outfit the gun with five tilt sensors, arranged at different angles on a small circuit board. A cable tethers the gun to the clock and carries your tilt and trigger signals to the clock's time and alarm control button contacts.