Awesome Diy

Prop maker David Guyton takes a break from making badass prop armor to present his take on a retractable license plate. His DIY solution is made from affordable materials and uses a simple scissor mechanism. You’ll have to figure out how to mount it on your car though.

LEGO enthusiast Sariel modified the LEGO BB-8 kit to make it move via remote control. It doesn’t roll exactly like the droid does, but it’s still a cool mod. Sariel used SBrick and Power Functions parts to make the mod. You can download the instructions on his website.

Want to make a dessert that’s sure to be the talk of the party? Ann Reardon of How to Cook That shows us how to create a tasty salted caramel and chocolate cake that looks like a pot overflowing with popcorn. She makes it look easy, but we’re sure it’s not. Full recipe here.

There are lots of cool lightsaber replicas you can buy right now, but those ones just light up. The Hacksmith set about making a brightly glowing blade that can actually cut and burn things. Watch it heat up and start a fire at 12:38.

LEGO master Sariel believes Santa Claus knows about climate change. So he made St. Nick an amphibious sleigh with the help of a thematic part – LEGO Christmas baubles. They’re not completely airtight, but they work well enough as wheels both on ground and in water.

Knives are typically made from tool steel. But the guys at Ollari’s show us how with the proper cutting blades and an angle grinder, a block of granite can be transformed into a sharp-edged cutting tool as well. We’re betting Primitive Technology would do the same with only a rock.

While so much of the focus has been on BB-8 in recent years, R2-D2 is still our favorite droid. Now you can build your own 12″ tall R2 unit using this DIY kit which includes all the parts you need, and stickers for customizing your bot. Great for kids or kids at heart.

Make: author Caleb Kraft came across this nifty plaything by Mike’s Electric Stuff, which uses sensors and a cylindrical grid of LEDs that simulate falling snow or sand as it’s flipped end-over-end. Mike needs to turn this thing into a toy you can buy. He’d sell thousands.

Colin Furze continues what he started. After last year’s life-size AT-ACT, the mad inventor once again scoured eBay for parts to build a life-size model of a Star Wars vehicle. This time it’s Kylo Ren’s ride, the TIE Silencer. The model is on display at Burghley House until 12/10/17.

Got a broken washing machine and some woodworking skills? Then check out Scrap Wood City’s clip in which he shows how to convert the metal tub from a washing machine into the body for a fretless acoustic contrabass. It’s only got two strings, but it still sounds cool.

VanTourist shows us an easy way of making a portable Bluetooth speaker – no soldering or woodworking required. It even has two USB charging ports and an LED flashlight. All in all it cost him about $100. Photo guide here.

Primitive Technology hit the proverbial reset button on his live-action Stone Age role-playing game. He’s starting on a new and different map – a tropical rainforest with a permanent creek. We like to think he bartered for it with cargo shorts and cameras.

SKM has shown us some pretty awesome things you can make from cardboard. His latest build is a model of a quadcopter made entirely from cardboard and hot glue. Sadly, it doesn’t actually fly, but perfectly balancing it would probably be quite challenging.

(PG-13: Language) How to Make Everything gets a lot of rude and hateful comments from vegans whenever he kills an animal for his projects. So for this year’s Thanksgiving, he decided to make a tofu dish instead of shooting and cooking a turkey.

Buttered Side Down has been really wishing he had super powers, so he decided to try and give himself some abilities using ordinary kitchen appliances, a fax machine, and stuff he had lying around the house. It’s clear that his VFX skills far exceed his superhero skills.

Lowe’s challenged four trade professionals and makers – an electrician, a home remodeler and YouTubers Grant Thompson and Bob Clagett – to get through an escape room that challenged their DIY skills. Is it one long Lowe’s ad? Yep. But it’s legitimately entertaining too.

A few days ago, Peter Sripol shared a video of him doing short hops on his homemade electric airplane. It was a sight to behold but technically… that wasn’t flying. This is. Peter got better batteries and finally gave the people what they want. Amazing stuff.

MadGyver shows off a fun little project – an Arduino-based glove which can detect gestures, and uses the inputs to control the speed of a strobe light, which when aimed a moving object makes it look like it controls the speed and direction of time. Build details on Instructables.

Flight fanatic Peter Sripol has built his share of small, unmanned flying machines, but he’s now turned his attention to something a bit bigger, building himself a single-seat aircraft powered by electric motors, and airworthy enough that he was willing to be its test pilot.

ChrisFix shows you how you can remove surface rust on your vehicle’s body, then patch it up with body filler and paint. It’s a time-consuming task, but it’s worth looking into if you have more elbow grease than money.

Continuing his attempts to reach the Iron Age, Primitive Technology is experimenting with furnaces that can reach high temperatures without using bellows or charcoal. This tall furnace sucks cold air through the bottom and reached around 1200ºC.

The Q shows us how to use plastic soda bottles, tire valves, tubing, and a few other bits to build a homebrew compressed air weapon which can fire a seemingly endless stream of pellets. We’re thinking you could ramp this thing up to include as many soda bottles as you can carry.

Patrick Adair loves to make rings out of uncommon or unusual materials. For his latest project, he waited hours to be one of the first to get an iPhone 8. Then he promptly destroyed it to make an accessory that would be at right at home in The Ninth World.