Awesome Diy

Though still a work in progress, Tom Banwell’s leather Underground Explorer Helmet is perfect for steampunk spelunkers; it includes a respirator, headlamp and oxygen canister.

Using webcams, Android and Flickr, MOTO Labs’ Home Energy Monitor keeps track of your power usage and pushes it to your Google homepage; it even works with Tweet-A-Watt.

You won’t be rolling up people, cars and cities, but this shiny Katamari Controller by Kellbot is pretty sweet nonetheless; it uses hacked PS2 controllers, Arduino, and an optical mouse.

Finally, a twitter tool with real “utility”: Adafruit Industries’ Tweet-a-Watt tweets your power usage using a Kill-A-Watt monitor and a wireless transmitter; build your own or buy a kit.

We hope you can read fast, because this Ghostmatrix printer uses an array of UV LEDs to scan across phosphorescent paper; the result is a stream of letters that slowly fade.

Kudos to David Osborne for being ultra efficient: his traveling drum kit serves as both his ride and his gig, with a bicycle that can be transformed into a drumset in only 20 minutes.

Guilherme Martins’ PAPERduino is an ultra-affordable Arduino that uses paper instead of PCB; even better, he gets to print all his layouts right on the paper, making assembly a breeze.

You’re not playing with yourself, you’re just playing Tetris: these funky DIY keyboard pants by Zach Hoeken are actually only half functional but definitely put the quirky in QWERTY.

Saving money never sounded so good: Teenage Engineering’s Styrofoam Turntable is constructed from high density foam and actually works; they also plan to make an OP-1 Synth.

We’re not sure how effective Daniel Eindhoven’s CoilMaster Coil Gun is, but it sure as hell looks badass: it’s a 14-shot semi-automatic which fires 42g projectiles with 18J of kinetic energy.

Evil Mad Scientist Labs shows off some of the chroma-fantastic properties of their Peggy 2 LED board in the video above; it’s amazing that they’re doing this with 2×2 RGBW super pixels.

Its refresh rates are atrocious, but we have to hand it to Kyle Buckner for creating one cool school project: his wooden MacBook features a working hinge and penciled-in details.

Turn your living room into an impromptu nightclub with this hypnotic DIY RGB Coffee Table; it uses 9×9 array of 81 Arduino-controlled ShiftBrite LEDs installed on a 2×2 Ikea table.

Running around with Franziska Dierschke’s pinhole camera is a surefire way to get yourself actually shot; still, it makes for some interesting candid photos as it lacks a viewfinder.

Modern Thinker is Peter Terren’s rendition of Rodin’s classic Thinker, albeit with Tesla coils and sparklers; a fine wire mask and foil suit kept hit from becoming a Modern Charcoal Briquette.

Mesmerizing to watch, interactive artist Tobias Revell’s Patachronic Clock consists of 60 clocks in a circle; each clock ticks roughly one second faster and slower than its neighbors.

Using nothing more than bacon and an air house, Theo Gray creates a thermic lance capable of cutting steel; it’s really about the oil, as he also uses cucumber and oil-coated breadsticks.

Now this is what we call circuit bending: the Speak n’ Spellbinder is a Rock Band guitar and Speak and Spell mashup that includes tone triggers, variable pitch and whammy bar.

The union of a dragon cutout and an Arduino tracked platform, Puff is designed put out fires with puffs of air; he even has a panic mode that makes him flee after too many failed attempts.

Available at the Maker SHED store, this Truth Wristband Kit lets you build your own lie detector; it measures galvanic skin response and goes from blue to red if you’re a big, fat fibber.

Think of the Bulbdial Clock as a modern sundial: three rings of 12 multicolored LEDs project light onto a central rod, which in turn casts shadows–i.e., minute, hour and second hands.

James Hasskin has taken the Korg Kaossilator, a touchpad synth, and packed it into the shell of a Guitar Hero guitar; the result is a techno-tastic axe mashup with 100 sound effects.

Because using machinery for its intended purpose is so passe: Jed of HackLab takes a laser cutter’s motors and belts out a stirring rendition of the Super Mario Bros. theme song.

Post-nuke America meets Apple with this iPod Touch-powered Pip-Boy 3000; it uses the shell of the wristwatch replica that came with Amazon’s Survival Edition of Fallout 3.

Free up some room in your wallet and rain papery death on coworkers with the Cardapult: this DIY project is made using only business cards/card stock, rubber bands and glue.

Kristofer Hammar’s DIY SNES Cartridge USB Hub is fast and easy; three out of four ports are available, with the last is permanently attached to a flash drive dongle for storage.