DIY Life

If you've ever had the chance to play with a vibrating robot toy, you'll understand just how fun they can be. Most of the ones I've seen are of the wind-up variety, typically with long metal lets and rubber feet. They tend to be noisy, bouncy, and definitely unpredictable.

While I've played with various different versions of these wind-up toys for hours, I never really considered that I might be able to actually make one of my own. I certainly didn't think I could make one that is not only just as neat, but a significant upgrade.

Imagine my surprise when I happened across this article explaining how to make a battery-powered vibrating robot toy out of the head of a toothbrush! With the right supplies on hand (including an appropriate toothbrush, pager motor, and watch battery) this project can be completed in about five minutes.

It's really worth watching the video to see just what this little critter can do. I imagine it would enthrall my children, but even more fun would be to watch my uncle's cat go crazy trying to figure out just what this thing is!

Along with Spring comes the flurry of kids' birthday parties, concerts in the park, and festivals of every sort. Face painting is part of so many of these festivities. If you think you might get dragged into face painting this spring or summer, you'd better get prepared. Knowing what you're doing will make the difference between a kid who runs to the bathroom in embarrassment, scrubbing his poorly-painted face, and one who doesn't wash their face for a week.

The two most important elements (along with a steady hand and a comfy seat) are the paints and the designs. After the break, I'll tell you what you need to know about each.

M.A.C. Cosmetics is known for their glamorous makeup: available in a bewildering array of shades and renowned for quality, many items in the line don't cost much more than their higher-end drug-store counterparts. The line was created for film and photo studio use, but is quite popular with beauty devotees as well.

Now M.A.C. has created a group of Halloween costume makeup ideas, and put it on their site. There's a series of categories: Dark Side has spooky-glam monster makeup, the looks under Graphically are all patterns, the Optical Illusion category is self-explanatory (and would take a lot of skill to replicate), Pretty Things is full of more illusion makeup (feminine "masks" and animals), and Robotniks is all about our shiny metal friends.

The person who suggested this post to CRAFT said that they believed the looks could be replicated with any Halloween makeup. I think that depends on the skill of the artist. You're definitely going to have an easier time getting good results with higher-end products than you will with a $4 greasepaint palette, but these ideas are a good starting point.

However, you might not find it worthwhile to buy all the suggested shades if you only want them for one night; some of these looks require ten different products. Keep in mind that M.A.C. cosmetics have fine textures and are highly pigmented, if you're trying to find substitutes. (L'Oreal's H.I.P. line would probably be a good starting point, along with some theatrical products from Ben Nye that are available at many costume and theatrical supply shops.) Though it's not DIY, you could also always contact your local M.A.C. counter about having one of their artists try to replicate the look you like.

[via CRAFT.]

Until recently, in terms of science fiction fandom, one of the most uncool things you could possibly be was a Doctor Who fan. Fans of Star Wars, Star Trek, old-school Battlestar Galactica: anyone could mock the Whovians.

So when the original BBC series was cancelled in the early 1990s after a run of several decades, it seemed like the fandom was destined to spiral down into gentle obscurity. The show's low-budget campiness had become a cliché: if you wanted to say that you'd seen something with poor special effects, all you had to do was suggest that it was "like Doctor Who," as though Doctor Who was a synonym for "something by Ed Wood." Sad words for a show that once was, for its first generation of young British fans, something so suspenseful, imaginative, and sometimes frightening that it had to be watched "from behind the sofa."

Much as geekiness in general has become cool in the last decade, Doctor Who is no longer quite the locus of mockery that it once was. A revamped version of the series began to air in the UK in 2005, to great popularity and acclaim, re-energizing the fandom. It currently stars David Tennant as the alien Time Lord who regenerates into a new form in situations that would kill a mortal human, and who travels through time and space in a ship called the TARDIS that resembles an outdated style of London police call box. (The third season of the revamped version is currently airing in the US on the SciFi Network; the second season will be re-aired on BBC America starting this weekend, as will the spin-off series, Torchwood.)

Anything popular enough to have a large online fandom seems to spawn crafts at the speed of light, and Doctor Who has been no exception. The most iconic item is a series of long, colorful scarves worn by the Fourth Doctor in the late 1970s, which we'll delve into after the break. But that's the tip of an iceberg that also includes a number of projects related to the TARDIS (yes, this article is also bigger on the inside than on the outside), and to the Doctor's most famous enemies, the infamously pepper-pot-like Daleks. Ever wanted to eat a Dalek? Well, you'll learn more about that after the break, too... and it won't taste like pepper at all.

Do you remember Heathkit? Hard to miss them if you happened upon a copy of Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, or any number of magazines in the 70's, including Rolling Stone. Heathkit once sold DIY kits of all stripes, designed to teach you electronics while you built consumer electronics. TV repair, HAM radio, ultimately even calculators and robotics were all packaged and promoted by the venerable supplier. Heathkit today is largely an educational supplier, and doesn't market to the average consumer like they used to. One could argue, with the ready supply of cheap electronics from all over the world, are people really interested in DIY electronics? Based on what I've seen from companies like Bug Lags and CrowdSpirit, I certainly hope not.

At any rate, I found a neat site that is an homage to an earlier time, when Heathkit's bread-and-butter was the DIY electronics gizmo-- the Heathkit Museum. Unfortunately I couldn't find any 70's era kits at this particular museum, the stuff I remember, and nothing on what may be the coolest Heathkit of all: the HERO robot. But there is a pretty good timeline of Heathkit's evolution here. Heathkit turned 60 this year, which is pretty outstanding, given the changing tastes of our electronic lifestyles.

Today's prize is a scrapbooking wonder: the Cricut machine. Pronounced like the jumping bug, a Cricut comes in handy if you're tired of using scissors to laboriously carve out letters for scrapbooking, cardmaking or anywhere you need paper letters and shapes. The Cricut is easily transported and stored, like a little papercutting robot. Using cartridges and dies you can combine and scale things to get new shapes and sizes. The keyboard on top tells the machine what to cut, and there a loads of extra cartridges (not included in our prize package) for adding new fonts later.

To enter today's giveaway for a chance to win a Cricut machine, simply leave a comment on this post during the entry period. Today's entry period, like all during our Toolstravaganza giveaway, is 5AM to 11:59PM Eastern (although your entry today, August 9, will be to win the Cricut machine). Full rules after the jump, or on our Toolstravaganza page. Good luck and happy scrapbooking!

Autonomous Light Air Vessels, or ALAV's aka "Blubber Bots" are a really fun robotic airships that you can build yourself from a kit. In fact, Blubber Bots are a robotic DIY dream-- fun, relatively inexpensive and a bold foray into everyday tech. To me they look a bit like Robosapien Manatees, but the neat part is how they were built to communicate. They don't just float around looking graceful, they chat you up.

Previous ALAV's were more proof-of-concept, but the Blubber Bot phenom has taken to an egg now, and you can apparently buy a kit from the creator. Also, Jed Berk will be in Los Angeles on June 30 to show everyone at Machine Project how to build your own Blubber Bot.

[Via Engadget]