Awesome Diy

The Colonial Viper Mark II from Battlestar Galactica is one of our favorite science fiction spaceships. Demonstrating his dedication to BSG fandom, Builds by Baz created a life-size replica of the iconic fighter that battled in the First Cylon War. Baz built it over the course of seven years and hopes to take it around to conventions and fundraisers.

In this video from The Wrench, the expert maker shows us how he created a miniature, remote-controlled tank. It’s driven by a pair of tiny motors and can be controlled using a smartphone app. The tank also packs an FPV camera, though he had some trouble getting it to work at the same time as driving.

We love the look of this custom keyboard with a built-in screen. Work from Hype shows us how he created his “Screen Board” using 3D printed parts, a compact widescreen display, and an inexpensive, off-the-shelf 60% mechanical keyboard. The tiny monitor is just the right size to display system widgets and a calendar without blocking his main display.

Quiet Nerd created this wild-looking vehicle with trail-riding abilities and everything needed for camping. The rover rolls on four tank-like tracks, carries multiple storage bins, and has a fold-out tent. It also has onboard batteries, lights for night driving, and an inverter that can power appliances. Those square steel tubes are like giant Meccano/Erector beams.

Slingshots are typically made from plastic or wood and fire ammo with an elastic or rubber band. But this creative slingshot design was constructed almost entirely from bamboo. It uses a bent length of the plant as a spring, and even its pointy projectiles are made from bamboo. The only parts that aren’t bamboo are the metal posts for the ammo holder.

Rubber is a versatile material and relatively easy to recycle. This video posted by Handmade Heroes shows how it’s possible to recycle rubber to make tennis balls. The process involved shredding the tire and mixing it with a binding agent. After that, he rolled the rubber like dough, shaped it into spheres, and covered the balls with flocking.

The Steam Deck is a slick handheld gaming device, but the cheapest one you can get is about $400. Marcin Plaza thought it would be a better idea to build his own handheld gaming PC using the guts of a broken laptop that cost $40. It took him considerable time to find a compatible ultrawide display and engineer its custom controller system.

(PG-13: Language) YouTuber I did a thing got so bored line fishing that he transcended enlightenment and went straight to pure, straight edge insanity. He convinced himself that he could pull a boat using fish. After more time-wasting and some of the silliest conversations in the world, he succeeded. Skip to 13:20 for the maiden voyage of the fish chariot.

Feeling down because of his less-than-ideal previous projects, Man Made sought to redeem himself with a significant undertaking that would also bring him inner peace. The result is a desk that doubles as a miniature zen garden. Aside from copious amounts of sand, it also has a bonsai tree, rock-like keyboard keys, and a beautiful chunk of obsidian.

After seeing Mike Ando’s amazing omnidirectional Andotrope display, James from The Action Lab wanted to make his own. His DIY version of the display uses one or two phones set into a slotted cylinder and attached to a rapidly spinning motor. It can take any video or image and make it visible no matter where you stand around the cylinder.

Mehdi from ElectroBOOM shows us how he modified a battery-powered plasma lighter to produce sound. After showing how it’s possible to listen to an AM radio through a pickle, he moves on to building a circuit that modulates voltage to play audio via the lighter’s arc. Warning: electrical engineering lecture ahead.

Michiharu Kusunoki’s 1980’s manga series Aitsu to Lullaby is about a high school kid who gets into street racing on his Kawasaki Z2. YouTuber 12% on the desk recreated some of the riding scenes by building a scale model of the hero and his bike, and then painting and shooting the models to make them look like their comic book counterparts.

With enough solar panels and sunlight, it might be possible to keep a vehicle driving indefinitely. ProjectAir put that idea to the test with a DIY R/C airplane with solar panels all over its wings to see how long he could keep it airborne. The foam plane needed efficient solar panels and an autopilot system to keep it circling. We look forward to seeing more.

PC maker and shooter enthusiast Optimum continues to refine his 3D-printed shell mod for the Razer Viper V2 Pro. Fully assembled, the Zeromouse v35 kit weighs just 26g. If he used a custom PCB instead and removed all the unnecessary buttons and the scroll wheel, the mouse slims even further, down to 16g. That’s as light as a tablespoon of sugar.

Maker Lis X has created some interesting weapons using unconventional materials. He used PVC tubing to build the frame for this unique slingbow and provided step-by-step directions so you can make your own. It’s designed to fire arrows and has a sturdy handgrip underneath for stability and aiming accuracy. Here’s another video showing it in action.

Woodworker Laura Kampf found a tumbleweed while on a cross-country drive. Refreshed by the distraction from her long and lonely trip, she took it with her and thought of highlighting it in a display. While she’s not done with it, we can already see her vision coming together in her prototype: the opposite of a disco ball, encouraging calmness and silence.